Matabeleland

“ He told me he was riding across country from Tuli to Fort George. He had been buying waggons and horses in the Transvaal for the Chartered Company.
“I suppose you know you have come to this part of Africa at a very bad time?” he said. “The Chartered Company is going to send an expedition into Matabeleland against Lobengula. Almost all the men in the country will be needed to fight, and while they are away in Matabeleland the ladies in Mashonaland will all be shut up in forts. ”

“ The [3] odds against the little force of a thousand or twelve hundred white men who invaded Matabeleland were almost overwhelming, and when it is remembered that the Imperial troops did not succeed in their contest against Cetywayo, the Zulu king, until nearly as many soldiers were massed in the country as there were able-bodied Zulus left to oppose them, the brilliancy of the achievement of these colonists led by a civilian, Dr. Jameson, can be estimated. The Matabele were beaten in two pitched battles: that of the Shangani on October 25, and that of the Imbembezi on November 1. ”

“ Mafeking is at present the railway terminus. The [11] waggons and the goods are waiting to go north to Matabeleland, but here they’re stranded for want of transport, since all the oxen on the road are dying fast from rinderpest. However, every train is bringing up more mules and donkeys to use in their stead.
Near to the station is the camp of the 7th Hussars and mounted infantry of the West Riding and the York and Lancaster Regiments. These troops are waiting here in case they may be wanted in Matabeleland. ”

“ They do not know how a nigger hides; even the best troop of scouts in Matabeleland have been taken in in this way. An onlooker on a neighbouring hill, from which he commanded a bird’s–eye view of the scene, saw this body of scouts approaching a rise, and on the other side of the rise there was similarly a body of the enemy coming up towards the scouts, each party unseen by the other. The natives were first to see their [351] enemy; they dropped like one man in their tracks, and lay low in the thick grass. ”

“ Plumer’s Matabeleland Relief Force and the Cape Boys have been withdrawn from the country, and the local forces disbanded.
Natives are giving up their arms in good numbers, and are settling down to cultivate the [462] lands assigned to them by the Native Commissioners. They have been told by Lord Grey that if they still have any lingering ideas of ultimately driving out the whites, they might at once dismiss such thoughts for ever; that the railway will shortly be up to Buluwayo, ready to import thousands of troops, if necessary; that certain chiefs will be reinstated as their immediate rulers ”

“ So open did he volunteer to do hair-raising deeds and succeed in doing them that it became the habit in Matabeleland for all eyes to turn his way when death was to be defied in the performance of some act that would make the ordinary man stand and tremble. ”

“ Wedza’s is about a hundred miles to the south–east of this. I am leaving all the sick and worn–out horses here at Inyati, where Poore will take charge of them when he arrives about two days hence. The Afrikander corps under Captain van Niekerk belong to the temporary Matabeleland Police, and their engagement shortly expires, so I shall not take them with me, but shall send them back to Buluwayo ready for disbandment, and with them will go the ambulance, taking such men as are sick. ”

“ Most of them, in fact, were not Fort George men at all, but came from camps and farms in the outlying districts, because on account of the offensive attitude of the Matabele it was no longer safe to be there. They had left all their regular occupations to come into town to get ready for war. Every one who was not a trooper commanded a troop. Every one had a part and place in the Government plan for invading Matabeleland, putting an end to an impossible situation, and making the country a safe and clean one for a white race. ”

“ It is a high plateau, fully mineralised, and every report shows that the high plateau is a part where Europeans can live. If we pass from that to the South, we first come to Matabeleland and Mashonaland. There we have had great difficulties in the past. We had a Charter, but not a country. We had first to go in and occupy Mashonaland with the consent of the Mashonas, and then we had to deal with the Matabele. At the present moment there is a civilised government over the whole of that. ”

“ We have already cut nearly 120 miles of road from the B.S.A. Company's camp on the Macloutsie river, and are now on the borders of the Banyai country. We are already far to the east of all the inhabited part of Matabeleland and are now going north-east, always keeping more than 150 miles as the crow flies from Bulawayo. So far we have seen nothing of the Matabele. We are, however, taking every precaution against surprise, and always have scouts out in front and several miles behind us on the road who do not come in till after dark. We keep watch all night, too, with relays of guards. ”

“ Sometimes it was the right leg, sometimes the left. Whether on one or the other—not for a moment on two—he described to the charmed House how the cherished object of Mr. Rhodes, the one desire upon which all the energies of the Chartered Company were bent, was that the men of Matabele should "marry and settle down."
Business done.—Discussion of affairs in Matabeleland.
Friday.—Debate on M'Laren's Amendment to Employers' Liability Bill brought to conclusion at midnight. Thought it would be all over before dinner; dragged on hour after hour with ever deepening depression. ”

“ First of all, the Matabele have never been more than half conquered, and having given them peace—on not such easy terms, mind—the first thing we do is to pick out a number of them, arm them, and teach them to shoot. ”

“ Squirming like snakes through the long grass and bush, the Matabele advance, stopping every now and again to reconnoitre. They can hear the subdued hum of voices in the sorry camp of the whites—and on each face raised to peer forward, there is a ferocious grin of anticipation. In obedience to the signalled orders of their leaders they spread their ranks, so as to be in a position to surround that sorry command with the first order issued. ”

“ MATABELE (“vanishing” or “hidden” people, so called from their appearance in battle, hidden behind enormous oxhide shields) , a people of Zulu origin who began national life under the chief Mosilikatze. Driven out of the Transvaal by the Boers in 1837, Mosilikatze crossed the Limpopo with a military host which had been recruited from every tribe conquered by him during his ten years’ predominance in the Transvaal. In their new territories the Matabele absorbed into their ranks many members of the conquered Mashona tribes and established a military despotism. ”

“ Also there was another testimony—that of the bones of the dead Matabele, the majority of whom had clearly fallen shot through the brain. The natives themselves state that for every white man who died upon that day, there perished at least ten of their own people, picked off, be it remembered, singly as they chanced to expose themselves. Nor did the enemy waste life needlessly, for their general ordered up the King's elephant hunters, trained shots, every one of them, to compete with the white man's fire. ”

“ Among the Matabele, another Bantu tribe of South Africa, no one might partake of the new fruits till the king had first tasted of them; any one who was known to have broken the law was instantly put to death. ”

“ After the Pioneer expedition to Mashunaland in 1890 had proved a success the country seemed in so quiet a state that the police force there was in 1891 disbanded. This was doubtless a great mistake. The Matabele were not the kind of people to take the position of a conquered race with equanimity. Their whole history showed them to be a virile fighting people who up till now had conquered all [198] native races in their vicinity, and believed themselves to be superior to the white, with whom they had not as yet been fairly tested in battle. ”

“ From the Zambesi, trade might be carried on, but the Matabele are spreading in this direction, and would not allow white men to go into the country. The safest way is to go in from the south-east, to cultivate these lands for eight months, and during the fever season return into the Matabele country. The King of the Matabele, however, said that no white man should come in and settle down. He was afraid that the white men would help the Mashonas when they saw the cruelties practised upon them. ”

“ It was a risky game, as in the next valley were camped a large number of natives who had come for a big ceremony with the M’limo the next day. But the two men got away all right, having to gallop for it. The natives never rose to stop the road.
26th June.—I had not been outside the office for four days, and was feeling over–boiled with the sedentary work, so after dinner I saddled up and rode off ten miles in the moonlight to Hope Fountain. Here I roused out Pyke, the officer in command. (Had lost an arm in the previous Matabele war when with Forbes’ patrol down the Shangani after Lobengula.) ”

“ The rest of the tribe, having brought their women and children into the outer enclosure of the ancient stronghold, and with them their sheep and goats and the few cattle which remained to them, were employed in building up the entrance permanently with stones, a zigzag secret path upon the river side, that could be stopped in a few minutes, being now their only method of ingress and egress through the thickness of the walls. A certain number of men were also sent out as spies to discover, if possible, the whereabouts of the Matabele impi. ”

“ Sometimes they try to shoot or to catch one; but so long as one keeps moving about, they do not seem to trust much to their marksmanship; and I have heard them shouting to each other, “Don’t shoot at the beast, catch him by the hands, catch him by the hands!” Then they would come clambering over the rocks, but clambering awkwardly—for, lithe, and active though they be, the Matabele are not good mountaineers, especially in that part of it which Montenegrins say is the most difficult (possibly because they themselves shine pre–eminently at it) , namely, in getting rapidly downhill. ”

“ A silence full of foreboding and fear for us, realising that our men were at last in the wild, unbroken, little known country of the Matabele, where a savage and bloodthirsty enemy lay in wait for them—an enemy that mustered twenty thousand fighting men strongly armed with rifles and assegai, while our troops all told mustered only six hundred and seventy (not including colonial boys and friendly natives) . ”

“ Then she might fall into the hands of the Matabele whose camp was a little lower down, as from her perch upon the top of the cone she had seen that poor white man do. Ah! the white man! If only he lived and she could reach him! Perhaps they had not killed him after all. It was madness, yet she would try to discover; something impelled her to take the risk. If she failed and escaped, perhaps then she might call to the Makalanga, and they would let down a rope and draw her up the wall before the Matabele caught her. ”

“ Susie Bateman’s Christianity was about on a par with that of the average British female, in that she would have looked sourly askance at anybody who should refuse to attend church, yet just then she would have given a great deal to learn that Tarrant’s report was erroneous, and that John Ames was at that moment lying among the granite wilds of the Matopos, as lifeless as the granite itself, with half a dozen Matabele assegais through him. ”

“ Within the next few hours the whole town had been put in a state of siege, and all available men armed to oppose the insurgent Matabele. Hasty preparations were made for defence. The ox-waggons of settlers were drawn up outside in little circles here and there, so as to form laagers, which acted practically as temporary forts for the protection of the outskirts. In one of these I was posted. With our company were two American scouts, named Colebrook and Doolittle, irregular fighters whose value in South African campaigns had already been tested in the old Matabele war against Lo-Bengula. ”

“ By the Marutse and Mashonas the Matabele are held in just as much detestation as are the Mohammedan slave-dealers from the east coast by the natives of Central Africa. Although it is quite possible that with a party of Matabele servants I might have traversed the whole continent from south to north, any white man coming after me would have had to suffer for my exploit. Twice during the reign of Sekeletu on the central Zambesi the Matabele attempted to carry their incursions north of the river, but each time they failed. ”

“ Three of these warrior–indunas are Matabele, the fourth—Uwini—heads the Makalakas.
Choosing well their opportunity, when, as they thought, all the white fighting men had left the country, and none but women, children, and dotards were left behind, they spread the message through the land—with that speed which only native messages can take. They called on all the tribes to arm themselves, and to assemble on a certain moon round three sides of Buluwayo. The town was to be rushed in the night, and the whites to be slaughtered without quarter to any. ”

“ The body of a girl lies doubled up within. A few days back a party of some friendlies, men and women, had revisited this kraal, their home, to get some food to take back to their temporary refuge near our fort. The Matabele saw them, and just when they were busy drawing grain, pounced in upon them, assegaing three,—all women,—and driving off the rest as fast as they could go. ”