South Africa and the Boer-British War, Volume I: Comprising a History of South Africa and its people, including the war of 1899 and 1900Halstead, Murat
History
South Africa and the Boer-British War, Volume I: Comprising a History of South Africa and its people, including the war of 1899 and 1900
Halstead, Murat
South African War, 1899-1902
These general characteristics were, of course, modified by surroundings
and external influences. Roughly speaking, the Kaffirs are divided
into the military and industrial Bantu. The former live largely in the
fertile regions between the Drakensberg mountains and the Indian Ocean,
in the Zoutpansberg district of the Transvaal and in Kaffraria. The
latter prefer the mountainous country, and are to be found in
Basutoland, in the greater part of the two Boer republics and in the
regions south of the Orange River or on the confines of the Kalahari
Desert. The differences between these classes of the same race are
pronounced. The military Bantu is stronger, fleeter of foot and
sterner in battle. His assegai has a short handle and a long blade,
and is used for fighting at close quarters; while the other tribes have
a weapon with a long shaft and light blade intended primarily for
hunting. Among the former the chief is a despot; amongst the Mashonas
and Bechuanas and Basutos his power is limited by a council and
sometimes by a general assemblage of the people. The town, or kraal,
of the former is designed chiefly for defence; that of the latter for
purposes of open intercourse and barter. The sole business of the one
has, up to recent years, been warfare and the raising of corn and
cattle as a subsidiary pursuit. The latter cultivated gardens, sowed
fields of grain and could smelt ore and work in iron. Their seats of
power and influence were, and are, in Basutoland and Bechuanaland.
Outside of the steadily improved civilization and character of the
Basutos themselves their country is noteworthy for the career of
Moshesh; his almost final words in 1868, after twenty years of
intermittent conflict with the Boers: "Let me and my people rest and
live under the large folds of the flag of England before I am no more;"
and for the general and sincere loyalty of its people in these later
days. Bechuanaland is famous as the scene of the labors of Robert
Moffat, David Livingstone and John Mackenzie; as being the trade route
from Cape Colony to Central Africa; and as the scene of a prolonged
struggle voiced in the words of Livingstone: "The Boers resolved to
shut up the interior and I determined to open it." Eventually it was
opened, and the work of the great missionary became triumphant.
[Sidenote: British Efforts at Civilizing the Natives]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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