South Africa -- Description and travel; South Africa -- History -- 1836-1909; South Africa -- History -- To 1836
It would take long to explain how a branch of the great tribe of the
Bechuanas got itself settled on this land,--on this land, and probably
on much more;--how they quarrelled with their cousins the Basutos, who
had also branched off from the Bechuanas; and how in the wars between
the Free State and the Basutos, the Baralongs, having sided with the
Dutch, have been allowed to remain. It is a confused story and would be
interesting to no English reader. But it may be interesting to know that
there they are, established in their country by treaty, with no fear on
their part that they will be swallowed up, and with no immediate
intention on the part of the circumambient Dutchmen of swallowing them.
I went to visit the Chief, accompanied by Mr. Höhne the Government
Secretary from Bloemfontein, and was very courteously received. I stayed
during my sojourn at the house of Mr. Daniel the Wesleyan Minister where
I was very comfortably entertained, finding him in a pretty cottage
surrounded by flowers, and with just such a spare bedroom as we read of
in descriptions of old English farmhouses. There was but one spare
bedroom; but, luckily for us, there were two Wesleyan Ministers. And as
the other Wesleyan Minister also had a spare bedroom the Government
Secretary went there. In other respects we divided our visit, dining at
the one house and breakfasting at the other. There is also a clergyman
of the Church of England at Thaba ’Ncho; but he is a bachelor and we
preferred the domestic comforts of a family. Mr. Daniel does, I think,
entertain all the visitors who go to Thaba ’Ncho, as no hotel has as yet
been opened in the city of the Baralongs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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