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Had the people of Kolobeng been in the habit of raising the raw materials of English commerce, the outrage would have been felt in England; or, what is more likely to have been the case, the people would have raised themselves in the scale by barter, and have become, like the Basutos of Moshesh and people of Kuruman, possessed of fire-arms, and the Boers would never have made the attack at all.
At this news the missionaries, with Moshesh, burst into tears, and falling on their knees, gave thanks to God for this providential and almost unexpected intervention."
But when all was said and done I had a very shrewd suspicion that while Moshesh might perhaps be credited with a genuine desire to show me some honour by inviting me to witness the review of his troops, he was principally animated by a craving for his own glorification, and, incidentally, was glad to seize the occasion as affording him an early opportunity to exhibit himself before his people in all the magnificence of his new "toggery."
Those of them who are real Basutos still retain the habits of that tribe, and may be seen going out with their wives with their hoes in hand a state of things never witnessed at Kolobeng, or among any other Bechuana or Caffre tribe. The great chief Moshesh affords an example to his people annually by not only taking the hoe in hand, but working hard with it on certain public occasions.
If it be as thou sayest, that thine own land is large enough for thy need, why hast thou not remained there? Why comest thou to my country?" "Because," answered I, "as I have already said, I have business in the far north, and to get there I must needs pass through Basutoland." "And what is thy business in the far north?" demanded Moshesh.
The Colonial Office soon however tired of the new possession and gladly scuttled out in 1854 in order to avoid the task of reaping the harvest of a clumsy and grotesque policy, which it had formulated a few years before, of hemming in the voortrekkers, who had settled north of the Orange River, with a barrier of native states set up for the purpose on the east and west; and which now threatened to involve it in a quarrel which naturally arose between Moshesh, the Basuto chief, and the emigrants whom he had been appointed to restrain.
Will you do this for us, O my father? He is very wary, and will not allow us to approach him within the length of a spear cast; but he cannot escape your fire weapon: and it shall be that if you slay him, I, 'Ngaga, will send forward a messenger to the Great One, Moshesh, announcing thy coming to his kraal, and taking with him a tale that shall cause the Great One's face to smile upon thee."
It is more than probable that, upon their return to the kraal, they found means to convey to the king's ear some impression of the wonders which the white man had revealed to them, for I had scarcely finished my breakfast on the following morning when a messenger arrived at the wagon with the intimation that King Moshesh commanded my immediate presence before him.
Because of its prickles the Boers call the mimosa the "wait-a-bit" thorn, but there was no thought of waiting a bit among the 12th Lancers at the Berea, when they charged the savage Basutos and captured their chief Moshesh.
When the attack was about to be renewed, he received from Moshesh the following message: "O my master, I am still your servant; I am still the child of the Queen. Sometimes a man beats his dog, and the dog puts his teeth into his hands, and gives him a bite: nevertheless the dog loves the master, and the master loves the dog, and will not kill it.
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