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Carter resided in the country for years before the annexation, and went through the war as correspondent of a well-known London daily, and this is his opinion: Anyone who knows the acquaintance Sir T. Shepstone had with the Boers of the Transvaal, years prior to the annexation, cannot doubt that, regarded as a friend and almost as one of themselves, no one better than he could have been selected for the task of ascertaining the desires of the people; and no one who knows Sir T. Shepstone will believe that he did not take sufficient evidence to prove to any man that the Boers were anxious to be extricated from the dilemma they were in, and really willing at that time that their country should be annexed.
"Ah," he said, taking the hand of Sir Theophilus Shepstone, and addressing him by his native name, "Ah! t'Sompseu, t'Sompseu, the seasons are many since first I held this your hand. Then we two were young, and life lay bright before us, and now you have grown great, and are growing grey, and I have grown very old!
Shepstone Oglethorpe, who were all Justices of the Peace, of what had happened. They came, the General the most imposing, with a great army cloak and a star showing beneath the collar. In the little detached sitting-room, which till the coming of the Maitlands had been used as a cheese-room, Mr.
To us this seems a strange, not to say ludicrous, way of settling a difficulty, but there was nothing in it repugnant to Zulu ideas. Odd as it was, it invested Mr. Shepstone with all the attributes of a Zulu king, such as the power to make laws, order executions, &c., and those attributes in the eyes of Zulus he still retains.
Nobody knew how far Sir T. Shepstone was prepared to go, and everybody was afraid of putting out his hand further than he could pull it back, and trying to make himself comfortable on two stools at once.
Panda, the old king, had an inkling of what was to happen, but was powerless to control his son, so he confined himself to addressing the assembled multitude in what I have heard Sir Theophilus Shepstone say was the most eloquent and touching speech he ever listened to, the subject being the duties of hospitality.
He received directions from the Zulu King, and these directions are by Secocoeni issued to the various Basuto tribes in the Transvaal. Sir T. Shepstone rushed the annexation. He plucked the fruit that would have fallen. He himself has said that he might have waited until the Zulus actually made their threatened murderous raid.
Shepstone, clever as he is, only won a fight from him by claiming a foul, because Billy lost his temper and spiked him. That's the worst of Billy; he can't keep his feelings in. But no fine-lady sparrer can stand afore that ugly rush of his. Do you think he'll care for Cashel's showy long shots?
It is also incidentally remarkably confirmed by a passage in Mr. Burgers' posthumous defence, in which he says: "Hence I met Shepstone alone in my house, and opened up the subject of his mission. With a candour that astonished me, he avowed that his purpose was to annex the country, as he had sufficient grounds for it, unless I could so alter as to satisfy his Government.
Shortly after the Transvaal became British territory the old Zulu boundary question came to the fore again and was made more complicated than ever by Sir T. Shepstone, who had hitherto favoured the Zulu claims, taking the Boer side of the controversy, after examination of the locality and of persons acquainted with the details of the matter.
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