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Briefly stated it showed how an army of 8000 men could be maintained instead of the 1600 men then under arms, and at a reduced cost of £7000 per annum! He also pointed out how unjustly the Basutos had been treated, and suggested as a remedy that they should be invited to assemble a general council in which to ventilate their grievances, and that steps should be taken to remove these grievances.
Some of the Zulus urged with reason, that though the English might wish to make it a white man's war, the Boers did not desire it to be so, for they knew that they had been urging the Swazis and the Basutos to join them against the English, and that offers of many rifles and much plunder had been made also to some of their own chiefs.
Others explained the difficulties more fully, but nothing could shake his resolution. When he reached Bloemfontein he found the English army just returning from a battle with the Basutos, in which both parties claimed the victory, and both were glad that a second engagement was not tried.
Then I say, Basutos, make friends with the Government.... "Suppose Boers drive you away, for me it would be all the same, and not much difference when you are put in the ground. I wish the Basutos would do what I say. What I want is for all to speak with one tongue. I cannot make myself black. I cannot make Masupha and his people do what I want, so I leave it to Jesus, who works everything.
"Provided the demands of the Basutos who will, for their own sakes, never be for a severing of their connection with the colony, in order to be eventually devoured by the Orange Free State are such as will secure the repayment to the colony of all expenses incurred by the Colonial Government in the maintenance of this connection, and I consider that the Colonial Government should accept them.
Also I saw the site of our wagon camp where the Basutos attacked us. But I will have done with these reminiscences which induce melancholy, though really there is no reason why they should.
Among the Basutos, when girls at puberty are bathed as usual by the matrons in a river, they are hidden separately in the turns and bends of the stream, and told to cover their heads, as they will be visited by a large serpent.
If I don't arrive, you know my people's address, and I bequeath to you all my African belongings in memory of a most pleasant trip." "Don't play the fool," I replied sternly. "Come, put your right arm round my neck and hop on your left leg as you never hopped before." Then we started, and really our transit was quite lively, for all those Basutos began what for them was rapid firing.
As a matter of fact there was no need for more shooting, since at the verge of the swamp the Basutos pulled up. I do not think that the death of their companion caused them to do this, for they seemed to take no notice of him. It was as though they had reached some boundary which they knew it would not be lawful for them to pass.
If the injured Basutos submit, their case will be carefully considered.... Nothing was to me more obvious than that as soon as he saw a beginning of unruly conduct in Ireland, he should have pledged himself to clearly defined measures, and have insisted on the existing law against lawlessness. But 'Boycotting' is not lawlessness.
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