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Updated: June 15, 2025
Blaikie, biographer of Dr. Livingstone. The Venerable Mr. Cullen, the first missionary traveller in Bechuanaland, who had often entertained Dr. Moffat and Dr. Livingstone in his house, was present to express his interest in that country.
This force, which was under the leadership of Major Patrick W. Forbes, consisted of ninety men of the Salisbury Column, with Captains Heany and Spreckley and a mule Maxim gun under Lieutenant Biscoe, R.N.; sixty men of the Victoria Column commanded by Major Wilson, with a horse Maxim under Captain Lendy; sixty men of the Tuli Column, and ninety men of the Bechuanaland Border Police, commanded by Captain Raaf, C.M.G., accompanied by two horse Maxims and a mule seven-pounder, commanded by Captain Tancred.
We used to ride morning and evening on the flat country which surrounds Mafeking, where no tree or hill obscures the view for miles; and one then realized what a tiny place the seat of government of the Bechuanaland Protectorate really was, a mere speck of corrugated iron roofs on the brown expanse of the burnt-up veldt, far away from everywhere.
He must find out how he could have escaped from the Boers and come back to England without getting into difficulties with the military or the Colonial Office or whoever had any kind of control over the members of the Bechuanaland Border Police.... But the whole South African episode had better be dropped. Rossiter, after his appeal, would set himself to forget and ignore it.
Colesberg, Venterstad, Burghersdorp, Lady Grey, James Town, Dordrecht, Rhodes, and many other places were occupied one after the other, without being in the least protected. In Natal, Griqualand West, and British Bechuanaland it was not any better. The Colonists thought that they were subjects of a vast and mighty empire, to which they could confidently look for protection against invaders.
On this date a vigorous attack was made upon one of the Boer forts on the north. There seems to be little doubt that the enemy had some inkling of our intention, as the fort was found to have been so strengthened as to be impregnable without scaling ladders. The attacking force consisted of two squadrons of the Protectorate Regiment and one of the Bechuanaland Rifles, backed up by three guns.
This Assembly therefore respectfully and most urgently entreats Her Majesty's Government, in accordance with the express provision of the Convention by which Self-Government was granted to the Boers, to take such steps as shall eventually put a stop to a state of things as inconsistent with the pledged word of England as with the progress of the Bechuanaland nations."
This is the capital of British Bechuanaland, and the head-quarters of Sir Sidney Shippard, the Administrator. The town itself contains about 500 inhabitants, chiefly Europeans. Here we spent four days. On one of these I was taken by Mr. M to visit his fine Bechuanaland farm of 6,000 morgen 12,000 acres which he has named "Lochnagar."
In this way he had found himself at the head of some fifteen hundred men. During his expeditions Commandant Lotter had been captured with a hundred men; this had reduced his force to only fourteen hundred. In addition to these men there was a division under General De Villiers operating in Griqualand West, and another under Commandant Van der Merwe in Bechuanaland.
"The farewell which affected me most was that of Sir Bartle Frere, who was then stretched on what turned out to be his death-bed. He was very ill, and not seeing people, but was so gratified that what he had proposed in 1878 as to Bechuanaland should be carried out in 1884, that Lady Frere asked me to call and see him before I sailed.
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