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The Boers' consent to the Chartered Company's occupation of Mashonaland was looked upon as something calling for a quid pro quo, and the annexation of Zambaan's land is now regarded as an infamous act of piracy by England, and an infringement of the Republic's rights, which the Dutch papers denounce most vehemently.
He refused to recognize any rights of the Portuguese in Matabeleland and Mashonaland; he drove hard bargains with the Germans and the French; he defied the Boers; and to him the native Africans were simply so many tools for the heaping up of gold. Nobody ever said of him that he left a "fragrant memory" behind him; but thousands of bruised bodies and broken hearts bore witness to his policy.
The discovery of remarkable ruins in the newly acquired province of Mashonaland, which evince a high state of civilisation in the builders, may throw some light on this interesting subject.
Between this region which was then a Free State, and the Transvaal, was an immense and unappropriated country, a sort of no man's land, rich with minerals, teeming with forests and peopled by savages. Two territories, Matabeleland, ruled by Lobengula, and Mashonaland, inhabited by the Mashonas, who were to all intents and purposes vassals to Lobengula, were the prize portions.
I will wager on their side that many of you here to-night know better what went on in Mashonaland last week than what went on in your own kitchen downstairs, or in your own nursery or schoolroom upstairs.
It is its best excuse for a yawning lack of plot. Delia Moore, lady mission-worker, roasted monkey-nuts for us. When they were at last ready, we all three munched at them. But meanwhile Richard Anson and I smoked Shangaan tobacco, and Miss Moore ate sweets out of a screw-topped bottle. Anson spoke about the charms of Mashonaland.
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