Very Soon After Pretorius Had Sent The Marauding Party Against Kolobeng,
He Was Called Away To The Tribunal Of Infinite Justice.
His Policy Is Justified By The Boers Generally From The Instructions Given
To The Jewish Warriors In Deuteronomy 20:10-14.
Hence, when he died,
the obituary notice ended with "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord."
I wish he had not "forbidden us to preach unto the Gentiles
that they may be saved."
The report of this outrage on the Bakwains, coupled with denunciations
against myself for having, as it was alleged, taught them to kill Boers,
produced such a panic in the country, that I could not engage
a single servant to accompany me to the north. I have already alluded
to their mode of warfare, and in all previous Boerish forays
the killing had all been on one side; now, however, that a tribe
where an Englishman had lived had begun to shed THEIR blood as well,
it was considered the strongest presumptive evidence against me.
Loud vows of vengeance were uttered against my head,
and threats of instant pursuit by a large party on horseback,
should I dare to go into or beyond their country; and as these were coupled
with the declaration that the English government had given over
the whole of the native tribes to their rule, and would assist
in their entire subjection by preventing fire-arms and ammunition
from entering the country, except for the use of the Boers,
it was not to be wondered at that I was detained for months at Kuruman
from sheer inability to get wagon-drivers. The English name,
from being honored and respected all over the country,
had become somewhat more than suspected; and as the policy of depriving
those friendly tribes of the means of defense was represented by the Boers
as proof positive of the wish of the English that they should be subjugated,
the conduct of a government which these tribes always thought
the paragon of justice and friendship was rendered totally incomprehensible
to them; they could neither defend themselves against their enemies,
nor shoot the animals in the produce of which we wished them to trade.
At last I found three servants willing to risk a journey to the north;
and a man of color named George Fleming, who had generously been assisted
by Mr. H. E. Rutherford, a mercantile gentleman of Cape Town,
to endeavor to establish a trade with the Makololo, had also managed
to get a similar number; we accordingly left Kuruman on the 20th of November,
and proceeded on our journey. Our servants were the worst possible specimens
of those who imbibe the vices without the virtues of Europeans,
but we had no choice, and were glad to get away on any terms.
When we reached Motito, forty miles off, we met Sechele on his way,
as he said, "to the Queen of England." Two of his own children,
and their mother, a former wife, were among the captives seized by the Boers;
and being strongly imbued with the then very prevalent notion of England's
justice and generosity, he thought that in consequence of the violated treaty
he had a fair case to lay before her majesty. He employed
all his eloquence and powers of persuasion to induce me to accompany him,
but I excused myself on the ground that my arrangements were already made
for exploring the north. On explaining the difficulties of the way,
and endeavoring to dissuade him from the attempt, on account of the knowledge
I possessed of the governor's policy, he put the pointed question,
"Will the queen not listen to me, supposing I should reach her?"
I replied, "I believe she would listen, but the difficulty is to get to her."
"Well, I shall reach her," expressed his final determination.
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. Our officers invited Sechele to dine with them,
heard his story, and collected a handsome sum of money to enable him
to pursue his journey to England. The commander refrained from noticing him,
as a single word in favor of the restoration of the children of Sechele
would have been a virtual confession of the failure of his own policy
at the very outset. Sechele proceeded as far as the Cape; but his resources
being there expended, he was obliged to return to his own country,
one thousand miles distant, without accomplishing the object of his journey.
On his return he adopted a mode of punishment which he had seen in the colony,
namely, making criminals work on the public roads. And he has since,
I am informed, made himself the missionary to his own people.
He is tall, rather corpulent, and has more of the negro feature than common,
but has large eyes. He is very dark, and his people swear by "Black Sechele".
He has great intelligence, reads well, and is a fluent speaker.
Great numbers of the tribes formerly living under the Boers
have taken refuge under his sway, and he is now greater in power
than he was before the attack on Kolobeng.
Having parted with Sechele, we skirted along the Kalahari Desert,
and sometimes within its borders, giving the Boers a wide berth.
A larger fall of rain than usual had occurred in 1852,
and that was the completion of a cycle of eleven or twelve years,
at which the same phenomenon is reported to have happened on three occasions.
An unusually large crop of melons had appeared in consequence.
We had the pleasure of meeting with Mr. J. Macabe returning from Lake Ngami,
which he had succeeded in reaching by going right across the Desert
from a point a little to the south of Kolobeng. The accounts of
the abundance of watermelons were amply confirmed by this energetic traveler;
for, having these in vast quantities, his cattle subsisted
on the fluid contained in them for a period of no less than twenty-one days;
and when at last they reached a supply of water, they did not seem to care
much about it.
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