The Matabele Campaign. Baden-Powell of Gilwell Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell

Here were collected some two hundred waggons, stopped by loss of all their oxen from rinderpest. Three thousand two hundred beasts dead at this one place!

      28th May.– We trekked along all day. Bush country; lots of partridges. One of our mules died on the road. Passed through Captain Lugard’s camp about 11 p. m. Only Hicks, his manager, awake. He had thirteen waggons, and nearly two hundred mules and donkeys. He is taking an exploring expedition of eleven white men to the Lake N’Gami district, prepared to remain away two years if necessary.

      29th May.– Outspanned, 4.30 a. m., and had our first wash since starting, in liquid mud from water–holes. The road was now through heavy sand. We walked over 20 miles of our journey on foot.

      Reached Palapchwe (Khama’s capital) at midnight.

      Found a dozen telegrams awaiting us, describing fights round Buluwayo, such as put some hopes into us again.

      Here we slept in beds!

      30th May.– Before breakfast, who should stroll in, all by himself, but Khama! Thin, alert, and looking quite young, in European clothes.

      He had not much to say. He knew me as George’s brother, and asked about the baby niece.

      His town is certainly well–ordered, and he manages everything himself.

      There are three or four European stores; otherwise the town is an agglomeration of kraals, and thus stands in several sections, each under its own headman. It is situated on an undercliff of a bush–grown ridge; is fairly well supplied with water; and commands a splendid view over 100 miles of country. Khama had moved his people here only a few years ago, from Shoshong, which used to be his capital farther west. He rules his country effectively. No liquor may be sold, even among white men; and all along the road while in his country we found the rinderpest carcasses had been burned.

      But he might with advantage do something for the road. Leaving Palapchwe at 10 a. m., we bumped and jolted down the stony hill in a manner calculated to mash up not only the coach and its insides, but their insides as well. Any person or persons afflicted with liver should go and live a week at Palapchwe, and drive down this hill daily – once a day would be enough!

      And then beyond – across the plains, grown with mopani bush – the road was all deep sand. We merely crept along. But still we had broken the back of our journey —

      A certain sameness of scenery and want of water all the time, but compensated for by the splendid climate, the starry nights, and the “flannel–shirt” life generally.

      Every one of the few wayfarers, in waggons or otherwise, along the road is interesting, either as a hunter, gentleman–labourer, or enterprising trader. They all look much the same: Boer hat, flannel shirt, and breeches – so sunburnt that it is hard at first to tell whether the man is English, half–caste, or light Kaffir.

      One we met to–day, creeping along with a crazy, two–wheeled cart drawn by four donkeys. He himself had only been two months in South Africa: came from Brighton. Heard that food and drink were at a premium in Buluwayo; so had loaded up this drop–in–the–ocean of a cargo of meal and champagne, and was steadily plodding along with it to make his fortune. We lightened his load by two pints, and weightened his pocket with two pounds. And we afterwards heard he sold his whole consignment at a very good profit long before he got to Matabeleland.

      31st May.– All day and all night we go rocking and pitching, rolling and “scending” along in the creaking, groaning old coach: just exactly like being in the cabin of a small yacht in bad weather – and the occasional sharp swish of the thorn–bushes along the sides and leathern curtains sounds just like angry seas. Then frequently she heels over to a very jumpy angle, as if a squall had struck her. One of these days the old thing will go over.

      Strange that in all this endless, uninhabited, and bushy wilderness there is scarcely any game.

      We carry our own food, chiefly tinned things, with us, and at convenient outspans (when we are changing mules) we boil our kettle and have a meal of sorts and thoroughly enjoy it – especially the evening meal, under the stars.

      1st June.– Reached Tati Gold Fields, 1 a. m. A collection of three or four tin stores, one of them an hotel, where we rolled into bed for a short rest.

      We breakfasted with Mr. Vigers, the Resident Commissioner. Tati is a British Protectorate of older standing than the Chartered Company, and independent of it. It has its own administrative machinery, – a mining population of whites and blacks and “wasters,” and yet not a single policeman! “Wasters?” – oh, it’s a South African word, and most expressive; applies to the specious loafer who is so common in this country, – the country teems with him in high grades as well as low, hinc multæ lacrimæ in the history of South African enterprises.

      Twenty miles beyond Tati we crossed the dry bed of the Ramakan River, the border of Matabeleland. Close by the river stands the ruin of a “prehistoric” fort, built of trimmed stones. There are several similar forts about the country, offshoots of the famed Zimbabye ruins near Victoria.

      We nearly killed our General to–day in crossing a dry river bed. The descent into the drift was so steep that the wheelers could not hold back the coach, so our drivers sent them down it at a gallop. Half–way down there was a sill of rock off which the coach took a flying leap into the sand below. We inside were chucked about like peanuts in a pot, and Sir Frederick was thrown against the roof and his head and neck were stiff for some time afterward.

      Had dinner (!) at a roadside shanty “Hotel,” where the waiter smoked while he served us.

      2nd June.– Signs of war and of colonisation at last. We reached Mangwe, 6.30 a. m. An earthwork fort with a waggon encampment outside it. In this laager were all the women and children, chiefly Dutch, from farms around; the men acting as garrison under command of Van Rooyen and Lee, – two well–known hunters, who were here in Lobengula’s time.

      In the fort they showed with pride some half a dozen Matabele prisoners they had captured in a fight. I looked well at them, fearing that they might be the only enemy that I should see. Happily I might have spared my eyes.

      We now went through the Mangwe Pass. The road here winds its way through a tract of rocky hills and koppies, which are practically the tail of the Matopo range, running eastward hence for sixty miles. It would have been a nasty place to tackle had the Matabele held it. They might easily here have cut off Buluwayo from the outer world, but their M’limo, or oracle, had told them to leave this one road open as a bolt–hole for the whites in Matabeleland. They had expected that when the rebellion broke out, the whites would avail themselves en masse of this line of escape; they never reckoned that instead they would sit tight and strike out hard until more came crowding up the road to their assistance.

      The scenery is striking among these fantastic mounts of piled–up granite boulders, with long grass and bushy glades between. For ten miles the road runs between these koppies, then emerges on the open downs that constitute the Matabele plateau, – the watershed, 4000 feet in altitude, between the Zambesi and Limpopo.

      Now we come to forts every six or eight miles along the road for protection of the traffic. They are each manned by about thirty men of the local defence force, – men in the usual shirt–sleeve costume, but fine serviceable–looking troops. Some forts are the usual earthwork kind; others are such as would make a sapper snort, but are none the less effective for all that. They are just the natural koppie, or pile of rocks, aided by art in the way of sandbag parapets and thorn–bush abattis fences, – easily prepared and easily held. One we came to had been threatened by Matabele the previous night, and some rebels had been reported near the road this same morning, – so things were getting a little more exciting for us.

      By and by we met a troop of mounted men twenty–five miles out from Buluwayo. These had come out to act as escort. At first glance, to one fresh from Aldershot or the Curragh, they looked a pretty ragged lot on thin and unkempt ponies; but their arms and bandoliers were all in first–rate order, and one could see they were the men to go anywhere