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

are to the full appreciative and grateful, and would do anything for them.

      Close to the hospital, on a rise, stands the “Eiffel Tower”: a skeleton look–out tower about 80 feet high, from which the country round for many miles can be watched. The look–out man to–day says he can see a fight going on in the far distance to the north, apparently somewhere in MacFarlane’s direction.

      De Moleyns, adjutant of the 4th Hussars, arrived from England, anxious for a job, and we took him on as head of the Remount Department.

      12th June.– Office as per usual. But vague rumours of what the enemy are doing in the Matopos made me impatient, especially owing to their vagueness. So in the evening I started off with Burnham, the American scout, to go and investigate. Delightful night ride to Kami Fort, sixteen miles south–west of Buluwayo. Jam, cookies, and tea with the two officers there, and a few hours’ sleep on that best of beds – the veldt tempered with a blanket and a saddle.

      13th June.– At 4 a. m. we were off again, Burnham and I and Trooper Bradley of the Mounted Police, who knew this part of the country well.

      We got to Mabukutwane Fort – one of the natural koppies strengthened with sandbags, etc. – in time for breakfast. Here we found some excitement, as a transport rider in charge of waggons had just come in from the road, reporting that he had been fired on by Matabele about two miles out. A patrol was sent out, and we sent warnings to waggons and to the coach, which was due to pass to–day, telling them to wait at the fort till the road had been reconnoitred. It ended in nothing – the patrol returned having found no Matabele nor any spoor of them.

      So, having been joined by Taylor, the Native Commissioner, we rode off across the veldt towards the Matopos, some six miles distant from the fort. On arriving at Mapisa’s Kraal, a friendly chief, we off–saddled our horses (but never let our guns out of our hands, for even friendlies are not to be too blindly trusted), and, taking two or three of his scouts with us, we climbed up into some koppies which commanded a view of the enemy’s position, and of the Matopos generally. Awful country, a weird, jumbled mass of grey granite boulders thickly interspersed with bush, and great jagged mountains.

      The Matabele had never before been reduced to the necessity of taking to these mountain fastnesses, but they were the regular refuge of the Makalakas, the original inhabitants of the country, when raided by their Matabele conquerors. This particular stronghold before us, the Inugu Mountain, with its neighbouring gorges and its labyrinths of caves, had been chosen by Lobengula as the safest refuge in the country, and consequently he had made it the home of his favourite queen, Famona.

      It is now held by an impi of about a thousand Matabele. Their outposts, in talking with some of Mapisa’s spies (they shout to each other at a safe distance across a valley), have said that they mean to draw the white troops on when they come to attack them, till they have got them well inside the gorge under the mountain, and then to “give them snuff.”

      [P.S.– A month later, as will presently be seen, they tried this on with Laing’s and Nicholson’s columns.]

      While we were staring our eyes out at the position, taking bearings, and making sketches, etc., I suddenly saw a distant cow, and, by getting on to a better rock, I soon discovered a herd of cattle feeding in the valley below the enemy’s position. Here was a chance for a lark – to mount, swoop down, and round up the cattle under their very noses, before they had time to interfere! But to my surprise, on mooting the idea, the niggers with us let out that these cattle did not belong to the enemy, but to another friendly chief, Farko, who lived near by.

      That the enemy should leave these cattle untouched was a revelation to me, and I then saw that the so–called friendlies were on pretty good terms with the rebels. But for this chance eye–opener – of having, in the first instance, seen a solitary cow in the distance – I might have been led to trust to friendlies and their reports. It was well I didn’t.

      Having seen all we could, and made a map, Burnham and I started out for home; reached Kami in the middle of the night, and early next day were back in Buluwayo.

      Burnham a most delightful companion on such a trip; amusing, interesting, and most instructive. Having seen service against the Red Indians, he brings quite a new experience to bear on the scouting work here. And, while he talks away, there’s not a thing escapes his quick–roving eye, whether it is on the horizon or at his feet. We got on well together, and he much approved of the results of your early development in me of the art of “inductive reasoning” – in fact, before we had examined and worried out many little indications in the course of our ride, he had nicknamed me “Sherlock Holmes.”

      [P.S.– We planned to do much scouting together in the future, but, unfortunately, it never came off, as he was soon afterwards compelled, for domestic reasons, to go down country.]

      The following is an extract from a business–like offer I received to–day, one of the developments of war in modern times: —

      “We, A – and B – , certified engineers, wish to place our services at the disposal of the Chartered Company in any offensive or defensive operations against the rebels. Speciality– Construction of forts, bridges, and dynamite operations. References,” etc. etc.

      It is another step towards carrying on war by contract.

      14th and 15th June.– Office again, up till late into the night. Colonel Bridge arrived with his staff–clerks, and much relieved our pressure of work by taking over the commissariat and transport arrangements, which are our main anxiety. Indeed, we are on half–rations of tinned meat now; fresh meat unprocurable, and prospects of immediate further supply rather vague.

      16th June.– Yesterday, with the arrival of Colonel Bridge, our clouds seemed to be lightening up a bit. To–day a thunderclap has come. Telegrams from Salisbury (sent round by Victoria and Macloutsie, owing to the direct wire being cut) tell us of murders of whites in three widely separate parts of Mashonaland. It almost looks as though the Matabele rebellion were repeating itself there. If so, the outlook is very bad indeed. Salisbury is 270 miles from here by road. We have here a number of troops who were sent from Salisbury to help us, and now their want will be acutely felt over there. In Mashonaland they have only one line of road to the coast for their supplies, and if that gets cut, we cannot help them; we have not sufficient for ourselves.

      Indeed, if we cannot manage to get up immense supplies within the next two or three months (it takes over a month for a mule–waggon to get here from Mafeking), I don’t see how we are going to hold on to the country. The rains may set in in October, and, once they have begun, the transport of supplies and troops becomes impossible; the veldt becomes a bog, and the rivers rise into turgid torrents.

      Our only chance of maintaining our hold on the country is to plant outlying posts, and to fill them up with a sufficient stock of food to keep them throughout the four months of the rainy season. And, in the meantime, we must also thoroughly smash up the enemy.

      Owing to rinderpest, it seems almost impossible to get sufficient waggons in Cape Colony to bring up the required supplies. So that we’re in a quandary. Either we smash up the enemy, and get up supplies for outlying posts before the rains come on, or else we draw in our horns, concentrate nearer to our base, organising our measures for a real effective campaign directly the rains are over. But the loss of prestige, of time, and of property involved in this second course would be deplorable, so we mean to have a good try to gain the first, and win the race against weather, rinderpest, and other bad luck.

      17th June.– Having heard of some Matabele firing on a party of our men, about three miles out on the Salisbury Road, yesterday, De Moleyns and I took an early morning ride with one of the morning patrols. Started in the dark at 4 a. m., and moved out along that road. Presently we came upon an armed nigger squatting at the roadside, so muffled up in a blanket and a sack that he did not hear us coming. We captured him, and then found that he was a sentry of one of our own outlying “Cape Boys’” piquets.

      I said to him, “Where is your piquet?”

      He replied, with much haughtiness, “I not carry a ticket; I am soldier!”

      [Explanation.– All