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LOST OPPORTUNITIES.

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people are not brave enough. You had to steal our guns, not being men enough to take them from our persons."

It will hardly be credited that, in the face of this, Mr Lloyd is recruiting for this force; and that three sons of Pagadi, Cetywayo's son-in-law, and one of the most rebellious chiefs in Natal, are sergeants in it.

In the meantime the winter of the southern hemisphere (the healthy season) has been suffered to slip past. Summer is approaching, and the ill-used volunteers are melting away. The Kafirs of Secocoeni sit on the hills challenging the Europeans, and joking about the want of skill of their leaders. One of the enemy recently, who was especially jocose, called out to Captain Ferriera, who is of Portuguese descent, "Why don't you come and lead us-men of your own colour?"

And the frontier is left undefended; farmers are plundered within sight of the town of Lydenberg, and Kafir "impis" (commandoes) march unmolested through what parts of the district they will. How different from the work of the Republican Government, how fatally contrary to the advice of the Dutch officials, has been the conduct of this petty campaign, it is needless to show. Suffice it to say, her Majesty's troops have now been ordered to the front-now when the sickly season is at hand. If Secocoeni does not give in before midsummer, many an English mother will have to mourn

a son.

Why was this not done sooner? Why did not the 300 men of the 13th march at once, on their arrival in Lydenberg in May last, to Fort Burgers? Had they done so, even if they never fired a shot against the enemy-and had the cavalry been posted in detachments from Walker's Hill, near Pilgrim's Rest, to Lydenberg, and an advance been made by Krum Kloof, Origstadt, and the WaterfallSecocoeni would not be to-day, as letters from the front tell us, assuming the offensive." The reason is not far to seek. Official jealousies and desires for self-aggrandisement let the opportunity for real work slip past. There are men who are so intolerant of advice that they will do what is wrong with their eyes open rather than permit themselves to follow the counsel of others.

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The troops now moving up will be aided by the Frontier Horse, which corps was expected at Lydenberg on the 24th September last; but it is unlikely that volunteers, whether Boers or others, will be got together to make up for those leaving. Personal influence goes a long way with irregulars. Without something of the kind such forces will not be kept together, unless, of course, where strong patriotic motives supervene.

The state of our Kafir relations at the time of my writing is thus roughly stated: We are all but at war with the Zulus of Zululand; have offended the Amaswazi; are fighting with Secocoeni; have had to disband our paid Kafir forces for mutiny; and have, in fact, no assistance to hope for, save from Mr Eckersley, who was insulted by seeing raw Natalians preferred and placed over him and Windvogel's little band. In addition to this, the border for 1200 miles is hostile and watchful. The white population of the Transvaal is decreasing, the volunteers are dissatisfied, and desertions are terribly frequent from the regulars. The Boers, whose territory we have annexed, will not help us, and the country is not worth the price that must be paid for it. There are now troops in Pondoland whose marching expenses alone amount to £25,000 per month. Our South African policy promises to satisfy nobody, but to cost us millions.

At the time of my departure from the Transvaal, a few months ago, its present petty, miserable, and ill-conducted war was, on the nearest calculation, already costing £12,000 per month; and the storekeepers of Middleburg and Lydenberg districts were eking out a miserable and hopeless existence on the war expenditure. A better description I cannot give of the wretched state into which the country had drifted than by pointing out the horrible fact that the war was actually popular because it put a few pounds in circulation.

Unless some most unforeseen good fortune should occur to bring Secocoeni to terms, either the country will soon be entirely impoverished and saddled with a new debt that it will not be able to meet, or the British ratepayer will have to put his hands in his pockets to pay the cost of a war in which he has not the slightest interest, and which par

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takes to an almost laughable extent of the nature of an "outdoor relief."

Having received further accounts of, amongst others, the fight at Magnet Heights, I desire again to draw attention to the difference in the estimate of the work done there by those acquainted with Kafir warfare and by inexperienced persons. The 'Morning Post' said that the Kafirs were driven from their strongholds and positions into the cliffs and caves, but that certain volunteers, too eager to follow the enemy, "prejudiced " (the word is my own) what it evidently wanted us to believe, a victory. This is a most mistaken idea. The Kafir caves and cliffs are their only stronghold, to which they very cleverly and properly lured on Captain Clarke's forces, flushed by their useless conquest of outlying rocks, dry stone walls, and straw huts; and whence, having got the men under an intentional cross-fire, the natives had the pleasure of seeing the dead and wounded borne out by their comrades, whose retreat from before the despised caves and cliffs left to the Kafirs the decided impression that they had won a victory.

A long time ago, Moselekatze, with his formidable "Amandabele," occupied the very position now held by Secocoeni. The Dutch twice, and the Griquas once, penetrated to those rugged north-eastern valleys. On two occasions they remained long enough to expose themselves to, and consequently to meet with, serious disaster. The third time,

however, the Dutch merely surprised the enemy's outlying pickets at Mosegu, refrained from pressing home their attack, and fell back rapidly on the Highveld with what cattle they had taken. This utterly disheartened the "Amandabele,' who evacuated all their positions and fled no less than 500 miles to the northwards. (Thomas's 'South Africa,' p. 162.)

It is in this way Kafirs must be harassed. They are undoubtedly superstitious, and if made uncomfortable by an enemy whose movements they cannot foresee, and on whom they cannot inflict palpable loss, will rather abandon perfect locations for defence than dwell in them in continual terror.

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CHAPTER XIX.

TO-DAY IN THE TRANSVAAL.

The people-The railway party-The annexation.

In the midst of its wars and losses, the Transvaal is torn and divided by contending parties, whose numbers, principles, and programmes I shall endeavour to describe.

The State is peopled by something like 56,000 whites and 300,000 blacks, the majority of whom live on and around the borders.

It might be made a great corn-producing country, but it is importing flour. It has no manufactures; and its exports are confined to a few commodities, which hardly pay for its imports.

It has vast resources, which cannot be developed, because it has no railways-no means of short and easy communication with the markets of the world. For the same reason its fields are untilled, and its wonderful and undoubted agricultural opportunities and advantages neglected. Can you wonder that there should exist parties and factions in such a country? We may blame the factious spirit, but we cannot wonder at its existence.

The Boer party complain bitterly of the annexation. They say, "Our liberties have been unnecessarily taken from us, and our country annexed, not only against the will of the majority, but in utter disregard of Lord Carnarvon's instructions, which state that no such proclamation shall be issued by you (Sir Theophilus Shepstone), unless you shall be satisfied that the inhabitants, or a sufficient number of them, or the Legislature, desire to become our subjects.'" The Boers

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object also to the annexation, because they assert that the arguments put forward to justify its necessity by Sir Theophilus Shepstone are not borne out by facts; and they are still more angry because they believe the annexation was brought about by false pretences, accompanied and strengthened by attacks made upon their honour and character by a party press interested in their destruction. They say, further, that the terms of the annexation proclamation have not been adhered to; and this party-undoubtedly the strongest in the country-appeal to England to do them justice, and to restore to them their country.

But these people have no personal antipathy to Sir Theophilus Shepstone. They respect in him a man of wonderful experience and superior tact and attainments, who executed what seemed to him to be a necessary act of policy in a most conciliatory and able manner. Neither do they blame Lord Carnarvon or Sir Theophilus Shepstone because the annexation has hitherto not brought to the country that peace and prosperity which it was undoubtedly expected to produce. They feel deeply the vilification to which they have been subjected; and resent strongly the annexation itself and the pretences by which it was brought about. They are emphatically the people of the country.

The next party in importance may be described as the "Railway party.". It complains most bitterly that the progress of the country has been retarded by its being ruled with a view to the interests of the neighbouring colonyNatal; and complains that, whereas the country might be made rich and prosperous by its being rapidly connected by railway with the port of Delagoa Bay, and by its being thus thrown open to European industries and emigrants, it has, on the other hand, been placed under personal rule; been treated as a close Crown colony, contrary to the terms of the fifteenth paragraph of the annexation proclamation;1 has been deprived of its railway prospects; and has been made commercially subject and tributary to Natal. This party embraces the intelligence and enterprise of the country.

These people want railways and progress, with self-gov1 See Appendix C.

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