The Matabele Campaign

Hard beds, cold night, bumpity flap we go.

20th May.– Rattling along over the Karoo. Stony plains with frequent stony hills and mountains. The clearest atmosphere, and air like draughts of fresh spring water. Up hill, down dale – the train crawling up at foot’s pace with heart–breaking, laboured panting of the engine, then down the other side rattling and swaying about like a runaway coster’s barrow.

Three times in the day we stop at wayside stations where there’s a kind of table d’hôtel prepared – much as it is in India, only less so.

Very little life along the line, beyond an occasional waggon with its lengthy team of oxen or of donkeys, creeping at its very slowest pace along the plain.

Our own pace, however, is not much to boast about; we don’t go fast, and often stop to execute repairs.

The scenery remains much the same, except that the stony plain gives place to white grass veldt sparsely dotted with little thorn–bushes – its only beauty (and that is matchless of its kind) the wonderful colours of the distant hills, especially at dawn or sunset.

We pass by little groups of iron–roofed houses – sanatoria where people come to live – or die – whose lungs are gone.

Kimberley. Miles of mineheads, mounds of refuse, town of tin houses and dust, a filthy refreshment room, – and on we go.

22nd May.– At last, after three nights and two days jogging along in the train, we rattle into Mafeking at 6 a. m.

“Into Mafeking?” Well, there’s a little tin (corrugated iron) house and a goods shed to form the station; hundreds of waggons and mounds of stores covered with tarpaulins, and on beyond a street and market square of low–roofed tin houses. Mafeking is at present the railway terminus. The waggons and the goods are waiting to go north to Matabeleland, but here they’re stranded for want of transport, since all the oxen on the road are dying fast from rinderpest. However, every train is bringing up more mules and donkeys to use in their stead.

Near to the station is the camp of the 7th Hussars and mounted infantry of the West Riding and the York and Lancaster Regiments. These troops are waiting here in case they may be wanted in Matabeleland.

Thus Mafeking is crowded.

Sir Frederick is here, and we, the staff, take up our quarters for a few days in a railway carriage on a siding. The staff consists of Lieutenant–Colonel Bridge, A.S.C., as Deputy Assistant Adjutant–General (for Transport and Supply), Captain Vyvyan, Brigade Major; Lieutenant V. Ferguson, A.D.C.; my billet is Chief Staff Officer.

While here at Mafeking we are the guests of Mr. Julius Weil, the genius – in both senses – of this part of South Africa. He works the machinery of transport and supply of the Chartered Company; his “stores” have in them everything that man could want to buy. “Weil’s Rations” are known half the world over as the best tinned foods for travellers; he owns the best of dogs and horses; he is Member of the Legislative Assembly of the Cape: and withal he is young and lively!

23rd May.– Our only news from Matabeleland is that Cecil Rhodes has safely got across from the East Coast, through Mashonaland, to Buluwayo, with a column under Beal. And that Plumer’s force, specially raised here in the south, had got within touch of Buluwayo without fighting. Rhodes had said the neck of the rebellion now was broken – and with it go the necks of all our hopes.

But still we shove along.

Packed up our kits, and in the afternoon embarked, the four of us (the General, Vyvyan, Ferguson, and self), in the coach for Buluwayo. The coach a regular Buffalo–Bill–Wild–West–Deadwood affair; hung by huge leather springs on a heavy, strong–built under–carriage; drawn by ten mules. Our baggage and three soldier–servants on the roof; two coloured drivers (one to the reins, the other to the whip). Inside are four transverse seats, each to hold three, thus making twelve “insides.” Luckily we were only four, and so we had some room to stretch our legs. We each settled into a corner, and off we went, amid the cheers of the inhabitants of Mafeking. One, more eager than the rest, – a former officer of Sir Frederick’s in the Bechuanaland Police, – jumped on, and came with us for thirty miles, trusting to chance to take him back again.

That night we reached Pitsani, a single roadside inn, – the starting–place of Jameson’s raid into the Transvaal. We stopped, and supped, and slept, and started on at daybreak. This stopping to sleep was but a luxury which we did not come in for afterwards along the road.

24th May.– Does it bore you, a daily record of this uneventful journey? Well, if it does, you easily can skip it, which is more than we could do, alas!

All day over a sandy track, on open, white grass veldt, which generally changed into hilly country, dotted with thorn–bushes. All waterless. The mules, of which we get a change every ten or twelve miles, in very poor condition – so our pace is very slow.

Reached Ramoutsa after dark, after 65–mile drive. Tin hotel, and large native kraal town (said to have 10,000 inhabitants in its mass of beehive huts). Boyne living here; a well–known hunter on the Kalehari, and had shot with “Ginger” Gordon (15th Hussars).

A native “reed dance” was going on in the “stadt” (as they call the native town), – every man blowing a reed–whistle which gives two notes, and, played in numbers, gives a quaint, harmonious sound. The men dance in a circle, stamping the time; the women waggle round and round the circle, outside it. Altogether a very “or’nery” performance, especially as all were dressed in European store–clothes.

25th May.– Struggling on with weak mules to Gaberones (18 miles in 51/2 hours) And on again. Every mile now began to show the grisly, stinking signs of rinderpest. Dead oxen varied occasionally with dead mules – the variety did not affect the smell —that remained the same. Occasionally we passed a waggon abandoned owing to the loss of animals.

The road at times was hard, but generally soft red sand. The scenery had a sameness of level, white, grass land and thorn–bush.

Reached a big kraal (Matchudi’s) of 700 inhabitants, at midnight. Deep sandy road. It took our fresh (!) team over half an hour to get us outside the village. Our pace was now so slow, and the whacking of the whip so painful merely to listen to (happily, the mules don’t seem to feel it half so much as we), that we did much of the journey walking on ahead. Sun baking hot, and flies as thick as dust, and that was bad.

27th May.– By walking with a gun we managed to get a good supply of partridges and guinea–fowl as we went along. To–day we passed the downward coach, in which was Scott–Montague, M.P. He gave us lots of information; and we felt we were not having the worst of the journey, when we saw him packed in with twelve other “insides,” one of whom a woman, and another her baby, which wasn’t very well!

Reached Pala – a group of stores – at midnight. 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.