96 



CAPE COLONY AND SOUTH, AFRICA. 



The Portuguese have claimed it by virtue of 

 treaties with the Mashonas, and have recently 

 effected a settlement. The British denied their 

 rights, and in the Anglo-Portuguese settlement 

 of 1890 this region, which is the El Dorado of 

 South- African gold seekers, and all the region 

 ever raided by Lobengula's impis, with a vast 

 area beyond as far as the confines of the Congo 

 Free State, were acknowledged to be British. 

 This was the result of the labors of Cecil Rhodes, 

 whose Chartered Company of South Africa, of 

 \vhirh the Duke of Fife is'president, was author 

 ized in 1889 to organize an administration for the 

 whole territory north of 22 of south latitude and 

 east of 20 of east longitude, including the Bechu- 

 analand Protectorate, Matabeleland, Mashona- 

 land, and the indefinite area north of the Zambesi. 

 The commercial company, to which despotic pow- 

 ers of government and the monopoly of all produc- 

 tive resources have been conceded by the British 

 Government has acquired no rights in its future 

 empire of British Zambesia except what were 

 conveyed in a document to which Lobengula set 

 his seal. He denies that he granted a monopoly 

 of lands or mines, for the queen's letter warned 

 him not to give all his oxen to a single person, 

 as then he would have none for other hungry men 

 who come afterward. Since President Joubert 

 wrote him that the English are like monkeys, 

 grasping things and never letting go until they 

 are whipped, he has been less stern in reprov- 

 ing his young impis who have not yet washed their 

 assegais in blood and are eager to attack the 

 whites since no other people are left to conquer. 

 The 1,000 rifles that the Chartered Company 

 promised he has refused to accept, and the gold 

 that they have paid, 100 a month, he has stored, 

 ready to be returned at any moment. The Mata- 

 beles, who have an abundance of rifles, are fair 

 marksmen, and in a charge their spears are ter- 

 rible ; 13,000 impis that the king gathered for 

 a war dance when the company's agent came to 

 close the arrangement are said to be less than 

 half of his fighting force. The Matabele tribe 

 is supposed to number 200,000 persons. The area 

 of Matebeland and its dependencies is 100,000 

 square miles ; that of the whole of the part of 

 British Zambesia lying south of the Zambesi is 

 250,000 square miles. The country is exceeding- 

 ly fertile m parts, but very hot during the winter 

 solstice, and infected with fever. Rain falls only 

 from November till the middle of January. The 

 soil supplies the natives with plenty of Caff're corn 

 and pasturage for their cattle. The misssionaries, 

 who have never made a single convert, raise wheat, 

 potatoes, oranges, and other products. The Mat- 

 abeles have no arts or industries, and never work. 

 Even their assegais they get from Mashonaland. 

 A single man owns sometimes 4,000 cattle, and 

 as many sheep and goats. All labor is performed 

 by slaves, and among them it is the women who 

 toil. In the beginning of June, 1890, when pio- 

 neers of the Chartered Company were about to 

 cuter .Mashonaland from the south, all the whites 

 at Gubulawayo, Lobengula's capital, fled in ter- 

 ror. Why did the company's people steal in like 

 thieves, he asked, if their claim was true that he 

 had given them the whole country? The wealth 

 of Mashonaland in the precious metal is known 

 by tradition and by the quantities of alluvial 

 gold washed out in wooden basins from the earth 



in the stream beds by women and exported in 

 quills. Lobengula's envoys who went to Eng- 

 land in 1889 reported great things concern- 

 ing the power and multitude of the English. 

 Since their return no gifts from the whites are 

 kept, and the king observes an attitude of diplo- 

 matic caution and reserve that portends a contest 

 before mining operations can be carried on, into 

 which the imperial forces maybe drawn as a con- 

 sequence of the first affray between the police 

 and Lobengula's restless warriors. Boers who 

 planned to forestall the English and obtained 

 concessions in Matebeland were checked by the 

 Transvaal Government. The South Africa Com- 

 pany's pioneer expedition of 500 men advanced 

 into' Mashonaland along the Limpopo toward 

 the end of June. They built a permanent road 

 as they advanced and a chain of forts about 75 

 miles apart, in which garrisons were left. The 

 party took every precaution against attack, post- 

 ing their Maxim guns in position for action at 

 every encampment. They established their north- 

 ernmost post at Mount Hampden, where the 

 placer diggings are worked by the natives. The 

 Mashonas received them with joy as their deliver- 

 ers from the bloody incursions of the Matabeles, 

 who were restrained by their politic ruler from at- 

 tacking the expedition. A. R. Colquhoun, ad- 

 ministrator of the territory, has laid down strin- 

 gent regulations for the control of the company's 

 employes, and the white miners who began to 

 flock in from the Transvaal immediately, for in 

 no other part of South Africa can gold be washed 

 from the gravel in paying quantities. 



The Delagoa Railway Dispute. The Dela- 

 goa Railroad, built by Col. Edward McMurdo, 

 having been forfeited because it was not com- 

 pleted to the point declared to be the frontier 

 within the prescribed time, and the Portuguese 

 company that held the charter having dissolved, 

 the English Government, in behalf of the British 

 construction company that provided the capital, 

 and the Government of the United States, in be- 

 half of the widow and heirs of Col. McMurdo, rais- 

 ed a claim for damages. On Sept. 10, 1889, Lord 

 Salisbury, in a dispatch to the British minister at 

 Lisbon, expressed the opinion that in confiscat- 

 ing the works and canceling the concession the 

 Portuguese Government had acted wrongfully, 

 and offered to submit the amount of compensation 

 to be paid to the English company to arbitration 

 if the Portuguese Government admitted its lia- 

 bility. The United States Government seconded 

 his contention, and in July, 1890, the three gov- 

 ernments asked the Swiss Federation to appoint 

 three jurist to assess the damages. 



Damaraland. The German colonial estab- 

 lishments in Southwest Africa have proved un- 

 profitable as a commercial undertaking. The 

 port of Angra Pequena and the adjacent ter- 

 ritory was seized in 1884, and ultimately Ger- 

 man authority was proclaimed from the Cumcne 

 river in 17 of south latitude north of Cape Frio, 

 to the Orange river in 27 of south latitude, and 

 was extended inland to 20 of east longitude. 

 The Cape Colonists, though they were powerless 

 to prevent the English Cabinet from acceding to 

 the establishment of a German protectorate, 

 have been able by inciting the hostility of the 

 natives against the Germans to render 'produc- 

 tive enterprise impossible and the effective pos- 



