Native Wars and Unrest 123 



disadvantage to fight it out alone ; they were short 

 of money, of ammunition, and of men to relieve 

 those at the front. The country had been raided in 

 all directions and the farmers impoverished, but Mr. 

 John Brand's patience and courage prevailed, and 

 the Basutos were conquered for the first time in 

 their history. 



After the murder of the Pretorius family, the 

 looting of the wagons, and the raid into Natal, the 

 Natal authorities claimed indemnity from the 

 Basutos for these outrages, committed in British 

 Territory, but I am not aware that anything was 

 done or people compensated for their loss. After 

 great hardships endured by the Free State forces, 

 during a prolonged struggle, the Basutos were con- 

 quered and Basutoland invaded, when the Basutos 

 at once appeale for .protection to Sir Philip Wode- 

 house, Governor of the Cape Colony. He proclaimed 

 the Basutos as British subjects, forbade the Free 

 State Forces to take any further action in the field, 

 or to shoot one more Basuto, and claimed the right 

 to settle the boundry between the Free State and 

 Basutoland ; allotting the Free State a strip known as 

 the "Conquered Territory". Had he not taken this 

 course, the Basuto tribe would have been broken up t 

 and they would have been removed from their 

 mountain fastnesses and distributed elsewhere. 



The Basutos, after their first murderous raids, 

 (while the Boers were unprepared) soon got tired of 

 fighting in the open and took to their vast mountain 

 strongholds; but were prevented from cultivating 

 their lands, and having lost most of their cattle, 

 (which they had not sent to East Griqualand) ; they 

 were reduced to semi -starvation. Boers from the 

 Transvaal took in loads of kaffir corn, and got as 

 many as thirty horses for thirty bags. I also sent 



