Part 8

The next step was the granting of the charter by the British Government in 1889, and the creation of the British South Africa Company. Then Rhodes sent out the famous Pioneer Expedition to Mashonaland, and the white men established themselves in Rhodesia. It must be borne in mind that at that time and for years afterwards Rhodes had to be ever closely watching and cunningly circumventing the German Boers and Portuguese, who spared no effort to keep us from the north. Bismarck's agent, Count Pffeil, was sent on a secret mission to South Africa and all but succeeded in anticipating Rhodes, and in winning for Germany a broad strip of territory that would have connected her eastern and western possessions, so forming a bar across Africa from ocean to ocean that would have effectually shut us out. Then there was the Boer trek into Mashonaland in 1891, when the Rhodesians guarded the drifts against the invaders--a scheme of Kruger's that was frustrated without the shedding of blood. Even when the Pioneer Expedition was on its way, the energetic Portuguese D'Andrade was distributing the flags of his country among the chiefs, and attempting to get concessions that would cut Mashonaland off from Matabeleland. To defeat his plans Rhodes entered into a treaty with Umtassa, and obtained the Gazaland concession from Gungunyana, a concession which would have extended the Chartered Company's possessions to the shores of the Indian Ocean had not Lord Salisbury refused to ratify it and acknowledged the claims of Portugal. Then again in 1889 Rhodes, whose Intelligence Department always supplied him in good time with information as to the doings of his rivals, hearing that Germany intended to cut us off at the head of Lake Nyassa, secretly sent Mr. H. H. Johnson to hoist British flags at Port Abercorn on Lake Tanganyika and other places, as proof of our occupation. The Portuguese also hoped to erect a wall against our expansion by connecting her eastern and western territories, and for this purpose an expedition set out from Angola to seize the Barotse country, but here Rhodes again forestalled them; his mission was the first to arrive in the country, and Barotseland was placed under our protection. The way these things were done by Rhodes' agents, the hardships endured, the perils incurred by these adventurous men who--unlike the Portuguese agents who were always accompanied by large bands of armed men--plunged alone into these savage regions to carry out their hazardous missions, makes a wonderful story indeed of British pluck and enterprise.

The Pioneer Expedition set out in June 1890. The Pioneer Column, which had been enrolled by Major Frank Johnson, consisted of 187 men who had decided to try their fortunes in the new country, and it was accompanied by 650 mounted police, under the command of Lieut.-Colonel Pennefather. The famous hunter, Selous, acted as guide. The ox-waggons carried provisions and other stores sufficient to supply the whole force for six months. For four hundred miles the Pioneers marched into Mashonaland, constructing a road as they went, and making drifts at the many rivers to enable the waggons to cross. Forts were built at intervals, and small garrisons were left in them. At last they came to their objective point, Mount Hampden; and hard by it they built Fort Salisbury, now the capital of all Rhodesia. The Pioneer Force was now disbanded, each man receiving, in addition to his pay, the right to peg out fifteen gold claims and 3000 acres of land. The men scattered over the country, prospecting for gold and pegging out their claims and farms. The first rainy season was a terrible one for them; it was an exceptionally bad year; all transport was interrupted, supplies fell short; the men had to live on native foodstuffs; great privations were endured; many died; and, as in every other part of our Empire, the ways of Rhodesia are strewn with the bones of the men who won the land for their country.

But the men who go out as the pioneers of the Empire are not easily discouraged. The settlement and development of the country was at once undertaken with energy. Arrangements were made for the administration of the new State; a legal system was created; roads were constructed; mining plant was brought up; mining operations commenced; land was brought under cultivation; stores were opened; townships were surveyed, and rose rapidly from the wilderness, handsome brick buildings taking the place of the huts in which the pioneers roughed it at first. But the development of the country was much retarded by the difficulty of communication and the enormous cost of transport. Little could be done until Rhodesia was afforded railway communication with the coast; so Mr. Rhodes made arrangements for the extension of the Cape railway from its then terminus at Kimberley, and for the construction of a line to Beira on the east coast.

The Chartered Company had not long effected its active occupation of Mashonaland before the Matabele impis resumed their murderous raids on the Mashonas, and in 1893 the Matabele war broke out, leading to the overthrow of Lobengula and the absorption of Matabeleland by the Chartered Company. Nearly every able-bodied white man in Mashonaland volunteered his services. Three columns, numbering nine hundred men in all, marched through the country, defeating the Matabele impis on the Shangani and Zambesi; Bulawayo was occupied, and with the gallant stand of Wilson and his little force, the war was brought to a conclusion.

Then the white man's city began to rise from the veldt, hard by the burnt kraal of Lobengula. Towards the close of the war I travelled in an ox-waggon with some Boer transport riders from the Marico Valley in the Transvaal--about thirty miles from Mafeking--to Bulawayo. This beautiful valley ("the Granary of the Transvaal") was the old home of Moselekatse, Lobengula's father. It was a fat land; there is none so rich for a hundred leagues around; for tribes of Zulu blood will establish themselves in none but the best country, and they will trek far to find it. The rolling land of Marico is as fertile as it is beautiful. It is as green as Devon, and the pretty farmhouses of the prosperous people are scattered among rich pastures, great fields of corn, and fruit orchards. Fifty years ago the Boers and their Baralong allies drove Moselekatse and his raiding warriors out of Marico, and sent them trekking north to seek a new home. So northward they travelled, murdering and cattle-lifting as they went, traversing good country, but not such as would satisfy the Zulu, until at last, nearly five hundred miles from Marico, they came to a land even more favoured than that they had left, and settled down in what is now called Matabeleland. I followed their route, and could then understand their choice. Fair indeed to the eye appears the green, well-watered high veldt of Matabeleland as the traveller from the south opens it out on reaching the watershed between the Crocodile and the Zambesi rivers. Lieutenant Maund, who some years before had been sent to spy out Matabeleland, with justice reported that, "when compared to the country south of it, it was as Canaan after the wilderness." When I reached the place where Bulawayo, with its stately buildings, now stands, I found a few hundred white men occupying a little temporary settlement of native huts and tattered tents that had sprung up round the newly-constructed fort; the building of the modern city had not commenced. A little later I was present at the first auction of township stands. The alternate land lots bearing even numbers, lining one side of what was to be the chief street, were sold. They fetched about £50 apiece. A few months afterwards the alternate stands bearing odd numbers were sold by auction; they all fetched over £400 apiece, the highest price realised being £900. Some of the stands, that could have been purchased for £50 each in 1893, are at the present time worth six or seven thousand pounds apiece, and realise that price when put on the market. I quote these figures to show that whatever critics at home may think of the future of Rhodesia, those on the spot have confidence in it. The Matabele War was scarcely over before the volunteers, having received their mining, farm, and loot rights, scattered over the country to prospect and peg out their claims. It was wonderful to observe how quickly, under Dr. Jameson's able administration, everything was put in order, and Matabeleland began to assume the aspect of a settled country. Bulawayo was soon a fine city, having its water-works, electric lighting, hospitals, public schools, its imposing court-house and other handsome public buildings. Townships sprang up like mushrooms all over the high veldt in the vicinity of the gold-bearing reefs. The population rapidly increased. The Chartered Company, in the meanwhile, pushed on the railway from Mafeking towards Bulawayo, proceeded to construct the line from Umtali to Beira, and quickly placed Bulawayo into telegraphic communication with the outer world. And now there was every sign of prosperity; the development of the gold mines gave encouraging results; trade was good; the value of the land for farming was proved, and excellent crops were raised; Rhodesia's future seemed assured. But it was fated that its progress should be retarded by an extraordinary succession of disasters; surely no new country was ever so sorely tried.

All was going well until the early part of 1896, when the first of its many scourges swept down on the unhappy land--the dreaded rinderpest came from the North, and despite every precaution that could be taken to prevent its spreading, it destroyed over 90 per cent. of the cattle in the country, and played like havoc among the wild game. It is difficult for one who was not in Rhodesia at the time to realise the magnitude of this misfortune. As this was a land then entirely dependent upon oxen for transport, a stoppage was put to agricultural and mining operations; and the cattle-owning native population suffered greatly. Before the rinderpest broke out the average price of an ox in Rhodesia was £6, and now, though it is over five years since the rinderpest was stamped out, the price is about £28. Transport rates rose from 10s. to £5 per 100 lbs., and all the necessaries of life went up to famine prices. These figures, which will be found in an interesting pamphlet written by Mr. P. S. Inskip of the British South Africa Company's service, will convey some idea of the situation. Absolute ruin faced the settlers; it is wonderful that the bulk of them did not abandon the country in despair, but pioneers are not easily disheartened, and they stubbornly struggled on, taking every possible measure to mitigate the effect of the plague.

But misfortune followed on misfortune. The rinderpest was raging when the Matabele rose, and the Rhodesians had to suppress a formidable rebellion, which was rendered the more difficult to cope with by the scarcity of oxen. The white settlers were massacred in outlying districts; there were heroic rescues, the rising spread to Mashonaland, and it was not until 1897 that the rebellion was crushed and peace for a little while came to the troubled land. Our total casualties were 690; and of the white settlers in the country alone 390 were killed and 150 were wounded, that is, 10 per cent. of the population. The Company spent £360,000 in compensating the settlers for the losses the rebellion had brought upon them.

It had fortunately been discovered that the rinderpest could be stamped out by inoculation, but no sooner had this plague been conquered by science than a terrible outbreak of red-water decimated the remaining cattle. Locusts, too, came in unwonted numbers to devour the crops, and horse sickness was very destructive. Then, on the top of all Rhodesia's troubles, came the but just concluded Boer war cutting off this inland territory from its communications with its commercial and military bases on the coast, retarding its development, and once more calling on its manhood to abandon industry and take up arms for their country. The Rhodesians responded well to the call; twelve and a half per cent. of the population fought in the war, and it will be in the memory of all how well they acquitted themselves in the defence of Bechuanaland and the relief of Mafeking. Thanks to the foresight of Cecil Rhodes, Matabeleland was ours. Had it not been so, the Boers when defeated in war would have trekked north into the rough country--through which it would have been almost impossible for us to follow them--there to form new independent states, to intrigue against us as before. It would have been the old story over again; and after a few years we should have been plunged into another Boer war. But Rhodes had hemmed in the two Boer Republics. The quarrel had to be fought out within their boundaries. There was no outlet for them into the wilderness this time.

Notwithstanding these successive disasters the Chartered Company and the settlers had done much during those few troublous years to develop the country. The rinderpest and the native rebellion made it all the more urgent to complete the railway system that was to open communication with the coast. The Company hurried on the construction. In November 1897 the line had been extended from Mafeking to Bulawayo, and in 1899 the line from Salisbury to Beira was completed. Then the line from Bulawayo to Salisbury was pushed on; this connection has just been completed, and one can now travel by rail without changing carriage from Capetown to Beira _viâ_ Bulawayo and Salisbury. Another line is being constructed through the Wankie coalfields which will cross the Zambesi near the Victoria Falls. How short a time ago it seems since the man who had visited the Falls was regarded as a great explorer! Other branches, too, will shortly open communication to the various goldfields.

It is worthy of notice that Rhodesia, though the most remote from the coast, was the one State in South Africa whose industries were kept going during the war, so that the conclusion of peace found her ready for an immediate expansion of her trade. This was due to the wise policy of the Company. Early in 1900 it was represented to the Administration that unless communication, which had been interrupted at the commencement of the war, was soon restored, work could not proceed on the mines; the native labourers would have to be discharged, and the mines would have to be closed down. The Administration realised that it would not only be disastrous to throw so many Europeans and natives out of work, but that the closing down of the mines would convince the Matabele that there was truth in the report which the Boer agents were diligently spreading to the effect that the English were being driven out of the country, and that the opportunity for rebellion had arrived. The Administration therefore came to the assistance of the mining community by making arrangements for the importation of sufficient necessaries for six months through Beira, at a fixed transport rate of £25 per ton from Port Elizabeth. The Company found itself about £5 a ton out of pocket by this arrangement, but great distress was saved. At the opening of the war the price of grain and meal rose 100 per cent.; but the Hon. Sir Arthur Lawley, the then Administrator of Matabeleland, warned the Chamber of Commerce at Bulawayo that if the cost of necessaries rose too high he would open the Government Stores--in which a large reserve of supplies had been laid up at the outbreak of the war--and sell to white men at a reasonable rate. This had the desired effect for a time, but later on the merchants took an unfair advantage of the situation, whereupon the Administrator carried out his threat, and so brought prices sharply down again. The result of this policy was excellent; the development of the mines proceeded, even if slowly; the crops were sown and there was a good harvest; the natives remained quiet and readily paid their hut-tax, which amounted to a larger sum than had been raised in any previous year.

Considering all the disasters, from the rinderpest down to the Boer War, that have befallen the country, it is indeed wonderful that so much has already been done towards the development of the resources of Rhodesia. There are critics at home who maintain that the country is valueless, that there are no payable gold reefs in it, else the mines would by this time have been working at a profit. People in the old days spoke in the same way of the Rand. Now, it was not until 1897, when the railway reached Bulawayo, that the real development of the mines commenced, and since then the country has produced gold to the value of a million and a quarter sterling, and this with a very limited number of stamps running. The gold belt extends for about 500 miles. Out of the 114,000 claims that have been pegged out, only 737 have been worked at all. Some of the mines have already paid dividends. The future possibilities of these yet practically untouched goldfields no one can estimate.

It had been naturally expected that so soon as the opening of the Rhodesian railways lowered the cost of transport rapid progress would be made in the working of the mines, and critics at home express their wonder that more has not been done; but the enormous increase in the cost of local transport due to the rinderpest has cancelled the advantage gained by the low railway rates from the south. Before the railway was constructed or the rinderpest appeared, the transport from Mafeking to Bulawayo, a distance of 500 miles, was ten shillings per 100 lbs. It costs as much as that now to transport mining machinery by ox-waggon from the Bulawayo railway-yard to a mine only 50 miles distant; and some of the mines are as far as 200 miles from a railway station. The branch lines that are being constructed will bring many of the mines within easy reach of the railway, but no great general progress can be made throughout Rhodesia until cattle become plentiful and cheap again. The Chartered Company is taking active steps to restock the country. The importation of cattle on a large scale, both by the various companies and by individuals, is now proceeding. Cattle of an excellent breed, suitable to the climate, are being brought from Angoniland, and will be crossed with Kerry or Jersey bulls. Importers of stock intended for breeding purposes can carry them over the Rhodesian railways at considerably reduced rates. Moreover, the Administration advances money to farmers on easy terms, on the security of their farms, to enable them to purchase cattle. With regard to the rinderpest, inoculation has proved successful, and the Government should be able to subdue any fresh outbreak by using the serum which is now manufactured at Kimberley.

Now that peace has come to South Africa, all that Rhodesia wants to enable her to make rapid progress is cheap transport, which she will shortly have, and abundant and efficient native labour; for surely the sore trials of her youth, which she so pluckily endured and survived, are over at last. The gold is there; the majority of the reefs are permanent, and to quote from the report of the Chartered Company's Resident Consulting Engineer:--"What the future may hold it is impossible to say, but the most grievous pessimist must surely admit that the experimental stage has been safely passed, and that Rhodesia has been proved to be a valuable gold-mining country of which the possibilities are enormous." The recent discovery of valuable coal deposits will greatly assist the development of the country's resources, more especially benefiting the gold-mining industry, for the timber is becoming exhausted in the vicinity of the mines, and the price of wood fuel is ever advancing. A careful examination of one small section of the Wankie bed shows that it will yield 1000 tons a day of coal of excellent quality for the next hundred years. It is too early yet to discuss the value of the iron, copper, and other ores which exist in Rhodesia.

To turn to agriculture. There seems to be no production of the temperate and sub-tropical zones that does not flourish on the favoured, well-watered soil of Southern Rhodesia. The area under cultivation is rapidly extending. The one great drawback is the locust. However, farming pays well despite occasional bad seasons. Here is a story that exemplifies the tenacity, under disaster, of the Rhodesian settler. In one year, when the successive locust swarms ate up the land, a certain farmer sowed his farm with mealies. The locusts devoured the crop: undiscouraged, he sowed his fields a second time: again he lost his crop. Yet a third time he sowed, and got his harvest in safely. Despite the two failures, he now realised a handsome profit. Happily, in the season of 1898-99 locusts almost entirely disappeared, and apparently they have never since invaded the country in their former numbers. It is claimed that this is due to the extensive use of toxine, with which for the last few years a campaign of extermination has, with apparent success, been carried on against these scourges of the land. The toxine has been distributed among the white farmers and the native chiefs, with instructions for its use, and satisfaction with the results has been generally expressed. An energetic farmer does well in Rhodesia, and finds among the mining communities an ever-increasing market for his produce. At present the principal products are mealies, barley, wheat, oats, forage, and potatoes, and excellent crops are raised. Market farming and dairy farming in the vicinity of the towns are industries that require little capital, and are exceedingly profitable. Boer tobacco is produced in large quantities, and experiments that have been tried with American seed have proved the suitability of soil and climate for the cultivation of the superior qualities of tobacco. Oranges, peaches, walnuts, apples, bananas, figs, cherries, vines, and other fruits do very well in Rhodesia. In the yet uncolonised north of this vast territory wild rubber of high commercial value covers large tracts of country. The Chartered Company is taking steps to protect the plant against the destructive native methods of extraction, and to make it a source of wealth to Rhodesia as well of revenue to itself. In several districts the cultivation of coffee and tea promises to prove successful.

As elsewhere in South Africa, the chief difficulty in the way of the development of the country is the disinclination of the idle natives to work on the mines or elsewhere, all the more so now that so many have been spoilt by the excessive wages paid to them by the military authorities during the war. The native of Mashonaland, for example, living in a country blessed with a fruitful soil and splendid climate, protected by our rule from the raids that used to devastate his lands, reaping his crops in security, assisted by the Administration in hard times of rinderpest or locust scourge, is now more than ever loth to work. He can earn as much as £3 a month with food and lodging. But for the protection which he enjoys, and which enables him to wax rich, he only contributes to the expenses of Government his hut-tax of ten shillings. An increase in his hut-tax might induce him to work for a few weeks in the year. If nothing will overcome his deep-rooted indolence, other labour must be imported. Arabs from Aden are already working in some of the mines.