Page:Seven Years in South Africa v1.djvu/266

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214
Seven Years in South Africa.

guage is called Sesuto. Since their war with the Orange Free State they have lived under English jurisdiction, whilst their neighbours on the west, the southern Barolongs, another branch of the Bantus, have become subjects of the Orange Republic.

In agriculture, the Basutos have advanced more than any other tribe. Next to them in this respect come the Baharutse, in the Marico district in the Transvaal, of whom I shall have to speak subsequently, in the narrative of my second journey. The Basuto farms are very small, but they produce hundreds of thousands of bushels of corn, and abound in horses and cattle. There is no doubt that both the Basutos and the Baharutse are yearly increasing in affluence.

Not long ago, when the most southerly of the Basuto chiefs collected all the unruly spirits he could find—runaway servants, thieves, fugitive Gaikas and Galekas, the residium of the last Kaffir war—and attempted to plunder, and to revolt from British rule, all the rest of the Basutos remained faithful, and voluntarily sent 2000 armed horsemen into the field on the side of the English.

With a few unimportant exceptions, the structure of the Basuto huts, and the general character of their work, correspond with those of the Bechuanas, and in their handicraft they are about up to the average of the Bantu tribes. In one respect they differ from the rest of their kin: they manufacture carved wooden fetishes, painting them red and black.