THREE BOOKS ON SOUTH AFRICA.* FE w objects could be
more praiseworthy than the production of a readable handbook calculated to enable the average home- staying British citizen, however small may be the modicum of knowledge with which he is previously equipped, to take in the broad bearings of the problems which to-day confront the statesmen concerned with South African affairs. That is the aim which Mr. W. F. Purvis and Mr. L. V. Biggs claim to have set before themselves in preparing their short work on South Africa : its People, Progress, and Problems, and we are glad to be able to recognise that they have discharged their task very creditably. They give, for example, enough of the history of the Dutch element in South Africa to enable the reader to see plainly what is the point of view of the Boers in regard to such a question as that of the Out- landers, and how that point of view and the temper accom- panying it have been formed, not unnaturally, out of a sense of grievance arising from the pressure of a higher and humaner civilisation than their own, together with the remem- brance of ill-judged concessions won by them after accidentally successful resistance to British arms. And, on the other hand, it is made, as it seems to us, not less clear by Messrs. Purvis and Biggs that the claims of the Outlanders are in essence reasonable, and that the grounds on which they rest are not affected by Dr. Jameson's Raid, lamentable as its effects have un- donbtedly been in the embitterment of racial differences. Our authors also sketch briefly, but in a very clear and informing manner, the present position of such important problems as that of railway communication in South Africa, which is shown to offer very considerable advantages to anti-British commercial intrigue on the part of the Boers and Hollanders in the Transvaal and the Orange Free State ; and bring into view the many gains which might be expected to result to the various South African States from an effective federation among themselves. Not least useful among the services rendered by Messrs. Purvis and Biggs is the provision of a list of books and papers which may, and some of which almost must, be studied or consulted by those who aspire to "any- thing like a thorough understanding of South African problems." It is not claimed that this list is a complete one, many books, we are told, having been purposely omitted. We do not understand, however, on what principle men who show in general a very fair spirit, have omitted from their list the Rev. John Mackenzie's important book, Austral Africa. Mr. Mackenzie played a very considerable and a very useful part in South African politics at the time of the Bechuanaland troubles. He did much to secure that rousing of public opinion at home which resulted in the valuable mission of Sir Charles Warren to clear out freebooters from the land of the Bechuana chiefs who had stood by this country in the Transvaal war. Not only so, but Mr. Mackenzie had a clear and well-thought-out policy in regard to the northward movement of the Europeans in South Africa, which he desired to see placed under the supervision of officials directly responsible to the Imperial Government, and conducted on a system which would have afforded abundant scope for the profitable activity of re- spectable white immigrants, while at the same time securing full protection to the interests of the natives under condi- tions conducive to their gradual elevation towards civilised life.
Probably not a few of the statesmen on both sides who favoured the delegation which was made of Imperial responsibilities to the British South Africa Company have for some time past had their doubts whether that line of action has been entirely justified by results. Such doubts are not likely to be in any degree removed by Major Leonard's account of How TVe Made Rhodesia. This is, in- deed, a very curious book. In the preface, and in one or two brief concluding chapters, the author uses glowing language about the magnificence of the work done by the makers of Rhodesia. As thus :—" A splendid trophy it was—achieved by the clear heads, cool hearts, and strong hands of men of action, by the right men in the right place," &c. But in the body of his book, which consists of extracts from his diary and private letters, written mainly in 1890 and 1891, Major
• (1.) South Africa : its People. Progress, and Problems. By William Frederick Purvis and Leonard Vivian Biggs. London : Chapman and Hall.—(2.) lion, We Made Rhodesia. By Major Arthur Glyn Leonard. London : Kegan Paul, Trench, and Co.—(3.) Monomotapa (Rhodesia) : its Monuments. and its History from the Most Ancient Times to the Present Century. By the Hon. A. Wilmot, Member of the Legislative Council, Cape of Good Hope. With a Preface by H. Rider Haggard. London : T. Fisher Unwin.
Leonard presents a succession of contemporaneous observations pitched sometimes in a very different key. Once or twice the reader is constrained to the reflection that it was by some- thing like a miracle, not of good management, but of good luck, that the whole body of the makers of Rhodesia escaped destruction. Major Leonard's duties as officer in command of a troop in the Chartered Company's Police were confined to points such as Macloutsie and Tuli, on the line. of com- munication with Mashonaland, so that of the actual work of developing the territory of the Company he has very little to tell. But he has plenty to say as to the failings of various officers in the employ of the Company, and as to their mutual jealousies ; and though we would by no means claim authority as judges of military etiquette, we have been simply astounded at the freedom with which he has reproduced for the public criticisms which he was perfectly entitled to make in his private diaries or letters. Even Mr. Rhodes, the power of whose " magnetic " personality seems to have greatly im- pressed Major Leonard, is not by any means always spared. Thus, writing at Tali, in January, 1891, he says :—" The fact of it is that Rhodes is so inundated with letters of introduction from home that he sends on the bearers to — [the name is given] to enlist them. And so at the risk of spoiling our horses, who are not trained as in the cavalry, we have to teach men who are quite useless to us." And on the next page we read, of the official just men- tioned by name,—" It has struck me all along that it was weak of Rhodes putting a man of his stamp in such a responsible position, but I am informed that it is a reward for dirty work done for Rhodes at Buluwayo." About the same date Major Leonard records that it passes his comprehension why, if the Matabele mean fighting, they are postponing it. "Now is their chance," he continues, " if they only knew it. The rivers are all flooded as far as we know, and communication between here and Victoria, at all events, is interrupted, if not suspended. A troop is in Manica, so is a portion of C troop ; D is stuck on the Lundi. Salisbury and Charter, in parti- cular, are very weakly garrisoned, and the Pioneers are scattered all over the country Yet in the face of all this, such is the fit of economy at headquarters that not a single troop is being raised, and Tye, acting on instructions, will not spend a few pounds to purchase rope from the Pioneers to work the boats across the rivers, and with them supplies ; so, like waggons without oxen, they are useless, and lie here rotting." Major Leonard says, indeed, that "accord- ing to Tye all the forts are provisioned up to Jane [that is, for about six months], so can stand a fairly long siege," but adds, "I don't believe him, because I know what I sent up, and have a tolerably accurate idea of what has gone up since, and am certain that he is far beyond the mark." The above extracts can hardly be said to present pictures of supreme administrative capacity in any quarter, and Mr. Rhodes must have all the large-mindedness with which his warmest admirers credit him, if he is grateful for the compliment involved in the dedication of Major Leonard's book primarily to himself. The rank-and-file of the Company's service, however, who are also included in the dedication, may accept the tribute without any qualm. Of their keenness, cheeriness, and readiness to meet hardship and danger, Major Leonard speaks throughout in the warmest terms.
That Rhodesia had a far-away past well deserving of present study is a fact with which the English public have been made familiar by Mr. Theodore Bent's widely-read book, The Ruined Cities of Mashonaland. The Hon. A. Wilmot, of the Cape of Good Hope Legislative Council, partly at his own expense and partly at that of the British South Africa Company and of Mr. Rhodes, has conducted a further series of elaborate investigations into the history of Monomotapa, the name borne during the middle and early modern ages by the so- called Empire which occupied the great tract of country which practically corresponds with the territory of the South Africa Company south of the Zambesi. The treasures of the Vatican and Lisbon libraries have been thrown open to him, and the result is a book which brings into a small compass a large amount of very interesting infor- mation. We have not space to discuss the necessarily con- jectural, though, as it would seem, fairly solid, grounds for believing that Monomotapa was, if not the only region, at least one of the regions bearing the name of Ophir, from which traders, carried in the combined fleets of Solomon, King of Israel, and his friend Hiram, King of Tyre, brought back gold to their Royal masters, and also that Phoenician adven- turers settled there, and, mingling with the natives, taught them their licentious religion. Something like historical evidences, with names and approximate dates, appears to exist with regard to successive settlements of Arabs, from the eighth to the eleventh centuries of our era, along the East Coast of Africa, reaching at last Sofala, south of the Zambesi, where they established relations of commerce with the gold-producing region of Monomotapa. Later, " when relations became developed," one Daoud, the Arab Sultan of Quiloa, some two hundred miles south of Zanzibar, "founded an establishment at Monomotapa, whose Governors were appointed by him ; this ended in a monopoly of the gold traffic being secured. Sofala and the entire country of Mono- motapa seems to have been ruled from Quiloa during a long succession of years by the descendants of Daoud, until (at the beginning of the sixteenth century) Pedro Alvarez Capral, Jaan de Nova, and at last Vasco da Gama compelled these monarchs to declare themselves tributaries to the King of Portugal." The authority exercised over Monomotapa from Lisbon seems to have been of a fitful and uncertain character, though it would not be difficult to believe that Portuguese writers honestly hold that some of the facts recorded by Mr. Wilmot illustrate a more effective and continuous assertion of power than he would allow. Successful colonists, how- ever, the Portuguese never were. But their nation furnished many devoted missionaries, and Mr. Wilmot gives most in- teresting extracts from documents at the Vatican as to the martyrdom in 1561 of Father Silveira. That crime was com- mitted at the instigation of an Arab, but by order of the Emperor of Monomotapa, several of whose subjects this holy Portuguese priest had converted to Christianity. Father Silveira was a Jesuit, but after his death the Dominican Order provided the missionaries who laboured for the evangelisation of the very extensive dependencies of Portugal in South-Eastern Africa. One of their number, Father Nicolao, suffered martyrdom at the hands of a horde of ferocious people called Zimbas who appear to have been one of the early detachments of that long succession of warlike invaders from the interior, who ultimately swept down to the Cape of Good Hope. The unwarlike Mashonas, it is thought, are the descendants of the dwellers in Monomotapa at the time of the early Portuguese missions. They have been harried and oppressed for generations, but in parts of the country to which their fierce conquerors have not penetrated they present characteristics resembling closely those sketched by one Father Santos in writing of the people of Monomotapa in the sixteenth century. They were not indeed in a highly civilised condition, but they possessed a knowledge of the arts of peace, and in particular metal-working and agri- culture, which divided them very widely from the barbarous races by whom their country has subsequently been overrun. Apparently for more than two centuries Christianity prevailed among them to a considerable extent, for in 1652 it is recorded that one of their Emperors was baptised by the Dominicans, and in 1733 a missionary named Father Antonio dos Prosaies wrote that in Monomotapa there was "a vast congregation and many churches." But the deluge of northern barbarism seems to have swept away every trace of the Christian faith, although, strangely enough, the Mashonas are still found using vessels carved with devices recalling the vastly more remote Phcenician settlements in the country. Mr. Wilmot's presentation of the results of his wide researches is not always quite as consecutive as we might desire, and the value of his book would be considerably enhanced by an index, but he has certainly placed within reach a large amount of infor- mation on a subject of great interest.
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