THE name written above is to be pronounced Tabaancho and belongs to one of the most interesting places in South Africa. Thaba ’Ncho is a native town in which live about 6,000 persons of the Baralong tribe under a Chief of their own and in accordance with their own laws. There is nothing like this elsewhere on the continent of South Africa, or, as I believe, approaching it. Elsewhere it is not the custom of the South African Natives to live in towns. They congregate in kraals, more or less large,—which kraals are villages surrounded generally by a fence, and containing from three or four huts up to perhaps a couple of hundred. Each hut has been found to contain an average of something less than four persons. But Thaba ’Ncho is a town, not fenced in, with irregular streets, composed indeed of huts, but constructed with some idea of municipal regularity. There has been no counting of these people, but from what information I could get I think I am safe in saying that as many as 6,000 of them live at Thaba ’Ncho. There are not above half-a-dozen European towns in South Africa which have a greater number of inhabitants, and in the vicinity of Thaba ’Ncho there are other Baralong towns or villages,—within the distance of a few miles,—containing from five hundred to a thousand inhabitants each. They possess altogether a territory extending about 35 miles across each way, and within this area fifteen thousand Natives are located, living altogether after their own fashion and governed in accordance with their own native laws.
Their position is the more remarkable because their territory is absolutely surrounded by that of the Orange Free State,—as the territory of the Orange Free State is surrounded by the territories of Great Britain. The Republic which we know as the Free State is as it were an island within the ocean of the British Colonies, and the land of the Baralongs is again an island circled by the smaller sea of the Republic. And this is still more remarkable from the fact that whereas the Natives have been encouraged on all sides to make locations on British territory they have been altogether banished as a land-holding independent people from the Free State. Throughout the British Colonies of South Africa the number of the Natives exceeds that of the Europeans by about eight to one. In the Republic the Europeans exceed the Natives by two to one. And the coloured people who remain there,—or who have emigrated thither, which has been more generally the case,—are the servants employed in the towns and by the farmers. And yet, in spite of this, a separate nation of 15,000 persons lives quietly and, I must say, upon the whole prosperously within the Free State borders, altogether hemmed in, but in no way oppressed.
It would take long to explain how a branch of the great tribe of the Bechuanas got itself settled on this land,—on this land, and probably on much more;—how they quarrelled with their cousins the Basutos, who had also branched off from the Bechuanas; and how in the wars between the Free State and the Basutos, the Baralongs, having sided with the Dutch, have been allowed to remain. It is a confused story and would be interesting to no English reader. But it may be interesting to know that there they are, established in their country by treaty, with no fear on their part that they will be swallowed up, and with no immediate intention on the part of the circumambient Dutchmen of swallowing them.
I went to visit the Chief, accompanied by Mr. Höhne the Government Secretary from Bloemfontein, and was very courteously received. I stayed during my sojourn at the house of Mr. Daniel the Wesleyan Minister where I was very comfortably entertained, finding him in a pretty cottage surrounded by flowers, and with just such a spare bedroom as we read of in descriptions of old English farmhouses. There was but one spare bedroom; but, luckily for us, there were two Wesleyan Ministers. And as the other Wesleyan Minister also had a spare bedroom the Government Secretary went there. In other respects we divided our visit, dining at the one house and breakfasting at the other. There is also a clergyman of the Church of England at Thaba ’Ncho; but he is a bachelor and we preferred the domestic comforts of a family. Mr. Daniel does, I think, entertain all the visitors who go to Thaba ’Ncho, as no hotel has as yet been opened in the city of the Baralongs.
Maroco is the Chief at present supreme among the Baralongs, an old man, very infirm by reason of weakness in his feet, who has not probably many more years of royalty before him. What few Europeans are living in the place have their houses low on the plain, while the huts of the Natives have been constructed on a hill. The word Thaba means hill in Maralong language,—in which language also the singular Maralong becomes Baralong in the plural. The King Maroco is therefore “the Maralong” par excellence;—whereas he is the King of the Baralongs. The Europeans living there,—in addition to the Ministers,—are three or four shopkeepers who supply those wants of the Natives with which an approach to civilization has blessed them. We walked up the hill with Mr. Daniel and had not been long among the huts when we were accosted by one Sapena and his friends. Now there is a difficulty with these people as to the next heir to the throne,—which difficulty will I fear be hard of solving when old King Maroco dies. His son by his great wife married in due order a quantity of wives among whom one was chosen as the “great wife” as was proper. In a chapter further on a word or two will be found as to this practice. But the son who was the undoubted heir died before his great wife had had a child. She then went away, back to the Bechuanas from whom she had come, and among whom she was a very royal Princess, and there married Prince Sapena. This marriage was blessed with a son. But by Bechuana law, by Baralong law also,—and I believe by Jewish law if that were anything to the purpose,—the son of the wife of the heir becomes the heir even though he be born from another father. These people are very particular in all matters of inheritance, and therefore, when it began to be thought that Maroco was growing old and near his time, they sent an embassy to the Bechuanas for the boy. He had arrived just before my visit and was then absent on a little return journey with the suite of Bechuanas who had brought him. By way of final compliment he had gone back with them a few miles so that I did not see him. But his father Sapena had been living for some time with the Baralongs, having had some difficulties among the Bechuanas with the Royal Princess his wife, and, being a man of power and prudence, had become half regent under the infirm old Chief. There are fears that when Maroco dies there may be a contest as to the throne between Sapena and his own son. Should the contest amount to a war the Free State will probably find it expedient to settle the question by annexing the country.
Sapena is a well built man, six feet high, broad in the shoulders, and with the gait of a European. He was dressed like a European, with a watch and chain at his waistcoat, a round flat topped hat, and cord trowsers, and was quite clean. Looking at him as he walks no one would believe him to be other than a white man. He looks to be about thirty, though he must be much older. He was accompanied by three or four young men who were all of the blood royal, and who were by no means like to him either in dress or manner. He was very quiet, answering our questions in few words, but was extremely courteous. He took us first into a large hut belonging to one of the family, which was so scrupulously clean as to make me think for a moment that it was kept as a show hat; but those which we afterwards visited, though not perhaps equal to the first in neatness, were too nearly so to have made much precaution necessary. The hut was round as are all the huts, but had a door which required no stooping. A great portion of the centre,—though not quite the centre,—was occupied by a large immoveable round bin in which the corn for the use of the family is stored. There was a chair, and a bed, and two or three settees. If I remember right, too, there was a gun standing against the wall. The place certainly looked as though nobody was living in it. Sapena afterwards took us to his own hut which was also very spacious, and here we were seated on chairs and had Kafir beer brought to us in large slop-bowls. The Kafir beer is made of Kafir corn, and is light and sour. The Natives when they sit down to drink swallow enormous quantities of it. A very little sufficed with me, as its sourness seemed to be its most remarkable quality. There were many Natives with us but none of them drank when we did. We sat for ten minutes in Sapena’s house, and then were taken on to that of the King. I should say however that in the middle of Sapena’s hut there stood a large iron double bedstead with mattras which I was sure had come from Mr. Heal’s establishment in Tottenham Court Road.
Round all these huts,—those that is belonging to the royal family and those no doubt of other magnates,—there is a spacious courtyard enclosed by a circular fence of bamboo canes, stuck into the ground perpendicularly, standing close to each other and bound together. The way into the courtyard is open, but the circle is brought round so as to overlap the entrance and prevent the passer-by from looking in. It is not, I imagine, open to every one to run into his neighbour’s courtyard,—especially into those belonging to royalty. As we were going to the King’s Palace the King himself met us on the road surrounded by two or three of his councillors. One old councillor stuck close to him always, and was, I was told, never absent from his side. They had been children together and Maroco cannot endure to be without him. We had our interview out in the street, with a small crowd of Baralongs around us. The Chief was not attired at all like his son’s wife’s husband. He had an old skin or kaross around him, in which he continually shrugged himself as we see a beggar doing in the cold, with a pair of very old trowsers and a most iniquitous slouch hat upon his head. There was nothing to mark the King about his outward man;—and, as he was dressed, so was his councillor. But it is among the “young bloods” of a people that finery is always first to be found.
Maroco shook hands with each of us twice before he began to talk, as did all his cortege. Then he told us of his bodily ailments,—how his feet were so bad that he could hardly walk, and how he never got any comfort anywhere because of his infirmity. And yet he was standing all the time. He sent word to President Brand that he would have been in to see him long ago,—only that his feet were so bad! This was probably true as Maroco, when he goes into Bloemfontein, always expects to have his food and drink found for him while there, and to have a handsome present to carry back with him. He grunted and groaned, poor old King, and then told Sapena to take us to his hut, shaking hands with us all twice again. We went to his hut, and there sitting in the spacious court we found his great wife. She was a woman about forty years of age, but still remarkably handsome, with brilliant quick eyes, of an olive rather than black colour. She wore a fur hat or cap,—somewhat like a pork-pie hat,—which became her wonderfully; and though she was squatting on the ground with her knees high and her back against the fence,—not of all attitudes the most dignified,—still there was much of dignity about her. She shook hands with us, still seated, and then bade one of the girls take us into the hut. There was nothing in this especial, except that a portion of it was screened off by furs, behind which we did not of course penetrate. All these huts are very roomy and perfectly light. They are lofty, so that a man cannot touch the roof in the centre, and clean. Into the ordinary Kafir hut the visitor has to creep,—and when there he creeps out at once because of the heat, the smell, and the smoke. These were of course royal huts, but the huts of all the Baralongs are better than those of the Kafirs.
The King or Chief administers justice sitting outside in his Court with his Councillors round him; and whatever he pronounces, with their assistance,—that is law. His word without theirs would be law too,—but would be law probably at the expense of his throne or life if often so pronounced. There are Statutes which are well understood, and a Chief who persistently ignored the Statutes would not long be Chief. For all offences except one the punishment is a fine,—so many cattle. This if not paid by the criminal must be paid by the criminal’s family. It may be understood therefore how disagreeable it must be to be nearly connected by blood with a gay Lothario or a remorseless Iago. The result is that Lotharios and Iagos are apt to come to sudden death within the bosoms of their own families. Poisoning among the Baralongs is common, but no other kind of violence. The one crime beyond a fine,—which has to be expiated by death from the hand of an executioner,—is rebellion against the Chief. For any mutiny Death is the doom. At the time of my visit Sapena was exercising the chief authority because of Maroco’s infirmity. Everything was done in Maroco’s name, though Sapena did it. As to both,—the old man and the young,—I was assured that they were daily drunk. Maroco is certainly killing himself by drink. Sapena did not look like a drunkard.
President Brand assured me that in nothing that they do are these people interfered with by the Free State or its laws. If there be thieving over the border of the Free State the Landroost endeavours to settle it with the Chief who is by no means averse to summary extradition. But there is not much of such theft, the Baralongs knowing that their independence depends on their good behaviour. “But a bloody Chief,”—I asked the President,—“such as Cetywayo is represented to be among the Zulus! If he were to murder his people right and left would that be allowed by your Government?” He replied that as the Baralongs were not given to violent murder, there would never probably be a case requiring decision on this point. In my own mind I have no doubt but that if they did misbehave themselves badly they would be at once annexed.
Maroco and all his family, and indeed the great body of the people, are heathen. There is a sprinkling of Christianity, sufficient probably to justify the two churches, but I doubt whether Thaba ’Ncho is peculiarly affected by missionary zeal. There are schools there, and, as it happened, I did hear some open air singing,—in the open air because the chapel was under repair. But I was not specially invited “to hear our children sing a hymn,” as was generally the case where the missionary spirit was strong. At Thaba ’Ncho the medical skill of the pastor seemed to be valued quite as much as his theological power. There was no other doctor, and as Mr. Daniel attended them without fee it is not surprising that much of his time was occupied in this manner.
I have mentioned the extent of the land belonging to the people. On the produce of this land they live apparently without want. They cultivate much of it, growing mealies, or maize, and Kafir corn. They also have flocks of cattle and sheep,—and earn some money by the sale of wool. But it seems to me that so large a number of people, living on such an extent of land, which of course is not closely cultivated, may be subject at any time to famine. If so they could apply only to the Free State for assistance, and such assistance, if given to any extent, would probably lead to annexation. The distribution of the land is altogether in the hands of the Chief who apportions it as he pleases, but never, it seems, withdraws that which has been given, without great cause. It is given out to sub-tribes and again redistributed among the people.
That it cannot as yet have been found to be scanty I gather from the fact that on the road between Thaba ’Ncho and Bloemfontein I found an intelligent Scotch Africander settled on a farm within the territory of the Baralongs. Here he had built for himself a comfortable house, had made an extensive garden,—with much labour in regard to irrigation,—and had flocks and herds and corn. I questioned him as to his holding of the land and he told me that it had been given to him without rent or payment of any kind by Maroco, because he was a friend of the tribe. But he perfectly understood that he held it only during Maroco’s pleasure, which could not be valid for a day after Maroco’s death. Nevertheless he was going on with his irrigation and spoke of still extended operations. When I hinted that Maroco was mortal, he admitted the precarious nature of his tenure, but seemed to think that the Baralongs would never disturb him. No doubt he well understood his position and was aware that possession is nine points of the law among the Baralongs as it is among the English or Scotch. Even should the territory be annexed, as must ultimately be its fate, his possession will probably be strengthened by a freehold grant.