CHAPTER XIII.

Thaba 'Ncho.

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 landholding 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 hut; 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