TOPIC:

1900 - Mafeking siege day 185 (85%). Wepener siege day 7 (41%). Hart, Brabant, and Chermside start for the relief of Dalgety. Boer delegates arrive at the Hague.

In Mafeking:

Easter-day. A quiet day and the big gun still undiscoverable. The various churches were well attended at all the services. In the afternoon we had sports, organized by Captain Cowan and the officers of the Bechuanaland Rifles. They were a great success, and the costume race, won by Mr. Daniel, B. S. A. P., dressed as a hospital nurse, Mr. Dunlop Smith, A. V. D., as the "Geisha" second, Captain Scholefield, B.S.A.P., as a bride third, was a great success, and one of the most amusing contests we have had here.

Yesterday it was indeed bad luck for the poor fellows of Fort Ayr garrison who had remained under cover during shell fire and thought it was all over, for when Troopers Molloy and Hassell came out to get their coffee the last high velocity sixteen-pound shell struck the sand bags overhead, killing Molloy dead and mortally wounding Hassell, breaking both his legs. Mr. Greenfield tells me the way he bore his sufferings was literally heroical, complaining not at all, and only asking for a cigarette.

I have not previously alluded to the "sowen" porridge, which is now a part of the rations, and has for a long time done much to solve the question of the food supply of Mafeking. It was first made by Private Sims out of the husks of oats for the consumption of himself and sundry of his comrades, but on this fact being ascertained by the indefatigable Captain Ryan, Sims was put on to make it on a larger scale for the natives. The European portion of the garrison and inhabitants gladly bought it, and it is now, as I said before, an acceptable portion of the daily rations. The natives, too, have had great windfalls lately in the matter of locusts, which are really not bad eating, and at any rate much appreciated by them. The feeding of the natives, indeed, at all times a difficult question, is, I may say, practically solved, except in the case of the Shangans. These unfortunate devils, who are equally repulsive, morally and physically, as far as I have seen, are detested by the other natives, and consequently it is very hard to look after them property. The Basutos, Zulus, &c, come to be fed naturally, whereas the Shangan is like a wild beast, and only seems to crawl away and die. So much is this so that on Mr. Vere Stent's ordering his Basuto servant to make some soup for a starving Shangan he had picked up, the Basuto indignantly protested that " the Shangans were bad men and killed missionaries," however, the man in question was rescued in time and is still living. They form luckily an insignificant proportion of the native community.

After the siege is over and the Queen has got her own again it is to be hoped that the unswerving loyalty of the Baralongs will not be over-looked. You hear on all sides that the Baralongs are not a fighting race, and the Zulus and any other race you may mention would wipe them out. Incidentally the Zulus tried to in their big trek north, and the wily Baralong, fighting his usual fight, had considerably the best of it.

In more modern times he successfully withstood the Boers, not, however, an attack on the present scale. After the first day's shelling the mouthpiece of the Baralong tribe, Silas Molemo, came up to Mr. Bell, Resident Magistrate, and said to him, u Never mind this we will stick to you and see it through," which they certainly have done. They are not a tribe who would make a dashing attack or to use the expression " be bossed up " to do things they don't particularly want to, but given a defensive position they will hang on to it for all they are worth as they have proved many times during the war in their defence of their stadt. They have had their cattle raided, their out-lying homesteads destroyed, their crops for this year are nil, and all through a time when the outlook to a native mind must have seemed most black they have unswervingly and uncomplainingly stuck to us and never hesitated to do anything they were called upon to do.

I cannot do better than give an account of the unsuccessful attempt to bring in cattle from Colonel Plumer. Mathakong, the leader of the party, had forty men under his command. He and the Baralongs have so far been very successful in getting in cattle; by profession a cattle thief, but only on a large scale, there is nothing mean about Mathakong. Colonel Plumer selected some hundred head of cattle in good condition and it was these that the party endeavoured to bring in. When they were some distance out it was reported to Mathakong that the Boers knew that they were coming and were going to try to intercept them. However, as he had been given to understand that it was desirable to get the cattle in he determined to make the attempt, as at any rate they might get some in, and if he stayed where he was the Boers would probably surround him. The Boers got on both flanks of the cattle, assisted by the Bapulanas (the Rietfontein rebel natives), and heavy firing began. The Baralongs pushed forward with cattle falling all round them and behind the bodies of the cattle kept up a running fight until all their ammunition was gone. They stuck to them till only fifteen head were left, and then when they left, the Boers came up cheering loudly. There were two wounded men amongst the cattle and the Boers according to their custom came up and interrogated them and then shot one and cut the other's throat. The Baralongs then came into Mafeking dragging old Mathakong with them as they could not otherwise persuade him to leave the live cattle. He was much upset by the loss of the cattle, but the fight did not worry him at all, and he said that had the cattle not been in such good condition he would have rushed them along faster and got most of them in. This, however, is only one of the many cases in which, the Baralongs have done, or have endeavoured to do good service. They lost four killed and seven wounded and account for their small loss by the protection afforded them by the herd amongst which they fought their running fight.