Page:The Past, Present and Future Trade of the Cape Colonies with Central Africa.pdf/22

the Colonies and the Zambesi? I would propose that in these different Bechuana native kingdoms small Colonies should be established. I do not say that I would like to take possession of these native kingdoms, not at all; we leave them as they are, entirely at their liberty; but I am sure of it that they will have nothing to say against it. If I go to-day to Montsua and say, “You cannot get more guns, but you are anxious to get possession of all the other things of the white man , for which your heart has taken fancy , therefore, you must produce a hundred times more corn and mealies than you do now. I know parts in your countries which are fertile, but which are not considered so. But I will send you ten or twenty white men who will teach you agriculture. You grant them land and leave them peacefully,” &c. In that way I believe the natives would reap great benefit from the white man, and vice versâ, and I am sure that there are many hundreds of families to be found who like to work—not emigrants or adventurers who only go in to enrich themselves within a few years, and such men are not the proper men to establish small Colonies in these kingdoms, and those colonists would form a kind of chain between our Colonies and the interior of Africa. It would be a kind of resting-place when the traders go in, which they have not at present; and when they go in they have simply to die, and often to suffer the greatest hardship. All these difficulties would be met if there were resting stations; and in the same way I believe that if the question could be put to Zubago, with regard to opening up Central Africa, and if we could get a footing in the Mashona country, I believe the present ruler of the Matabele would take it into consideration, and would not cause so many troubles as he has done. The Matabele do not care for agriculture, but only for fighting; but when they see all these nations around them enriched through agriculture and united by their peaceful operations, they (I believe) will give way to better intentions, and improve gradually, the more as the warlike spirit of the Zulu Matebele has suffered the greatest defeat through the subjugation of the Zulus. I would advise for only gaining this to hold a meeting of the chiefs of the different countries, and bringing this matter before them. I believe that they would assemble. I believe that, in a few years to come, we might see these lot of men living between the Vaal and the Zambesi—a lot of good husbandry men, who would supply the civilised parts of Africa with the necessary quantity of grain and other necessary products. During late years we were obliged to import grain. Now , if these natives, of whom thousands at the present moment only await the opportunity, were to take to agri-