an army of 20,000 men into the field, would be to pay an unmerited compliment to their power of combination, to their commissariat supplies, and to their general patriotism. But as in late years they have bought a great many ploughs, as they are great growers of corn, and as they have become lovers of trade, lovers of money, growers of wool, and friends of the English,—as they are loyal English subjects,—we will not be indignant with them on account of any falling off in their military capacity.
The Basutos are not Kafirs or Zulus. They are a branch of the Bechuanas a large tribe or rather race of Natives whose own territory lies west of the Transvaal, and between that and the great Kalahari Desert. I have already spoke of the Baralongs of Thaba 'Ncho as having come out from among the same race. Were I to say much of the Bechuanas I should find myself wandering again all over South Africa. I will therefore not pursue them further, merely remarking that they too are become irrepressible, and that before long we shall find ourselves compelled to annex one branch of them after another in connection with Griqualand West and the Diamond Fields.
The first record, in date, which I have read of the Basutos is in a simple volume written by a Missionary, the Rev. E. Cassalis, who was one of a party of French Protestants sent out nearly 50 years ago from Paris to the Cape with the double object of comforting the descendants of the French emigrants and of converting the Natives. It was the fate of M. Cassalis,—who though he writes in English I presume to have been a Frenchman,—to establish a mission at a place
