[11] "The Past and Future of the Kafir Races," p. 198.
[12] The common price of a wife is from ten to twelve head of cattle, but a strong and young woman of good muscular frame often commands as many as fifty oxen. When the sale is completed, the woman must go into slavery, and, if she run away, is frequently hunted for with dogs.
[14] The Hon. Mr. Godlonton, in his case for the colonists, gives us details of one of the very numerous cases of torture inflicted on men whose only guilt was their wealth, and who fell victims to the avarice of their tormentors. Although this poor victim implored for death, it was not granted to him until he had been literally roasted. Red-hot stones were placed on his groin, and when they slipped off, were held in position by means of sticks. Another very common torture is that of smearing a victim, and then allowing him to be slowly eaten up by black ants or scorpions, whose thousand bites and stings produce lingering and excruciating torture. All these infernal proceedings take place in connection with the spiritualist religion, and are carried out by the order and direction of its priests.
[15] For proof of these charges see "Jeppe-Transvaal Book Almanack for 1879." Gideon Steyn, who reported the existence of slavery to Sir P. E. Wodehouse in 1869, was fired at in Potchefstroom.
[16] Sir Garnet Wolseley, quoted in the _Contemporary Review_, June, 1879.
[17] For a description of this ceremony, see Baines's South Africa. This traveller was present on the occasion.
[18] Memorandum by his Excellency the High Commissioner, January, 1879.
[19] The High Commissioner writes: "Government has done its best to avoid war by every means consistent with honour, and now feels bound to use the power with which it has been entrusted to secure the future peace and safety alike of her Majesty's dominions in South Africa, and of the Zulus and all other neighbouring tribes and people."--Memorandum of his Excellency the High Commissioner, 13th January, 1879.
With reference to the disputed Transvaal land awarded to Cetywayo, it has been argued that the territory in question should have been handed over to this savage potentate without any reference to the rights of private proprietors who had settled down and acquired domiciles. The Chief Justice of the Cape Colony, Sir J. H. De Villiers (Blue Book, July, 1879), gives a very lengthy and interesting opinion upon this subject. His Honour holds that if negotiations had been entered into between the British Government and Cetywayo for the purpose of a convention defining the mutual rights of the parties, the equitable view would have been entitled to as much weight as the legal view. The arguments used by Sir Bartle Frere are so weighty, that if they had been addressed to a potentate who is capable of understanding them, and at the same time is open to reason, they would certainly have induced him to relinquish his private rights to the land, retaining only his sovereign rights.