article that they greatly value; I promised to increase
his wages, and gave him five shillings more than he was
entitled 'to : that same night he disappeared, after stealing
a box of gUn-caps. Before going he said to my headman
that there was something wrong with . me; I had been
giving him a lot of things without reason, and he thought
that, as I was shortly going out of Matabeleland, I must
have had some evil design on him, and I had probably
done all this to decoy him away, and to bewitch him
when once we got out of his country!
From an economic point of view the Matabele are a
useless race. They are destructive, despise work, and
have always considered their weaker neighbours as a
legitimate prey. The women, in their eyes, are only
worth slightly more than cattle, merely representing their
value in oxen. They are only appreciated for the work
they are able to perform and the number of children they
bring to their husbands; our conception of love is unintelligible
to them. Of course they are susceptible of
improvement, but it will take several generations before
the deeply-rooted prejudices that they are imbued with
can be eradicated. The first thing that must be done,
now the rebellion is over, is to set to work against
the witch-doctors, but great care will have to be taken
not to do so in a hurry, as persecution is so great an
incentive to proselytism.
Apart from the great service that has been rendered
by the Chartered Company to the Empire in the addition
of this valuable country to the possessions of Great
Britain, the crushing of the Matabele, as a ruling power,
has been an immense step towards the civilization of
Africa. It has saved thousands of natives of neighbouring
tribes from murder and incessant persecution, enabling
them to carry out in peace their agricultural labour; and
I have no doubt that the next generation of Matabele
will learn to work, in order to satisfy the new wants that
are certain to arise among them through daily contact
166
with civilization. To the close observer it is already a
remarkable fact that the Matabele have, during the recent
rebellion, but seldom adopted their old method of fighting;
and if this rebellion is an incident to be deplored, I feel
certain that when it has been quelled the country will
arise from the ordeal with a fresh vitality, and the natives
will feel for the whites a much deeper respect than they
ever did before.