And so it has gone on, through all the years.

Allusion having been made above to the assumption of the Protectorate of Basutoland by Great Britain, it will not be without interest to notice here the circumstances and the motives which led to that act.  It will be seen that there was no aggressiveness nor desire of conquest in this case; but that the protection asked was but too tardily granted on the pathetic and reiterated prayer of the natives suffering from the aggressions of the Transvaal.

The following is from the Biography of Adolphe Mabille, a devoted missionary of the Societe des Missions Evangeliques of Paris, who worked with great success in Basutoland.  His life is written by Mr. Dieterlen (a name well known and highly esteemed in France), and the book has a preface by the famous missionary, Mr. F. Coillard.[6]

“The Boers had long been keeping up an aggressive war against the Basutos (1864 to 1869), so much so that Mr. Mabille’s missionary work was for a time almost destroyed.  The Boers thought they saw in the missionaries’ work the secret of the steady resistance of the Basutos, and of the moral force which prevented them laying down their arms.  They exacted that Mr. Mabille should leave the country at once, which theoretically, they said, belonged to them.

“This good missionary and his friends were subjected to long trials during this hostility of the Boers.  Moshesh, the chief of the Basutos, had for a long time past been asking the Governor of Cape Colony to have him and his people placed under the direction of Great Britain.  The reply from the Cape was very long delayed.  Moshesh, worn out, was about to capitulate at last to the Boers.  Lessuto (the territory of Basutoland) was on the point of being absorbed by the Transvaal.  At the last moment, however, and not a day too soon, there came a letter from the Governor of the Cape announcing to Moshesh that Queen Victoria had consented to take the Basutos under her protection.  It was the long-expected deliverance,—­it was salvation!  At this news the missionaries, with Moshesh, burst into tears, and falling on their knees, gave thanks to God for this providential and almost unexpected intervention.”

The Boers retained a large and fertile tract of Lessuto, but the rest of the country, continues M. Dieterlen, “remained under the Protectorate of a people who, provided peace is maintained, and their commerce is not interfered with, know how to work for the right development of the native people whose lands they annex.”

Mr. Dieterlen introduces into his narrative the following remarks,—­which are interesting as coming, not from an Englishman, but from a Frenchman,—­and one who has had close personal experience of the matters of which he speaks:—­