remain friends.  On this account do I wish to see Lo Bengula, and if I may live so long, and the country here become altogether settled, and the stink which the English brought is first blown away altogether, then I will still ride so far to reach Lo Bengula, and if he still has this letter then he will hear the words from the mouth of the man who now must speak with the pen upon paper, and who, therefore, cannot so easily tell him everything.  The man is a brother’s child of the three brothers that formerly—­now thirty-two years ago—­were at Umzilikatse’s, and then made the peace with him which holds to this day.  He still remembers well when the first Boers, Franz Joubert, Jann Joubert, and Pieter Joubert, came there, and when they made the the peace which is so strong that the vile evil-doers were never able to destroy it, and never shall be able to destroy it as long as there shall be one Boer that lives and Lo Bengula also lives.

Now I wish to send something to give Lo Bengula a present as a token of our friendship.  I send for Lo Bengula with the gentleman who will bring him this letter a blanket and a handkerchief for his great wife, who is the mother of all the Matabele nation.  I will one day come to see their friendship.  The gentleman who brings the letter will tell you about all the work which I have to do here.  Some bad people have incited Kolahing, and so he thought he would make fortifications and fight with us, but he got frightened, and saw that he would be killed, therefore I made him break down the fortifications and pack all the stones in one heap, and he had then to pay 5,000 cattle and 4,000 sheep and goats for his wickedness.  Now there is another chief, Gatsizibe—­he came upon our land and killed three people and plundered them—­he must also pay a fine, or else we will punish him or shoot him, because we will have peace in our country.  Now greetings, great Chief Lo Bengula, from the Commandant-General of the South African Republic for the Government and Administration.

  P.J.  JOUBERT.

A big trek (the Banjailand trek) was organized in 1890 and 1891 by General Joubert and his relatives and supporters to occupy a portion of the territory already proclaimed as under British protection and the administration of the Chartered Company.  The trekkers were turned back at Rhodes’s Drift, stopped by the firmness and courage and tact of Dr. Jameson, who met them alone and unarmed; and also by the proclamation of President Kruger, to whom it had been plainly intimated that the invasion would be forcibly resisted and would inevitably provoke war.  The matter had gone so far that the offices of the Republic of Banjai had already been allotted.  The President’s proclamation instead of being regarded as the barest fulfilment of his obligations—­very grudgingly done under pressure of threats—­was vaunted as an act of supreme magnanimity and generosity, and was used in the bargaining for the cession of Swaziland.