ollision between the Basutos and the
white men arrived, Moshesh, partly through counsels of the missionaries,
partly from his own prudence, did his best to avoid any fatal breach
with the British Government. Nevertheless, he was several times engaged
in war with the Orange River Boers, and once had to withstand the attack
of a strong British force led by the governor of Cape Colony. But his
tactful diplomacy made him a match for any European opponent, and
carried him through every political danger. Moshesh died, full of years
and honour, about twenty-eight years ago, having built up, out of the
dispersed remnants of broken tribes, a nation which has now, under the
guiding hand of the missionaries, and latterly of the British Government
also, made greater progress in civilization and Christianity than any
other Kafir race. Of its present condition I shall speak in a later
chapter.

We may now turn back to pursue the story of the fortunes of the emigrant
Boers who had remained on the landward or northerly side of the
Quathlamba Range, or had returned thither from Natal. In 1843 they
numbered not more than 15,000 persons all told, possibly less; for,
though after 1838 fresh emigrants from the Colony had joined them, many
had perished in the native wars. Subsequently, down to the end of 1847,
these numbers were increased by others, who returned from Natal,
displeased at the land settlement made there; and while these Natalians
settled, some to the south-west, round Winburg, others farther north,
in the region between Pretoria and the Vaal River, the earlier Boer
occupants of the latter region moved off still farther north, some to
Lydenburg, some to the Zoutpansberg and the country sloping to the
Limpopo River. Thus the emigrant Dutch were now scattered over an area
seven hundred miles long and three hundred miles wide, an area bounded
on the south-east by the Quathlamba mountain-chain, but on the north and
west divided by no natural limit from the great plain which stretches
west to the Atlantic and north to the Zambesi. They were practically
independent, for the colonial government did not attempt to interfere
with their internal affairs. But Britain still claimed that they were,
in strict intendment of law, British subjects,[21] and she gave no
recognition to the governments they set up. To have established any kind
of administration over so wide a territory would have been in any case
difficult for so small a body of pe