ring European powers. It had nothing whatever to
do with the Kafir tribes who dwelt in the country. What are called the
rights of a civilized Power as against the natives rests in some cases
upon treaties made with the chiefs, treaties of whose effect the chiefs
are often ignorant, and in others on the mere will of the European power
which proclaims to the world that it claims the country; and it is held
that the Power which makes the claim must, at least in the latter class
of cases, perfect its claim by actual occupation. In the case of these
new British territories treaties were made with a certain number of
chiefs. One already existed with Lo Bengula, king of the Matabili; but
it merely bound him not to league himself with any other power, and did
not make him a British vassal. It was clear, however, that with so
restless and warlike a race as the Matabili this state of things could
not last long. Lo Bengula had been annoyed at the march of the pioneers
into Mashonaland, and tried to stop them, but was foiled by the
swiftness of their movements. Once they were established there he seems
to have desired to keep the peace; but his young warriors would not
suffer him to do so. They had been accustomed to go raiding among the
feeble and disunited Mashonas, whom they slaughtered and plundered to
their hearts' content. When they found that the Company resented these
attacks, collisions occurred, and the reluctance to fight which Lo
Bengula probably felt counted for little. What he could do he did: he
protected with scrupulous care not only the missionaries, but other
Europeans at his kraal, and, after the war had broken out, he sent
envoys to treat, two of whom, by a deplorable error, were killed by the
advancing column of Bechuanaland imperial police, for as the Company's
officers were not at the moment prepared, either in money or in men, for
a conflict, the imperial government sent a force northward from
Bechuanaland to co-operate with that which the Company had in
Mashonaland. A raid by Matabili warriors on the Mashonas living near
Fort Victoria, whom they called their slaves, precipitated hostilities
(July to October, 1893). The Matabili, whose vain confidence in their
own prowess led them to attack in the open when they ought to have
resorted to bush fighting, were defeated in two battles by the Company's
men. Lo Bengula fled towards the Zambesi and died there (January, 1894)
of fever and despair, as Shere Ali Khan ha