Basutoland Sentence Examples

Basutoland, or Lesuto (Lesotho) as the natives call it, forms the south-eastern edge of the interior tableland of South Africa, and has a rugged and broken surface with a mean elevation of 6000 ft.

The Caledon also, sweeping southward, unites with the Orange beyond the frontiers of Basutoland.

Basutoland is entirely occupied by the upper division (Stormberg series) of the Karroo formation.

Heaths, generally somewhat rare in South Africa outside the Cape peninsula, are abundant in Basutoland.

There are numerous mission stations throughout Basutoland, to several of which Biblical names have been given, such as Shiloh, Hermon, Cana, Bethesda, Berea.

Basutoland has no public debt.

Until the beginning of the 19th century Basutoland appears to have been uninhabited save by wandering Bushmen, whose rude rock pictures are to be found in several parts of the Drakensberg.

At the same time, if the Basuto were eager for cattle, the Boers were eager for land; and their encroachments on the territories of the Basuto led to a proclamation in 1842 from Sir George Napier, the then governor of Cape Colony, forbidding further encroachments on Basutoland.

In response to this request, the British authorities decided to take over Basutoland, and a proclamation of annexation was issued on the 12th of March 1868.

The Free State strongly resented the British annexation of Basutoland, but after much negotiation the treaty of Aliwal North was concluded (1869) between the Free State and the high commissioner.

This treaty defined the boundary between the Free State and Basutoland, whereby the fertile strip of country west of the Caledon river, known as the Conquered Territory, was finally transferred to the Free State, and the remainder of Basutoland was recognized as a portion of the British dominions.

The turbulent Basuto warriors did not remain quiet for any length of time, and in 1879 Moirosi, a chief residing in the southern portion of Basutoland, openly repudiated colonial rule.

In 1880 the Cape government felt sufficiently strong to extend to Basutoland the Cape Peace Preservation Act of 1878.

Its "'ar' execution in Basutoland, however, proved an extremely difficult task, and was never entirely accomplished.

Peace in Basutoland was not announced until the end of 1882.

The subjection of Basutoland to the control of the Cape government had by this time proved unsatisfactory, both to the Basuto and to Cape Colony.

Consequently, in 1884, Basutoland ceased to be a portion of the Cape Colony and became a British crown colony.

Trade increased, and in 1891 Basutoland was admitted to the customs union, which already existed between Orange Free State, Cape Colony and British Bechuanaland.

When Lord (then Sir Alfred) Milner visited Basutoland in 1898, on his way to Bloemfontein, he was received by 15,000 mounted Basuto.

For current information see the annual report on Basutoland (Colonial Office, London).

Many books dealing with South Africa generally have chapters relating to Basutoland, e.g.

It is the centre of a thriving agricultural district and has a considerahle trade in wool, grain, cattle and horses with Basutoland, Pondoland and the neighbouring regions of Natal.

Between August 1897 and May 1898 he travelled through Cape Colony, the Bechuanaland Protectorate, Rhodesia and Basutoland.

It rises in Basutoland, less than 200 m.

This is the case in the Mont-aux-Sources (11,170 ft.) and Cathkin Peak or Champagne Castle (10,357 ft.); the top of the third great height, Giant's Castle (9657 ft.), is in Basutoland, but its seaward slopes are in Natal.

The heaths and proteads common at the Cape peninsula, in Basutoland and other parts of South Africa, are rare in Natal, but almost any species of the flora of semi-tropical and temperate countries introduced attains perfection.

Prompt action by Sir Benjamin Pine, then lieutenant-governor of the colony, together with help from the Cape and Basutoland, prevented the success of Langalibalele's plan, and his own tribe, numbering some io,000 persons, was the only one which rebelled.

It was proposed to include in Natal such portions of the Harrismith and Vrede districts as were comprised by a line following the Elands river north from its source on the Basutoland border to its junction with the Wilge river, and thence drawn straight to the point where the boundaries of Natal, the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony meet on the Drakensberg.

He served in the Boer war of 1880-81; was resident commissioner of Basutoland from 1884 to 1893, and after leaving Zululand became resident commissioner in Southern Rhodesia (1898).

Three-fourths of the country lies north of these hills and is typical veld; the valley of the Caledon, sheltered eastward by the Maluti Mountains in Basutoland, is well watered and extremely fertile.

The Caledon, from its source in Mont aux Sources to Jammerberg Drift near Wepener, forms the boundary of the province, the southern bank being in Basutoland; below Wepener the land on both sides of the Caledon is in the province.

Another branch from the same line crosses the Caledon to Maseru, Basutoland.

Basutoland comes fourth.

The Roman Catholics number 2 30% of the whites, the head of their church in the province being a vicar apostolic. At the head of the Anglican community, which is in full communion with the Church of England, is the bishop of Bloemfontein, whose diocese, founded in 1863, includes not only the Orange Free State, but Basutoland, Griqualand West and British Bechuanaland.

The intervention of the governor of Cape Colony led to the of the conclusion of the treaty of Aliwal North (Feb.12,1869), which defined the borders between the Orange Free State and Basutoland.

The Basutoland difficulties were no sooner arranged than the Free Staters found themselves confronted with a serious difficulty on their western border.

In 1898 the Free State also acquiesced in the new convention arranged with regard to the Customs Union between the Cape Colony, Natal, Basutoland and the Bechuanaland Protectorate.

Order is maintained by a small force of semi-military police recruited in Basutoland and officered by Europeans.

Its chief mission has been in Basutoland, since extended to the Zambesi; but it has also followed French colonial extension, establishing missions in Senegambia, the French Congo, Madagascar and Tahiti.

At the head of their organizations are vicars-apostolic for the Cape (eastern district), the Cape (western district), Natal, Orange River, Kimberley and the Transvaal, and prefects-apostolic for Basutoland and Zambezi (or Rhodesia).

The policy of non-interference proclaimed in 1854 had proved impracticable, and the annexation of Basutoland was an open confession of the fact.

These troubles were finally ended in 1884, when the country was given up by the Cape and became a crown colony (see Basutoland).

The native protectorates, Basutoland, Swaziland and Bechuanaland had been left by the South Africa Act under direct imperial control.

In 1875 Basutoland formed part of the colony; in 1891 Transkei, Tembuland, Griqualand East, Griqualand West and Walfish Bay had been incorporated, and Basutoland had been disannexed; and in 1904 Pondoland and British Bechuanaland had been added.

The 1875 census gave the population of the colony proper at 720,984, and that of Basutoland at 128,176.

On the urgent petition of their chief Moshesh, they were proclaimed British subjects in 1868, and their territory became part of the colony in 1871 (see Basutoland).

A wave of feeling spread amongst the different Kaffir tribes on the colonial frontier, and after the Gaika-Galeka War there followed in 1879 a rising in Basutoland under Moirosi, whose cattle-raiding had for some time!past caused considerable trouble.

In 1880 the colonial authorities endeavoured to extend to Basutoland the Peace Preservation Act of 1878, under which a general disarmament of the Basutos was attempted.

The imperial government then took over Basutoland as a crown colony, on the understanding that Cape Colony should contribute for administrative purposes £18,000 annually.

In 1883, during a debate on the Basutoland Dis-annexation Bill, Rhodes openly charged Mr Hofmeyr in the House with a desire to see a " United States of South Africa under its own flag."

The colonies of British Bechuanaland and Basutoland were now taken into the customs union existing between the Orange Free State and Cape Colony.

Just at the same time the Cape ministry telegraphed to him to ask if he would go to the Cape to consult with the government as regards settling affairs in Basutoland.

Merriman, a member of the ministry, who, for political reasons, asked him not to go to Basutoland, but to take the appointment of commandant of the colonial forces at King William's Town.

After a few months, which were spent in reorganizing the colonial forces, Gordon was requested to go up to Basutoland to try to arrange a settlement with the chief Masupha, one of the most powerful of the Basuto leaders.

That Gordon's views were correct is proved by the fact that a few years later Basutoland was separated from Cape Colony and placed directly under the imperial government.

In 1843 a treaty was signed with Moshesh on the lines of that already arranged with Waterboer, the Griqua chief (see Griqtaland), creating Basutoland a native state under British protection.

In 1871 Basutoland was annexed to Cape Colony, the area at that time being given as 10,300 sq.

Clans representing the southern Bakuena were welded together into one tribe in the 19th century, and are now known as Basuto (see Basutoland).

The burghers thus reinforced gained at length a decisive victory over their great antagonist, every stronghold in Basutoland save Thaba Bosigo being stormed.

The country lying to the north of the Orange river and west of the Caledon, formerly a part of Basutoland, was ceded to the Free State (see Basutoland).