Page:South Africa (1878 Volume 2).djvu/293

 this land, and probably on much more;—how they quarrelled with their cousins the Basutos, who had also branched off from the Bechuanas; and how in the wars between the Free State and the Basutos, the Baralongs, having sided with the Dutch, have been allowed to remain. It is a confused story and would be interesting to no English reader. But it may be interesting to know that there they are, established in their country by treaty, with no fear on their part that they will be swallowed up, and with no immediate intention on the part of the circumambient Dutchmen of swallowing them.

I went to visit the Chief, accompanied by Mr. Höhne the Government Secretary from Bloemfontein, and was very courteously received. I stayed during my sojourn at the house of Mr. Daniel the Wesleyan Minister where I was very comfortably entertained, finding him in a pretty cottage surrounded by flowers, and with just such a spare bedroom as we read of in descriptions of old English farmhouses. There was but one spare bedroom; but, luckily for us, there were two Wesleyan Ministers. And as the other Wesleyan Minister also had a spare bedroom the Government Secretary went there. In other respects we divided our visit, dining at the one house and breakfasting at the other. There is also a clergyman of the Church of England at Thaba 'Ncho; but he is a bachelor and we preferred the domestic comforts of a family. Mr. Daniel does, I think, entertain all the visitors who go to Thaba 'Ncho, as no hotel has as yet been opened in the city of the Baralongs.

Maroco is the Chief at present supreme among the Baralongs, an old man, very infirm by reason of weakness in