attention to the following appeals from the hearts of these oppressed people. They got very excited, and asked whether it was thought that they had no feelings or hearts, that they were thus treated as a stick or piece of tobacco, which could be passed from hand to hand without question.

Umgombarie, a Zoutpansberg Chief, said: "I am Umgombarie. I have fought with the Boers, and have many wounds, and they know that what I say is true. I will never consent to place myself under their rule. I belong to the English Government. I am not a man who eats with both sides of his jaw at once; I only use one side. I am English. I have said."

Silamba said: "I belong to the English. I will never return under the Boers. You see me, a man of my rank and position; is it right that such as I should be seized and laid on the ground and flogged, as has been done to me and other Chiefs?"

Sinkanhla said: "We hear and yet do not hear, we cannot understand. We are troubling you, Chief, by talking in this way; we hear the Chiefs say that the Queen took the country because the people of the country wished it, and again, that the majority of the owners of the country did not wish her rule, and that therefore the country was given back. We should like to have the man pointed out from among us black people who objects to the rule of the Queen. We are the real owners of the country; we were here when the Boers came, and without asking leave, settled down and treated us in every way badly. The English Government then came and took the country; we have now had four years of rest, and peaceful and just rule. We have been called here to-day, and are told that the country, our country, has been given to the Boers by the Queen. This is a thing which surprises, us. Did the country, then, belong to the Boers? Did it not belong to our fathers and forefathers before us, long before the Boers came here? We have heard that the Boers' country is at the Cape. If the Queen wishes to give them their land, why does she not give them back the Cape?"

Umyethile said: "We have no heart for talking. I have returned to the country from Sechelis, where I had to fly from Boer oppression. Our hearts are black and heavy with grief to-day at the news told us. We are in agony; our intestines are twisting and writhing inside of us, just as you see a snake do when it is struck on the head. We do not know what has become of us, but we feel dead. It may be that the Lord may change the nature of the Boers, and that we will not be treated like dogs and beasts of burden as formerly; but we have no hope of such a change, and we leave you with heavy hearts and great apprehension as to the future."[3] In his Report, Mr. Shepstone (Secretary for Native Affairs) says, "One chief, Jan Sibilo, who had been personally threatened with death by the Boers after the English should leave, could not restrain his feelings, but cried like a child."

In 1881, the year of the retrocession of the Transvaal, a Royal Commission was appointed from England to enquire into the internal state of affairs in the South African Republic. On the 9th May of that year, an affidavit was sworn to before that Commission by the Rev. John Thorne, of St. John the Evangelist, Lydenburg, Transvaal. He stated: "I was appointed to the charge of a congregation in Potchefstroom when the Republic was under the Presidency of Mr. Pretorius. I noticed one morning, as I walked through the streets, a number of young natives whom I knew to be strangers. I enquired where they came from. I was told that they had just been brought from Zoutpansberg. This was the locality from which slaves were chiefly brought at that time, and were traded for under the name of 'Black Ivory.' One of these slaves belonged to Mr. Munich, the State Attorney." In the fourth paragraph of the same affidavit, Mr. Thorne says that "the Rev. Dr. Nachtigal, of the Berlin Missionary Society, was the interpreter for Shatane's people, in the private office of Mr. Roth, and, at the close of the interview, told me what had occurred. On my expressing surprise, he went on to relate that he had information on native matters which would surprise me more. He then produced the copy of a register, kept in the Landdrost's office, of men, women, and children, to the number of four hundred and eighty (480), who had been disposed of by one Boer to another for a consideration. In one case an ox was given in exchange, in another goats, in a third a blanket, and so forth. Many of these natives he (Mr. Nachtigal) knew personally. The copy was certified as true and correct by an official of the Republic."[4]

On the 16th May, 1881, a native, named Frederick Molepo, was examined by the Royal Commission. The following are extracts from his examination:—

"(Sir Evelyn Wood.) Are you a Christian?—Yes.

"(Sir H. de Villiers.) How long were you a slave?—Half-a-year.

"How do you know that you were a slave? Might you not have been an apprentice?—No, I was not apprenticed.

"How do you know?—They got me from my parents, and ill-treated me.

"(Sir Evelyn Wood.) How many times did you get the stick?—Every day.

"(Sir H. de Villiers.) What did the Boers do with you when they caught you?—They sold me.

"How much did they sell you for?—One cow and a big pot."

On the 28th May, 1881, amongst the other documents-handed in for the consideration of the Royal Commission, is the statement of a Headman, whose name also it was considered advisable to omit in the Blue book, lest the Boers should take vengeance on him. He says, "I say, that if the English Government dies I shall die too; I would rather die than be under the Boer Government. I am the man who helped to make bricks for the church you see now standing in the square here (Pretoria), as a slave without payment. As a representative of my people, I am still obedient to the English Government, and willing to obey all commands from them, even to die for their cause in this country, rather than submit to the Boers.

"I was under Shambok, my chief, who fought the Boers-formerly, but he left us, and we were put up to auction and sold among the Boers. I want to state this myself to the Royal Commission. I was bought by Fritz Botha and sold by Frederick Botha, who was then veldt cornet (justice of the peace) of the Boers."

Many more of such extracts might be quoted, but it is not my motive to multiply horrors. These are given exactly as they stand in the original, which may all be found in Blue Books-presented to Parliament.

It has frequently been denied on behalf of the Transvaal, and is denied at this day, in the face of innumerable witnesses to the contrary, that slavery exists in the Transvaal. Now, this may be considered to be verbally true. Slavery, they say, did not exist; but apprenticeship did, and does exist. It is only another name. It is not denied that some Boers have been kind to their slaves, as humane slave-owners frequently were in the Southern States of America. But kindness, even the most indulgent, to slaves, has never been held by abolitionists to excuse the existence of slavery.

Mr. Rider Haggard, who spent a great part of his life in the Transvaal and other parts of South Africa, wrote in 1899: "The assertion that Slavery did not exist in the Transvaal is made to hoodwink the British public. I have known men who have owned slaves, and who have seen whole waggon-loads of Black Ivory, as they were called, sold for about £15 a piece. I have at this moment a tenant, Carolus by name, on some land I own in Natal, now a well-to-do man, who was for twenty years a Boer slave. He told me that during those years he worked from morning till night, and the only reward he received was two calves. He finally escaped to Natal."

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