SOUTH AFRICAN WAR.

Evening Star, Volume III, Issue 810, 9 December 1865, Page 2

SOUTH AFRICAN WAR.

FRIGHTFUL MASSACRE OF THE. SETTLERS. Recent files from the Cape inform us that the Orange Free State is at war with the Rasutos, and -different accounts are given of the origin of the outbreak. One party blames the settlers for wishing to gain more land, seize cattle, &c. ; and another party accuses the Rasutos of pillage and murder. It appears that, on June 16th, ten Europeans were killed, and 100,000 sheep captured by the Rasutos. The Great Eastern, a paper published in the Eastern Province, having described the circumstances of the aggresive acts which it attributes to the Hafirs or Basutos, gives an account of the military expedition prepared to check their predatory inroads. A .party, 850 strong, with two guns, found themselves in close contact with the Hafirs on the 13th May. The Kafirs first numbered about 3000 horsemen, who soon increased to 6000, and subsequently to 10,000, who, whatever their skill in riding, were chary of approaching within rifle-range of the Colonial force, and were mowed down in great numbers when the Whitworth rifled cannon was brought to play upon them.

The account states—- “ As soon as war was declared—an event which, thanks to the muddling policy of the President, was known to the Basutos much sooner that the inhabitants of Smithfield—a large number of the blacks crossed the boundary, swept over the farms in the Caledon River disti'ict, burnt all the houses in the ward Wilgeboom Spruit, cleared off 100,000 sheep, and a proportionate number of cattle and horses, and threatened Smithfield. Mr Swanepoel, one of the most wealthy farmers of the district, was divested of everything, and obliged -to fly for bis life, arriving in Smithfield with only the clothes in which he stood upright, and with nothing besides to call his own except his land-. Some thirty-five men under Hemming and Van Aswaagen tried to recover a portion of the stock that had been captured, but wos surrounded by Basutos, and obliged to throw ap a stone Wall, from behind which they kept the enemy at bay for several hours, and eventually drove them off. In the meantime some sixteen whites set out to their assistance, but were interrupted by the enemy, and ten of them killed, including Mr Robertson, brother of a gentlemen residing in Aliwal North, and four other Englishmen. It is not jet known what has become of the women and children. Messrs Finlay and Bowker, with' a party of about one hundred men, followed the Basutos, and succeded in recovering, ’with great gallantry, about 5,000 sheep, but were unable, from the nature of the ground, and the forces opposed to them, to do more.” The same paper from which we have quoted, in its publication of June 28, describes at great lenth the devastations committed by the Basutos. It says:— ‘ ‘ Our savage foe, the Basutos, had availed themselves of the open and defenceless state of that part of the border, to make a raid right into the State, nearly as far as the Braapaal, on the Bethulie side of the Smithfield-road, and which feat they accomplished with almost incredible success. It is now known for certain that the lives of twelve Dutch farmers have been sacrificed—not in fair fight, but after being overpowered by numbers, and selling their lives as dearly as possible, they were finally compelled to succumb to the enemy. In addition to these twelve, we have further to record, with deep regret, the murder in cold blood by the Basutos. of a respectable young man. only a few months resident in this State.”

We have now,to tell the sad story of the most horrible and atrocious massacre yet perpetrated by Basutos, viz., that of the unfortunate Bastards, ■with all their male offspring ; for these savages, to do them justice, actually spared in every case the lives of females and female children, as far as is yet known. This massacre, and that of the Boers also, must have taken place on Tuesday, the 27th of June. These poor people, the so-called Bastards, or halfcastes, formerly resided at Platberg, the Wesleyan mission station, near the Caledon, under Captain Carolous Baatjie, but, through the continual aggression and insolence of the Basutos, were, some years since, compelled to remove into this State, and had been permitted by our Government to locate themselves at Reitspruit, about an hour beyond the Modder river, and some four or four and a-half hours’ ride from this town. These people are good shots, and might have defended themselves to some purpose had it not been for the dastardly treachery of the enemy. The Basutos, we learn, in a large number approached the Bastards, bearing a white flag as a flag of truce, as they did at the place of the Botes. They shook hands with the Bastards and their wives, requested them to kill an ox, which they did, sat down and feasted together with them, and, it is said, told them (the Bastards) to put their guns inside the huts, as a token of peace and amity. They further in- . formed the Bastards that they had no quarrel with them ; they had merely come to kill the Boers, and to carry off their {the Boers’) stock. When the Basutos had done their feasting, however, they asked David Masoepa (son of Moshesh) what was to be done with these people, and, it is said, at a given signal from him, the * Basutos fell upon the defenceless Bastards, and massacred without mercy every man and male child, even to the suckling at the breast. One elderly man escaped to tell the tale, and is now in Bloemfontein.