BASUTO CHARACTER.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VII, Issue 402, 24 December 1880, Page 11

BASUTO CHARACTER.

Rays the Bvrghcrxdorp Gazette :—": — " It is singular that any surprise should be expressed at the Basutos having deliberately slauehtered Lieut. Clarke and cut out and eatpn his heart when he fell into their hands, unhorsed and helpless, while in the heroic act of rescuing a wounded comrade. The Basuto character is not a whit altered now to what it was in the time of the campaign under Genera 1 Cathcarf, when poor Lieut. Faunse, coming upon a party of them disguised in th" uniform of the Lancers, whom they had just butchered, and discovering hiR mistake and believiDg the representations that were made to him of the Basutos being semi-civilized and generous enemies, tamely surrendered his sword as the soldier's sign of submission. They took it and laid him down, and with it severed his throat with all the deliberate and brutal ciuelty that it is their wont to kill a sheep with, and, years after, the scalp used to be sported by old Moshesh in his dance.". Those who were with us in the commando of 1858 will not have forgotten the fate which two of the Free State Burghers met with, who unhappily had fallen into Basuto hands in the surprise at Hell-poort. After the engagement they were missed, and no account could be rendered of them till about a week after, till the Chief Letsea's town, which was then at Morija. had been taken. A patrol, out foraging, came upon the bodies of the«e unfortunate wretches in a cavity in a rock, within a stone'R throw of the mission buildings. The remains indicated that the poor wretches bad been skinned, their skin being peeled off in long stripes ; and, what was worse, the bespattered blood upon the rocks, as well as the condition of the floor, showed that the victims had been flayed alive, and in their excruciating agony must have made a terrible struggle. Subsequent evidence that was taken proved this, and also that the hearts and other parts of the captives had been cut out and cooked, with barbarous ceremonies, and eaten by the warriors present. Even now, juft before the outbreak of hostilities, we hear of the like ceremony being repeated by David Masupha, only that, in place of the victim being a human foe, it was a bull, because the former could not with safety be had. The treatment, however, of Lieutenant Clarke's body supplies invincible evidence that in the preservation of this barbarous usuage the JtSasutes of to-day are the same as they v*ere a few years ago. To us the only marvel is, upon what precedents the better expectations of the Basutos can be founded."

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