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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 72

Steps taken towards the Occupation of Mashonaland

Steps taken towards the Occupation of Mashonaland.

The first action taken was to arrange the extension northwards of the Colonial Railway, which then terminated at Kimberley. Agreements were made with the High Commissioner and the Cape Government, under which the line was continued from Kimberley to Vryburg, and is to be prolonged by the Company to Mafeking. The line was opened to Vryburg on December 3, 1890.

A grant of 6,000 square miles of land in British Bechuanaland, with all mineral rights, in aid of the construction of the line to Vryburg, was made to the Company. The Cape Government took 4,000 square miles of this, and the balance 2,000 square miles, with a farther Government grant of 6,000 square miles, was made available towards the cost of the Mafeking section, which is now in hand.

Simultaneously with the railway, the telegraph system was intended northwards from Mafeking, under the superintendence of Sir James Sivewright, and progressed rapidly. By the end of 1891, the wire had been laid beyond Fort Victoria (630 miles from Mafeking), and on February 16, 1892, it was completed as far as Salisbury, covering a total distance of 819 miles.

Native labour was largely used in this work. On the first portions the men belonging to the tribes of the chiefs Montsoia, Batwen, and Ikaning were successively employed, and later on Khama sanctioned the employment of his subjects.

The telegraph is now being carried northwards towards the Zambesi, to form connection later with Nyassaland, joining all the lakes, and eventually linking on the Cape to Cairo, an important project planned by Mr. Rhodes.

In 1889 the Portuguese again became active, and Colonel Paiva d'Andrade, an able officer, took steps (too late, however) to establish some semblance of effective occupation. Negotiations with Lo Bengula, early in 1890, resulted in his permission being given for the development of the eastern position of his territory, known as Mashonaland, and, towards that end, for the entry of an expedition by a route skirting the eastern edge of the plateau, known as Matabeleland, avoiding all contact with the kraals, and so far as page 86 possible, the danger of exciting the suspicions and hostility of the Matabele, more especially the military or war party, who were much opposed to the idea of the expedition.