Once across the river one soon felt the influence of Jonathan, the “black prince.”  The niggers, naked except for the loin cloth, swaggered along with arms in their hands, and grinned with insolent familiarity into our faces.  They may have an intense respect and an unbounded love for the British—­I have read scores of times that they have—­but I beg leave to doubt it.  Physically speaking they are a superb race of men, these sable subjects of our Queen.  Their heads sit upon their necks with a bold, defiant poise, their throats are full, round, and muscular, their chests magnificent, broad and deep, tapering swiftly towards the waist.  Their arms and legs are beautifully fashioned for strong, swift deeds.  Strip an ordinary white man and put him amongst those black warriors, and he would look like a human clothes rack.  They walk with a quick, springy step, and gave me the impression that they could march at the double for a week without tiring.  But they are at their best on horseback.  To see them barebacked dash down the side of a sheer cliff, plunge into the river, swim their horses over, and then climb the opposite bank when the face of the bank is like the face of a wall is a sight worth travelling far to see.

There are many things in this world that I know nothing at all about, but I do know a horseman when I see him, for I was bred in a land where nine-tenths of the boys can ride.  But nowhere have I seen a whole male population ride as these Basuto warriors ride, and the best use England can make of them is to turn them into mounted infantry.  Give them six months’ drill, and they will be fit to face any troops in Europe.  I never saw them do any fighting, but they carry the fighting brand on every lineament—­the bold, keen eye, the prominent cheek-bone, the hard-set mouth, the massive jaw, the quivering nostril, the swing and spring of every movement, all speak the fighting race.

And their women; what of them?  From the back of the head to the back of the heel you could place a lance shaft, so straight are they in their carriage.  Their dress is a bunch of feathers and the third of a silk pocket handkerchief, with a copper ring around the ankle and another around the wrist.  They do most of the daily toil, such as it is, though I know of no peasant population in any other part of the world who get a living as easily as these folk.  The men allow the women to do most of the field labour, but when the grain is bagged the males place it in single bags across the back of a pony, and so take it to market.  They walk beside the tiny little ponies and balance the grain slung crosswise on the animal’s back, and when the grain has been sold or bartered they bound on to their ponies and career madly homewards, each one trying to outdo his neighbour in deeds of recklessness in the hope of winning favour in the eyes of the dusky maidens.  They are mean in regard to money or gifts, and know the intrinsic value of things just as well as any pedlar in all England.