all the years.

Allusion having been made above to the assumption of the Protectorate of
Basutoland by Great Britain, it will not be without interest to notice
here the circumstances and the motives which led to that act. It will be
seen that there was no aggressiveness nor desire of conquest in this
case; but that the protection asked was but too tardily granted on the
pathetic and reiterated prayer of the natives suffering from the
aggressions of the Transvaal.

The following is from the Biography of Adolphe Mabille, a devoted
missionary of the _Societe des Missions Evangeliques_ of Paris, who
worked with great success in Basutoland. His life is written by Mr.
Dieterlen (a name well known and highly esteemed in France), and the
book has a preface by the famous missionary, Mr. F. Coillard.[6]

"The Boers had long been keeping up an aggressive war against the
Basutos (1864 to 1869), so much so that Mr. Mabille's missionary work
was for a time almost destroyed. The Boers thought they saw in the
missionaries' work the secret of the steady resistance of the Basutos,
and of the moral force which prevented them laying down their arms. They
exacted that Mr. Mabille should leave the country at once, which
theoretically, they said, belonged to them.

"This good missionary and his friends were subjected to long trials
during this hostility of the Boers. Moshesh, the chief of the Basutos,
had for a long time past been asking the Governor of Cape Colony to
have him and his people placed under the direction of Great Britain. The
reply from the Cape was very long delayed. Moshesh, worn out, was about
to capitulate at last to the Boers. Lessuto (the territory of
Basutoland) was on the point of being absorbed by the Transvaal. At the
last moment, however, and not a day too soon, there came a letter from
the Governor of the Cape announcing to Moshesh that Queen Victoria had
consented to take the Basutos under her protection. It was the
long-expected deliverance,--it was salvation! At this news the
missionaries, with Moshesh, burst into tears, and falling on their
knees, gave thanks to God for this providential and almost unexpected
intervention."

The Boers retained a large and fertile tract of Lessuto, but the rest of
the country, continues M. Dieterlen, "remained under the Protectorate of
a people who, provided peace is maintained, and their commerce is not
interfered with, know how to work for the right development of the
nat