Word: matabeleland
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...country south of Matabeleland, the old forms were dying fast. The inhabitants of the two principal white territories (Britain's Cape Colony and the independent South African Republic of Dutch-descended Boer farmers) were no longer surrounded by wild Hottentots, Zulus, Bastaards and Griquas. The country was yielding to an influx of foreigners who made treaties with the tribes, drove them into subjection, renamed the old lands, established new laws...
...kept on signing concessions until the mounted police appeared in Matabeleland, "incidents" occurred and blood was shed. Finally the Matabele, armed with short stabbing-spears, hurled themselves against murderous lines of rifles and Maxims. Lobengula wrote his last letter to Queen Victoria: "Your Majesty, what I want to know from you is; why do your people kill me?" Six months later, his bodyguard buried his exhausted, dropsy-wasted body...
...subaltern in the 13th Hussars in India. An expert at reconnaissance, he served with the 13th in the Afghan War in 1881. On service in Zululand he won the name of Impeesa (The Wolf that Never Sleeps) from the awed natives, moved on to Ashanti and Matabeleland. By the time of the Boer War he was a colonel in command of Mafeking, where he held off the Boers with a heroic 217-day defense. In 1907, aged 50, big-game hunter, author of Aids to Scouting, an Empire hero, he was back in England as Inspector-General of Cavalry...