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
native people whose lands they annex."

Mr. Dieterlen introduces into his narrative the following
remarks,--which are interesting as coming, not from an Englishman, but
from a Frenchman,--and one who has had close personal experience of the
matters of which he speaks:--