"Yrs (.).Rhodes]
This characteristic epistle seemed a link with the outer world, and to
denote we were not forgotten, even by those in a somewhat similar plight
to ourselves.
The natives and their splendid loyalty were always a source of interest.
Formed into a "cattle guard," under a white man named Mackenzie, the
young bloods did excellent service, and were a great annoyance to the
Boers by making daring sorties in order to secure some of the latter's
fat cattle. This particular force proudly styled itself "Mackenzie's
Black Watch." There were many different natives in Mafeking. Besides
the Baralongs before alluded to, we had also the Fingos, a very superior
race, and 500 natives belonging to different tribes, who hailed from
Johannesburg, and who had been forcibly driven into the town by Cronje
before the siege commenced. These latter were the ones to suffer most
from hunger, in spite of Government relief and the fact that they had
plenty of money; for they had done most of the trench-work, and had been
well paid. The reason was that they were strangers to the other natives,
who had their own gardens to supplement their food allowance, and blacks
are strangely unkind and hard to each other, and remain quite unmoved if
a (to them) unknown man dies of starvation, although he be of their own
colour.
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