Chapter 3 [The Coloured Conquest, by “Rata” (Thomas Richard Roydhouse), 1904]

[Editor: This is a chapter from the novel The Coloured Conquest (1904) by “Rata” (Thomas Richard Roydhouse).]

Chapter III.

What was learned on a visit to South Africa. — “The Coloured people shall rule.” — The Kaffir and the Japanese agent.

“Africa shall yet be Black!”

The eyes of the Kaffir sitting at my side fairly blazed. Not ordinarily a demonstrative man, he was now working with excitement.

Nineteen Hundred and Four was in its third quarter, and I was in Durban, South Africa, on business connected with the firm in which I had an interest.

Following my usual custom of obtaining as much information as possible about the country I was visiting, I had questioned many of the local people (Black as well as White) about Natal, as also about South Africa as a whole — about the peculiarities of the climate, the divided White races, British and Boer, and the various nations of Blacks, the Kaffirs, Zulus, Basutos, Bushmen, and so on.

My knowledge of these latter was of the most superficial character, and my stay in South Africa was too short to enable it to be deepened to any particular extent. Nevertheless I learned a good deal that interested me at the time, and something that provided food for serious thought a little later on.

I had chatted more than once with a fairly educated Kaffir known as Henry Johnson. How he had acquired that European name I do not know, for he was a pure Black. He was comfortably off, too, was Henry Johnson, having conducted a profitable business in Natal for many years.

I had been sounding Johnson for his views about the conflicting interests of Briton and Boer, and as to the future of the country. He had little to say at first, answering but “yes” or “no.” He seemed to be holding himself in. Presently I said:

“Well, I suppose it will be alright in a hundred years (referring to the differences between the White sections of the population); by that time the word Boer will not be used, and the whole people will be British.”

Johnson opened his mouth with a jerk while he flashed a somewhat unpleasant glance at me, although hitherto we had been quite friendly.

But he suppressed for a moment his intention of speaking, whilst I cackled on:

“What a country this will be by that time!” I said, “The Continent opened up from the Cape to Cairo; cities and towns every few miles; all the country well watered by means of scientific schemes of conservation and irrigation; railways everywhere, and all the ports filled with shipping — supposing aerial navigation has not become a commercial fact — and over all — over all,” I repeated, with the smug smile of the self-satisfied, “the British flag!

“Instead of slabs of the map being coloured red, the great continent of Africa will be all red!”

It was then that the Kaffir blurted out at me:

“It will be all Black! Africa will be Black! There will be not a White man in it; it will be Black I tell you.”

I looked at him in surprise. He was wildly gesticulating. This quiet, self-contained man had got right out of himself.

“And this will happen not in one hundred years, but less than one hundred months.”

“You talk big, my friend,” I said.

“Big?” he replied. “No bigger than the facts warrant. Listen: What is the population of Natal? I will tell you the main feature of the population,” he said, as I did not reply; “the Blacks outnumber the Whites by five to one.”

“Yes; I have heard that,” I said; “but what of it?”

“What of it?” he cried. “Why, this; the Blacks could eat up the Whites!”

“Oh, could they?” I retorted, with a smile.

“You are overlooking one thing, my friend. It is this: The Whites are merely the outposts of a nation that has hundreds of thousands of fighting men scattered over all parts of the world, and big guns in proportion. Also warships enough to simultaneously bombard all the ports in Africa. Have you thought of that?”

The Kaffir chuckled in an aggravating way.

“Oh, yes, I know all about that,” he said. “I have heard too often about the nation that has the ships and men and money, too, to be likely to forget it.”

I laughed.

“You do not like the British?” I said, interrogatively.

“Oh, yes I do,” he replied.

“I like the British better than any other White race, but I — and all my people — hate the idea of being subject to any other people, and, in our own country, too. Therefore, the British must go with the other White people.”

“Africa for the Africans is your cry, eh?” I laughed.

“It is,” he said, quietly; “and that cry will be a living power in a very little time! Africa for the Black Africans will be an accomplished fact while the cry of ‘Australia for the Australians’ is still a world’s joke.”

“Thanks, Johnson,” I said, highly tickled at his presumption. “But you haven’t told me how the Blacks are going to drive the Whites out of Africa?”

“I was only joking,” he said.

I had my doubts of that, having previously observed with surprise his earnestness and excitement.

“Nevertheless, you believe it to be possible?” I said.

“Oh, it is possible,” he agreed, with a grin; “but you might give me away to the authorities if I told you how it could be done.”

“My friend,” I said, “you dream dreams and see visions, no doubt — it is the privilege of savage races, and the whitewash of civilisation cannot change their natures.

“But dreamers never succeed.

“They scheme, but haven’t the energy or — the pluck!” — I paused and looked at his twitching features — “to carry out their schemes.”

Johnson said nothing.

“I have no doubt you would like to rid yourself of the Whites,” I went on, “but you are not men enough. You have water rather than blood in your veins, and the tobacco smoke gets into your brains.”

My motive for saying all this was to irritate him until he loosed his tongue.

“I don’t say the Blacks ever dream of driving out the Whites,” he said, presently, looking, at me narrowly the while. “But it could be done. It is merely a matter of guns and ammunition and trained men.

“We have ample money — can always purchase rifles, machine guns and field-pieces, together with ammunition, from the Germans and Belgians, and we could have them landed and distributed without attracting any attention.”

I yawned, and endeavoured not to look too interested. I wanted to draw him out still further.

“Suppose we approached the Boers, and said, ‘We like you and not the British. We will help you to drive them out. We will provide men and arms — and arms for you too, if you like, hidden away in the Basuto country!’”

“Well,” I said, “you would be exchanging good masters for bad!”

The Kaffir laughed outright.

“Yes,” he said, with a significant nod, “for about five minutes!

“Then they, too, will go! We divide our enemies in order to destroy them! That is, of course, I mean what could be done!”

“Oh, quite so,” I said, “but what of the bombardment of the ports by the British ships?”

“Well,” he replied, “What would it matter? We don’t want the towns particularly, so they could knock them to pieces if they liked. But they could not push their forces ten miles beyond the seaport towns.”

“Hum!” I said, doubtingly.

“And,” he went on, “if we needed assistance of a naval character, there is always Germany. If offered by the Boers tempting territorial concessions, she might be induced to risk the fight she has talked so much about, but has always crawled out of. The more the British and Germans knocked each other about the better we would like it. If Germany won, she would find herself shut out of Africa just as completely as Britain.”

“But that would be hardly straight,” I ventured.

“Straight? Well, when has Germany ever been straight? She is a combination of bounce and lick-spittle! Don’t think the Black people do not know all about the White nations because they have no Press through which to express their views.”

“You know one of them at any rate,” I said.

“We would not need much assistance to secure this Continent to us. If we did we could get it by paying for it, not in territory but in cash, and from a true sympathiser.”

“Oh!” I said; “name, please.”

He hesitated a moment, then replied:

“Japan!”

“Well, she might listen to an appeal from you in your hour of crisis if she could see that it suited her.”

“Might? She would. It is part of the great plan that was discussed at Tokio that is, so rumour says; I won’t answer for it.”

“With those who spread the rumour the wish may be father to the thought,” I said.

“That’s it,” he replied, and laughed. “Mind, I don’t say there is anything in it. But at the Coloured Conference at Tokio, at which representatives of the various parts of Africa were present with representatives of the various parts of Asia, what I have told you now was decided upon. At least that is the story — probably a fable.”

“Does the story say who the representatives were? For instance, does it say that Henry Johnson was in Tokio on behalf of the Kaffirs?”

Johnson fairly jumped.

I laughed.

“Only my joke, you know!” I hastened to say. “But tell me, was Menelik represented, and the Mad Mullah?”

“So the story says,” replied the Kaffir, shortly.

“But suppose Japan is crushed?”

“That she cannot be. When the European Powers robbed her of the fruits of her victory after the war with China they actually made Japan. Yes, made her. They filled her with a desire to be more than their equal; they filled her with a determination to be revenged upon them!

“Had they been clear-sighted enough, they would have crushed her then, when she had given them a taste of her quality; but they contented themselves with robbing her — those highly civilised nations robbed her! — and that secured them her undying hatred!”

“There is something in that,” I allowed.

“Had they permitted her to act the conqueror to China she would have had her hands full trying to keep down the conquered. Now she has her hands free, is the friend of China, draws sinews of war from China, and is educating the Chinese up to the world-beating standard.

“It is only a question of ships and guns, and money will provide those. That the Chinese have in plenty. And Chinese to stand behind the guns are even now being trained in large numbers by the Japanese.”

“Yes,” I said; “that is pretty generally known.”

“On every Japanese man-of-war there are now a dozen Chinese midshipmen; with every Japanese regiment there are Chinese officers struggling to reach the Japanese level. And Sunotoko says they are shaping splendidly.”

“Sunotoko?”

“Yes, a Japanese business man here. He is in daily cable communication with Japan, and all the news he gets he lets us have. He does not give it to the newspapers, or to the White people, but special messengers convey it to the Kaffirs, Basutos, and Zulus, in different parts of the country — because Japan has our sympathy, he says.”

“He knows Japan has your sympathy?”

“Oh yes, a very great deal depends on Japan’s success. The tribes, as you would call them, all keep runners here, and when messages come telling of battles on sea or land, they are sent out everywhere, and soon it is known how successful the Japanese are. They are successful, aren’t they?”

“They are, surprisingly so. But tell me, do you think Menelik, the Mullah in Somaliland, and the Arabs in Egypt, besides the Blacks in various parts other than South Africa, all get these messages?”

“I know they do — they are sympathisers, you know. All Coloured peoples get them. By the way, there is Sunotoko, the Japanese business man who gets the cables.”

I looked up and saw, to my surprise, the Japanese officer who accompanied Major Matte Yoko when he insulted Mabel Graham in the Hotel Australia.

“Has he been here long?” I asked.

“Not long,” said Johnson. “His firm opened up business some months ago.”

I thought the Kaffir scanned me rather closely as he made this reply, but I merely took out my watch with a lazy air, yawned, and ended the conversation.

Source:
Rata, The Coloured Conquest, Sydney (NSW): N.S.W. Bookstall Co., 1904, pp. 20-28

Editor’s notes:
Basutos = a Bantu ethnic group of Southern Africa (also known as the Basotho people or the Sotho people)

Hotel Australia = the Australia Hotel, also known as the Hotel Australia, a hotel in Castlereagh Street, Sydney (NSW), which was opened in 1891, and closed in 1971; at the time of its construction, and for a long time afterwards, it was regarded as the top hotel in Australia (a different Hotel Australia was built in Melbourne in 1939, and was demolished in 1989)
See: 1) “Hotel Australia”, Dictionary of Sydney, 2008
2) “The Australia Hotel”, Wikipedia
3) “Hotel Australia”, Wikipedia

Kaffir = the term “Kaffir” was used in the 1800s to refer to the Xhosa people of Southern Africa; however, it later became predominantly used in a negative sense, and was used to refer to African blacks in general

Mad Mullah = Mohamed Abdullah Hassan (1856-1920), referred to derogatively as the Mad Mullah, was a Somali Islamic leader who fought against the British, Italian, and Ethiopian presence in Somalia

man-of-war = a sailing ship designed or outfitted for combat, a naval fighting ship equipped with cannons and powered by sails (also spelt: man-o’-war)

Menelik = Menelik II (birth name, Sahle Maryam) (1844-1913) was Emperor of Ethiopia 1889-1913 (Menelik I was Emperor of Ethiopia in the 10th century B.C.)

Mullah in Somaliland = Mohamed Abdullah Hassan (1856-1920), referred to derogatively as the Mad Mullah, was a Somali Islamic leader who fought against the British, Italian, and Ethiopian presence in Somalia

red = in the context of a world map, a reference to the British Empire (in British textbooks, maps of the world commonly coloured the lands of the British Empire in pink or red)
See: 1) Pascal Tréguer, “‘Red on the map’: ‘To paint the map red’: Meanings and origin”, Word Histories, 17 May 2022
2) Patricia Smith, “Why was the British Empire pink on maps”, Historic Cornwall, 17 December 2022
3) Charlotte Johnson, “Painting the world pink”, Manchester Historian, 14 May 2013
4) “Imperial Federation Map by Walter Crane”, The Victorian Web
5) Hannah Dennison, “The British Empire’s Pink Bits”, Hannah Dennison, 14 August 2012
6) “The Queen’s Dominions at the End of the Nineteenth Century”, Wikipedia [a map” of the world, with the lands of the British Empire coloured in red]