After founding the Orange Free State, which territory belonged originally to the Busutos, the Boers, if left to themselves, would certainly have sooner or later dispossessed the natives of their last highland retreat, for the frontier wars had never been interrupted except for brief intervals of time. But meanwhile the

Fig. 52. — Basutoland.

English made their appearance, at first to secure the independence of the Basutos, and then to prevent the further encroachments of the Boers by extending the British protectorate to the whole region. But troubles arose between the natives and their new masters, and the edict calling upon the mountaineers to disarm was followed by a general rising, in which the British troops were more than once