“A Tragedy in a Bell Tent in Bechuanaland” (Ten Vignettes) from “The Graphic” (27 March 1886)

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“A Tragedy in a Bell Tent in Bechuanaland” (Ten Vignettes from Tswana, South Africa)

27 March 1886

wood-engraving

30.5 cm high by 22.6 cm wide — 12 inches by 8 ⅞ inches

Illustration for The Graphic, p. 325.

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Commentary

The present illustration satirizes living conditions for British mounted riflemen, known as Bechuanaland Border Police, involved in the Bechuanaland Expedition or Warren Expedition of late 1884 through 1885, a military operation intended to assert British sovereignty in light of recent German encroachments in the Transvaal, and to assert British authority over the Boer states of Stellaland and Goshen.

Here the military reportage of the South African Wars (1879-1915) takes a humorous turn. The ten vignettes of camp life for a British officer follow his interactions with three humble creatures of the veldt during the First Boer War: the lizard, the ant, and the fly:

“A Tragedy in a Bell Tent in Bechuanaland” (Ten Vignettes)

1. Our Hero at Ease in his Tent.
2. Bothered by a Fly.
3. He Kills the Fly.
4. Ant Carrying Away the Fly's Corpse.
5. A Lizard Creeps into the Tent
6. And Disposes of Both Ant and Fly.
7. What Has Become of the Lizard?
8. Our Hero Puts on His Boots.
9. Horror! The Lizard was inside. A Friend Got an Unintentional Slap in the Face.
10. State of the Friend's Eye and Nose.

The artist does not specify a regiment, but we know that the 2nd Battalion, Royal Canadian Regiment, with some seven thousand Canadian volunteers, would arrive only later, after the declaration of war in October 1899. This later campaign is memorialized by the Cenotaph in Victoria, British Columbia, which was called "The Parrdenburg Gate" after a crucial victory in 1900, in the third Boer conflict. This was one of three successive Boer Wars precipitated by the arrival of massive numbers of "uitlanders" (chiefly British) after the discovery of the Witwatersrand goldfields.

As for the Crown Colony of Bechuanaland, this proved short-lived: 30 September 1885 through 16 November 1895, when it was absorbed into the Cape Colony. The Bechuanaland Protectorate finally became the independent country of Botswana in 1966.

Bibliography

Barrett, Anthony A., and Rhodri Windsor Liscombe. Chapter Four: "Railway Hotels & Government House, 1900-1902." Francis Rattenbury and British Columbia: Architecture and Challenge in the Imperial Age. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1983, Pp. 90-123.

McKenna, Amy. "South African War, British-South African History." The Encyclopedia Britannica, britannica.com/event/South-African-War (Accessed 27 March 2025).

“A Tragedy in a Bell Tent in Bechuanaland” — ten vignettes from Tswana, South Africa. The Graphic: An Illustrated Weekly Newspaper, No. 852, Vol. 33 (12 June 1886): 325.

Tylden, G. "The Bechuanaland Border Police, 1885-1895." Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, Vol. 19, No. 76 (Winter 1940): 236-242. https://www.jstor.org/stable/44220912 (Accessed 27 March 2025).

Created 26 March 2025