n southern Africa at the dawn of the 19th century, shortly before Europeans arrived in large numbers, land hungry armies of Zulu ejected their weaker neighbours from traditional grazing lands and replaced them with herds of cattle – the common measure of wealth in the region at that time. Most of the displaced fled in panic; but one clan, the Basotho, led by a local chief named Moshoeshoe, made a strategic withdrawal into a landlocked mountainous region from which they conducted a successful resistance against the Zulu. Even when Europeans carrying guns moved inland from their toeholds on South Africa’s coasts, Moshoeshoe held them at bay from a lofty and steep-sided plateau where he soon afterwards founded a capital, Meresu,