After a lifetime of futile warring, peace-loving Moshesh, founder of the Basuto nation, wrote to Queen Victoria in 1868: "I am glad that my people have been allowed to rest and live in the large folds of the blanket of England. My country is your blanket, O Queen, and my people are the lice in it."
Last week at a royal pitso in Maseru, capital of South Africa's craggy, mountainous Basutoland, Victoria's great-grandson George VI celebrated Moshoeshoe Day (Moshesh's anniversary) by pinning medals on the dazzling, crocodile-and-lion-adorned blankets of a host of
Basuto...
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