The Lice in the Blanket

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 warriors. "You came to my assistance," he said, "when I was beset by many and powerful enemies." "Realeboah morena!" (We are glad to see you, Lord!) shouted the Basuto men, while their women hung in the background howling in wild, horselike whinnies. As four "Sons of Moshesh"--descendants of the "Basuto Moses"--stood proudly by, regal Mantsebo Seeiso, "wife of the first hut" and regent for her ten-year-old nephew chief, greeted King George. "We do not wish to be separated from you and your just Government in any manner," she said.

Bring On Your Enemies. Not all South Africans were as explicit as the Basutos. But as King George and his family proceeded in slow and dignified triumph across their southern Dominion, they were finding no lack of other loyal partisans.

At parched Grahamstown, on the eastern coast of Cape Province, the royal family arrived just as the first showers in four months began to fall. "The King is the bringer of rain!" shouted 9,000 grateful Bantus massed in the town square. Dusky women, their faces painted white and yellow for the occasion, waved corncob pipes in lusty greeting; Bantu men, led by dapper Chief Vukile (in a smart brown suit and fedora) and his counselors (one in a gilded top hat, military greatcoat and pajama pants), raised cheers for "Sozizwe"(the Father of All Nations) and prepared to slaughter eight oxen in his honor. "Bring on your enemies," yelled hundreds of Transkei herders in Umtata a few days later, "and we will slaughter them!"

From Umtata, bringing the showers with him, the Royal Rainmaker and his family chuffed northward in their cream-&-gold train to the high plateau of the Orange

Free State, most Anglophobic of all South Africa's provinces. Along their route sturdy Boer farmers forsook ploughs and politics to shout greetings. Schoolchildren lined the wayside stations and at one siding a dark, native choir sang the Hallelujah Chorus--"with superb effect," reported the Times of London.

Even the Free State's capital, Bloemfontein, proved a pushover for the family's winning ways. "Your people are a very natural people," said the Queen to one staunch Afrikaner. "But you," he answered, "are setting us such a natural example."

Bees on the Cake. In Bloemfontein Princess Margaret got a special thrill with her first ride in an airplane, when she and the family piled into their royal Vikings for a quick picnic in the Free State Game Reserve. Princess Elizabeth had already had her big moment in East London when she christened a new dry dock and was given five flawless diamonds from the

Government mines for her trouble. At a garden reception in their honor at Kroonstad, the family were unexpectedly greeted by a swarm of bees, attracted alike by royalty and platefuls of gaily decorated cakes, on which they clustered, diligently searching for honey. As Mayor Teunis de Hart of neighboring Henneman in the gold country was presented to the Queen, she gasped to see four of the bees crawling placidly on his head. The Queen asked anxiously if he had been stung. He hadn't. But as they sat down, King George suggested gently that the Mayor leave off his hat, lest the bees be unnecessarily disturbed.

Back in London, a weary cinemagoer gazed in amiable envy at a newsreel of royalty's 8,000 miles of travel. "Lucky devils," he murmured without malice. "Wouldn't mind if it was me and the missus."

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