The invasion of the Bapedi by the Swazi

Chief Sekwati, the father of old Sekukuni, built his main kraal on top of Thaba Mosego (The Hill of Laughter). The Bapedi planted pricklypears and made a high fence of thorn trees round Thaba Mosego, and also built stone walls with peep holes for shooting. One mile to the south of Thaba Mosego, is Modimolle (the holy mountain) a very steep and high mountain. It was strictly forbidden to burn the grass on Modimolle. If anybody burnt it by accident, he was fined a black ox and made to walk backwards, blindfolded, down the steep mountain, over boulders and cliffs. A big Impi of Swazies came and surrounded Thaba Mosego. They put their ox hide shields on the high thorn fence and climbed over the top and charged. They were repulsed by the Bapedi, shooting them from behind the stone walls, and were chased away. It became dark while the Bapedi were chasing the Swazies, and Chief Sekwati ordered his men to set fire to Modimolle, which for many years was not burned and there was accumulation of dry grass and dead trees. The grass fire went roaring up the mountain with long tongues of fire which burned even the green trees. In the blaze of the great fire, which lighted the country for miles around, the Bapedi pursued the defeated Swazies and killed hundreds of them with assagais and guns till the blood was running in the bed of the Sandspruit, now farm Clapham. On the long sloping rock of Norite, on Thaba Mosego, which is now farm Hackney, you could still see a hollow foot pass made by thousands of bare feet.