Lesotho

In the early 19th century the interior of southern Africa was shaken by wars and migrations, remembered in Sesotho as the lifaqane. Out of that turmoil a young chief, Moshoeshoe, led a small following to a flat-topped mountain called Thaba Bosiu in 1824. The plateau had water, grazing and cliffs that could be defended with rocks and a few passes; attackers, including Ndebele and later Boer and British forces, failed to take it.

Moshoeshoe's power came as much from diplomacy as from the mountain. He took in refugees from many groups, lent cattle to followers who then owed him loyalty, paid tribute to stronger neighbours when needed and married widely to bind chiefs to him. The Basotho nation was built from this mixture, united by his court and by the Sesotho language.

In 1833 he invited French Protestant missionaries of the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society to settle at Morija. They brought schools and a printing press, wrote Sesotho down, and became his advisers in dealing with Europeans. Morija remains the country's intellectual heart, with its museum and archives.

The Orange Free State, founded by Boer settlers, pressed on Basotho lands in the 1850s and 1860s. After two wars Moshoeshoe lost much of the fertile farmland west of the Caledon River — land Basotho still call the 'conquered territory'. To save what was left he asked Britain for protection, and in 1868 Basutoland became a British protectorate.

That decision kept the country out of the Union of South Africa in 1910 and later out of apartheid's homelands. But Basutoland was poor and mountainous, and colonial policy treated it as a labour reserve. Generations of Basotho men worked in the gold mines of the Witwatersrand, sending money home; the mines shaped families, songs and the economy until mass layoffs in the 1990s.

Independence came on 4 October 1966, with Moshoeshoe II as king and Leabua Jonathan as prime minister. Jonathan suspended the constitution when he lost the 1970 election, and the country lived through one-party rule, a military coup in 1986, and the exile and return of the king. Moshoeshoe II died in a car crash in 1996, and his son Letsie III is king today.

Lesotho's rivers are its gold. The Orange (Senqu) River rises in its highlands, and the Lesotho Highlands Water Project, built from the 1990s, dams mountain rivers at Katse and Mohale and sends water through tunnels to South Africa's Gauteng province, earning royalties and generating hydropower at Muela. A second phase, with the Polihali dam, is under construction.

Textile and garment factories around Maseru and Maputsoe, set up to use US trade preferences, became the largest private employers, mostly of women. Wool and mohair from highland sheep and goats are sold abroad, and diamonds are mined at Letšeng, one of the world's highest diamond mines.

Politics has been unstable. A disputed election in 1998 led to riots, the burning of parts of Maseru and a South African-led SADC intervention. Coalitions have collapsed repeatedly since 2012, an attempted coup in 2014 briefly forced the prime minister to flee, and a former army chief was killed in 2015. In 2022 a new party led by businessman Sam Matekane won power promising reforms.

About 2.3 million Basotho live in Lesotho, and millions more in South Africa. Village life in the highlands follows the herds: boys and young men spend months at cattle posts, wrapped in blankets and gumboots, while women run homes and farms. Many families rely on pensions and remittances, and HIV has hit the country harder than almost anywhere.

The Basotho blanket is worn as a coat, a status symbol and a ceremonial garment. Its designs — maize cobs for fertility, crowns and aircraft for history — carry meanings, and particular blankets mark weddings, initiation and the birth of a child. The conical mokorotlo straw hat, modelled on the shape of the Qiloane hill near Thaba Bosiu, appears on the national flag and number plates.

The Basotho pony, sure-footed and hardy, developed from horses acquired in the 19th century and became the way to cross the mountains. Pony trekking for visitors grew from that tradition. Initiation schools in the hills (lebollo) remain an important rite of passage for young men and women, and are strictly private.

Lesotho is the only independent state that lies entirely above 1,000 m; its lowest point, where the Senqu leaves the country, is about 1,400 m. The Maloti and Drakensberg mountains cover most of it, rising to Thabana Ntlenyana at 3,482 m, the highest point in southern Africa.

The eastern escarpment drops more than 1,000 m to KwaZulu-Natal in basalt cliffs. Sani Pass, a trading track turned 4x4 road, climbs it in tight hairpins. Water runs everywhere: Maletsunyane Falls plunges about 190 m near Semonkong, and wetlands on the high plateau feed rivers that supply much of South Africa.

Before the Basotho, San hunter-gatherers lived in the rock shelters and painted eland, hunters and rain animals on their walls. Sehlabathebe National Park, with rock pools and many painted sites, was added to South Africa's uKhahlamba-Drakensberg site in 2013 to form the transboundary Maloti-Drakensberg Park. Dinosaur footprints near Quthing and Morija record a much older world.

Daily food is papa, a stiff maize porridge, eaten with moroho greens, beans or a little meat. Sorghum was the older grain, and it survives in the sour morning porridge motoho and in joala, the home-brewed sorghum beer sold from houses that fly a white flag.

Mutton and lamb are feast foods in a country of sheep, cooked for weddings, funerals and holidays. Trout, introduced in colonial times, lives in highland rivers and dams and appears on lodge menus.

Music carries the migrant story. Famo, played on the accordion with drums and fast, sung poetry, grew among miners and their communities; lifela, sung praise poems of the migrant journey, tell of trains, mines and home. Choirs and church music fill Sundays, and the Morija Arts and Cultural Festival brings dance and music together each year.