A Ripping Yarn of the Howondalandian War of 1876.
Prologue: in the great Empire-building days of Tacticus, the Morporkian Empire spread nearly everywhere on the Disc. It stretched to Genua, and in the opposite direction met the circling sea at Hergen on the other side of Llamedos. With Klatch defeated and dismembered, the Empire marched on through the steaming jungles and the veldt beyond, and met the sea again on the Howondalandian coast.
Morporkians were arrogant in those days: having met and defeated mighty Klatch, having concluded favourable peace treaties with yesterday's empires of Ephebe, Tsort and Djelibeybi, and having warned Omnia not to send any more missionaries, thank you very much, they could be forgiven for thinking that their Empire would last a thousand years.
In this spirit, colonists were sent out, to raise daughter nations in the spirit of the motherland. The clement grasslands in the south of Howondaland were claimed for Morpork, and such of the native inhabitants who were not deemed useful as labourers and indentured workers were forced into the jungle, or into the arid semi-desert scrubland further inland.
To add to the brew, only about half of the colonial settlers came from Ankh-Morpork. Others, lured by the prospect of rich farmland and a state they could call their own, came from the region of Sto Kerrig and Sto Lat.
They took with them the original language of the Sto Plains, a tongue related to Morporkian but different enough to be unintelligible to the ears of Morporkians. Thus, the rolling grassland Morporkian speakers called Downs or the Wold was, to the expatriate Kerrigians, De Veldt. The words are close – Wold and Veldt – and say something of the languages being close. But not, alas, too alike for easy mutual understanding. This fault line between the two races of White Howondalandians was to cause sorrow and strife later. Not to say the hate and resentment of the displaced natives.
The colonies were established. And for a while all was well. The Morporkians doggedly ate food and wore clothes suitable to a colder climate, while the Kerrigians, or Boors, grew tulips and built windmills to remind them of home. Skirmishes were fought with disaffected natives, but nothing serious threatened the colony.
And then Empire retreated.
The two white tribes of Howondaland slowly and painfully realised that they were now driftwood, left behind on the ebb-tide of Empire. Communications with the Motherland became more sporadic, then virtually died as a resurgent Klatch cut the northern route to the Circle Sea, leaving only the long and problematical sea passage around the flank of two continents.
The settlers realised that to survive, they had to set aside their own differences and become ruthless. They nodded. They rolled up their sleeves and became ruthless and for over two hundred years, made their country work.
And then two things happened. Gold and diamonds were discovered; and the N'Tolerant Kwa'Zulu confederation emerged out in the arid semi-desert. This was bad – foreign policy had always revolved around keeping the blecks separate and preventing them from uniting. Now the neighbours were assembling under the command of a charismatic paramount chief, preaching the gospel of throwing the white man out of Howondaland.
Storm clouds were gathering over White Howondaland.