The exigencies of our somewhat acrobatic tale require, at this point,
that we should make a considerable bound. We shall beg the obliging
reader to leap with us into the year 1834.
Hans Marais, moustached, bearded, bronzed, and in the prime of life,
sits at the door of a cottage recently built close to that of his
father. Beside him sits his wife--formerly Miss Gertrude Brook, and now
as sweet and pretty a young woman as you would find in a month's ride
through a country where sweet pretty women were, and still are, very
numerous in proportion to the population.
Whether it was that Hans was timid, or Gertie shy, we cannot tell, but
somehow it is only three months since they began their united career,
and Hans considers himself to have married rather "late in life."
Gertie, being now twenty-six, begins to think herself quite an old
woman. It is evident, however, that this ancient couple wear well, and
are sufficiently happy--if we may presume to judge from appearances.
"Gertie," said Hans, patting the fingers which handed him his big Dutch
pipe, "I fear that my father is determined to go."
"Do you think so?" said Gertie, while a sad expression chased the
sunshine from her face.
"Yes, he says he cannot stand the treatment we Cape-Dutchmen receive
from the British Government, and that he means to give up his farm, take
his waggons and goods, and treck away to the north, with the friends who
are already preparing to go, in search of free lands in the wilderness
where the Union Jack does not fly."
"I must be very stupid, Hans," returned his wife, with a deprecating
smile, "for although I've heard your father discussing these matters a
good deal of late, I cannot quite understand them. Of course I see
_well_ enough that those men who approve of slavery must feel very much
aggrieved by the abolition, but your father, like yourself and many
others, is not one of these--what then does he complain of?"
"Of a great deal, Gertie," replied Hans, with an amused glance at her
perplexed face, "and not only in connection with slavery, but other
things. It would take hours of talk to tell you all."
"But can't you give me some sort of idea of these things in a few
words?"
"Yes; at least I'll try," said Hans. "I need scarcely tell you that
there has been a sort of ill-will in the Cape-Dutch mind against the
British Government--more's the pity--ever since the colony passed into
the possession of England, owing partly to their not understanding each
other, partly to incompetent and tyrannical Governors pursuing unwise
policy, partly to unprincipled or stupid men misrepresenting the truth
in England, and partly to the people of England being too ready to
swallow whatever they are told."
"What! is all the fault on the side of the English?" interrupted Gertie,
with a laugh.
"Hear me out, wife," returned Hans--"partly owing to _foolish_ Dutchmen
rebelling against authority, and taking the law into their own hands,
and partly to _rascally_ Dutchmen doing deeds worthy of execration.
Evil deeds are saddled on wrong shoulders, motives are misunderstood,
actions are exaggerated, judges both here and in England are sometimes
incompetent, prejudice and ignorance prevent veils from being removed,
and six thousand miles of ocean, to say nothing of six hundred miles of
land, intervene to complicate the confusion surrounding right or wrong."
"Dear me! what an incomprehensible state of things!" said Gertie,
opening her blue eyes very wide.
"Rather," returned Hans, with a smile; "and yet there are sensible
Englishmen and sensible Cape-Dutchmen who are pretty well agreed as to
the true merits of the questions that trouble us. There is the
abolition of slavery, for instance: many on both sides are convinced as
to the propriety of that, but nearly all are agreed in condemning the
way in which it is being gone about, believing that the consequences to
many of the slaveholders will be ruinous. But it is useless to go into
such matters now, Gertie. Right or wrong, many of the Dutch farmers are
talking seriously of going out of the colony, and my father, I grieve to
say, is among the number."
"And you, Hans?"
"I will remain on the old homestead--at least for a time. If things
improve we may induce father to return; if not, I will follow him into
the wilderness."
"And what of Considine?" asked Gertie.
"He remains to help me to manage the farm. There is no chance for him
in the present exasperated state of my father's mind. He unhappily
extends his indignation against England to Englishmen, and vows that my
sister Bertha shall never wed Charlie Considine."
"Is he likely to continue in that mind?"
"I think so."
"Then there is indeed no chance for poor Charlie," was the rejoinder,
"for Bertha Marais will never marry in direct opposition to her father's
wishes. Heigho! 'Tis the old story about the course of true love."
"He may change--he _will_ change his mind, I think," said Hans, "but in
the meantime he will go off into the wilderness, carrying Bertha along
with him. I would have gone with him myself without hesitation, had it
not been that I cannot bear to think of tearing you away just yet from
the old people, and I may perhaps do some good here in the way of saving
the old home."
Hans looked round with a somewhat mournful gaze at the home of his
childhood, which bore evidences of the preparations that were being made
by Conrad Marais to leave it.
That evening a large party of disaffected boers arrived at the homestead
of Conrad Marais, with waggons, wives, children, goods, and arms, on
their way to the far north. Some of these men were sterling fellows,
good husbands and fathers and masters, but with fiery independent
spirits, which could not brook the restraints laid on them by a
Government that had too frequently aroused their contempt or
indignation. Others were cruel, selfish savages who scorned the idea
that a man might not "wallop his own nigger," and were more than half
pleased that the abolition of slavery and its consequences gave them a
sort of reason for throwing off allegiance to the British Crown, and
forsaking their homes in disgust; and some there were who would have
been willing to remain and suffer, but could not bear the idea of being
left behind by their kindred.
Next morning Conrad completed the loading of his waggons, placed his
wife and children--there was still a baby!--in them, mounted his horse
with the sons who yet remained with him, and bade farewell to the old
home on the karroo. He was followed by a long train of his compatriots'
waggons. They all crossed the frontier into Kafirland and thenceforth
deemed themselves free!
This was the first droppings of a shower--the first leak of a torrent--
the first outbreak of that great exodus of the Dutch-African boers which
was destined in the future to work a mighty change in the South African
colony.
Hans and Gertie accompanied the party for several hours on their
journey, and then, bidding them God-speed, returned to their deserted
home.
But now a cloud was lowering over the land which had been imperceptibly,
though surely, gathering on the horizon for years past.
We have said that hitherto the colony, despite many provocations,
thefts, and occasional murders, had lived in a state of peace with the
Kafirs--the only time that they took up arms for a brief space being in
their defence, at Hintza's request, against the Fetcani.
Latterly, we have also observed, the British settlers had toiled hard
and prospered. The comforts of life they had in abundance. Trade began
to be developed, and missions were established in Kafirland. Among
other things, the freedom of the press had been granted them after a
hard struggle! The first Cape newspaper, the _South African Commercial
Advertiser_, edited by Pringle the poet and Fairbairn, was published in
1824, and the _Grahamstown Journal_, the first Eastern Province
newspaper, was issued by Mr Godlonton in 1831. Schools were also
established. Wool-growing began to assume an importance which was a
premonition of the future staple of the Eastern Provinces.
Savings-banks were established, and, in short, everything gave promise
of the colony--both east and west--becoming a vigorous, as it was
obviously a healthy, chip of the old block.
But amongst all this wheat there had been springing up tares. With the
growing prosperity there were growing evils. A generous and well-meant
effort on the part of Christians and philanthropists to give full
freedom and rights to the Hottentots resulted to a large extent in
vagabondism, with its concomitant robbery. The Kafirs, emboldened by
the weak, and exasperated by the incomprehensible, policy of the
Colonial Government at that time, not only crossed the border to aid the
Hottentot thieves in their work, and carry off sheep and cattle by the
hundred, but secretly prepared for war. Behind the scenes were the
paramount chief Hintza, the chief Macomo, and others. The first,
forgetting the deliverance wrought for him by the settlers and British
troops in 1828, secretly stirred up the Kafirs, whilst the second,
brooding over supposed wrongs, fanned the flame of discontent raised
among the Hottentots by the proposal of a Vagrancy Act.
When all is ready for war it takes but a spark to kindle the torch. The
Kafirs were ready; the British, however, were not. The settlers had
been peacefully following their vocations, many of the troops, which
ought to have been there to guard them, had been unwisely withdrawn, and
only a few hundred men remained in scattered groups along the frontier.
The armed Hottentots of the Kat River--sent there as a defence--became a
point of weakness, and required the presence of a small force to overawe
them and prevent their joining the Kafirs. At last the electric spark
went forth. A farmer (Nell) was robbed of seven horses, which were
traced to the kraal of a chief on the neutral territory. Restoration
was refused. A military patrol was sent to enforce restitution.
Opposition was offered, and the officer in command wounded with an
assagai. Hintza began to retreat and plunder British traders who were
residing in his territory under his pledged protection, and at length a
trader named Purcell was murdered near the chief's kraal and his store
robbed. Then Macomo began hostilities by robbing and murdering some
farmers on the lower part of the Kat River, and two days afterwards the
Kafir hordes, variously estimated at from eight to fifteen thousand men,
burst across the whole frontier, wrapped the eastern colony in the smoke
and flames of burning homesteads, scattered the unprepared settlers,
demolished the works of fourteen years' labour, penetrated to within
twenty miles of Algoa Bay, and drove thousands of sheep and cattle back
in triumph to Kafirland.