With peace came prosperity. This was not indeed very obvious at first,
for it took a long time to reconcile the unfortunates of the eastern
provinces to their heavy losses, and a still longer time to teach them
to forget. Nevertheless, from this time forward the march of the
settlers of 1820, commercially, intellectually, and religiously, became
steady, regular, and rapid.
No doubt they suffered one or two grievous checks as years rolled on.
Again and again they had to fight the Kafir savage and drive him back
into his native jungles, and each time they had more trouble in doing so
than before, because the Kafir was an apt pupil, and learned to
substitute the gun for the assagai; but he did not learn to substitute
enlightened vigour for blind passion, therefore the white man beat him
as before.
He did more than that. He sought to disarm the savage, and, to a large
extent, succeeded. He disarmed him of ignorance by such means as the
Lovedale Missionary Institution near Alice; the Institution near
Healdtown, and other seminaries,--as well as by mission stations of
French, Dutch Reformed, Wesleyan, English, and Scotch churches scattered
all over Kafirland; he taught the savage that "the fear of the Lord is
the beginning of wisdom," and that industry is the high-road to
prosperity. Some of the black men accepted these truths, others
rejected them. Precisely the same may be said of white men all over the
world. Those who accepted became profitable to themselves and the
community. Those who rejected, continued slaves to themselves, and a
nuisance to everybody. Again we remark that the same may be said of
white men everywhere. White unbelievers continued to pronounce the
"red" Kafir an "irreclaimable savage," fit for nothing but coercion and
the lash. Black unbelievers continued to curse the white man as being
unworthy of any better fate than being "driven into the sea," and,
between the two, missionaries and Christians, both black and white, had
a hard time of it; but they did not give in, for, though greatly
disheartened at times, they remembered that they were "soldiers" of the
cross, and as such were bound to "endure hardness."
Moreover, missionaries and Christians of all colours and kinds,
doubtless remembered their own sins and errors. Being imperfect men,
they had in some cases--through prejudice and ignorance, but _never_
through design--helped the enemy a little; or, if they did not remember
these errors and aims, they were pretty vigorously reminded of them by
white opponents, and no doubt the thought of this humbled them to some
extent, and enabled them to bow more readily to chastisement. Then they
braced themselves anew for the gospel-fight--the only warfare on earth
that is certain to result in blessing to both the victors and the
vanquished.
If any of the missionaries held with Lord Glenelg in his unwise reversal
of the good Sir Benjamin D'Urban's Kafir policy, they must have had the
veil removed from their eyes when that nobleman himself confessed his
error with a candour that said much for his heart; reversed his own
decrees, and fell back upon that very plan which at first he had
condemned in such ungenerous terms. His recantation could not, however,
recall the thousands of Dutch-African farmers whom he helped to
expatriate. Perhaps it was well that it should be so, for good came out
of this evil,--namely, the reclamation of vast tracts of the most
beautiful and fertile regions of the earth from the dominion of darkness
and cruelty.
But what of those whose fortunes we have been following, during this
period of peace and prosperity?
Some of them remained in the colony, helped on these blessings, and
enjoyed them. Others, casting in their lot with the wanderers, fought
the battles and helped to lay the foundations of the new colonies.
First, Charlie Considine. That fortunate man--having come into the
possession of a considerable sum of money, through the uncle who had
turned out so much "better than he should be," and having become
possessed of a huge family of sons and daughters through that Gertie
whom he styled the "sugar of his existence,"--settled in Natal along
with his friends Hans and Conrad Marais. When that fertile and warm
region was taken possession of by the British, he refused to hive off
with the Marais, and continued to labour there in the interests of
truth, mercy, and justice to the end of his days.
Junkie Brook, with that vigour of character which had asserted itself on
the squally day of his nativity, joined Frank Dobson and John Skyd in a
hunting expedition beyond the Great Orange River; and when the Orange
Free State was set up by the emigrant Dutchmen, he and his friends
established there a branch of the flourishing house of Dobson, Skyd, and
Company. Being on the spot when South Africa was electrified by the
discovery (in 1866-67) of the Diamond Fields of that region, they sent
their sons, whose name was legion, to dig, and soon became diamond
merchants of the first water, so that when Junkie visited his aged
parents on the Zuurveld--which he often did--he usually appeared with
his pockets full of precious stones!
"I've found a diamond _this_ time, nurse," he said, on the occasion of
one of these visits, "which is as big--oh!--as--as an ostrich-egg! See,
here it is," and he laid on the table a diamond which, if not quite as
big as the egg of the giant bird, was large enough to enable him, with
what he had previously earned, to retire comfortably from the business
in favour of his eldest son.
The sudden acquisition of riches in this way was by no means uncommon at
that time, for the "Fields" were amazingly prolific, and having been
discovered at a crisis of commercial depression, were the means, not
only of retrieving the fortunes of South Africa, but of advancing her to
a condition of hitherto unparalleled prosperity.
Mrs Scholtz--by that time grown unreasonably fat--eyed the diamond with
a look of amused contempt; she evidently did not believe in it. Patting
the hand of her former charge, she looked up in his laughing face, and
said, with a shake of her head--
"Ah! Junkie, I always said you was a _wonderful_ child."
Sitting on a bench in front of the house--no longer domestics, but
smoking their pipes there as "friends" of the family, who had raised
themselves to a state of comparative affluence--George Dally and
Scholtz, now aged men, commented on the same diamond.
"It'll make his fortune," said George.
"Zee boy vas always lucky," remarked Scholtz; "zince I began to varm for
myself I have not zeen so big a stone."
"Ah! Scholtz," returned his friend, "the hotel business has done very
well for me, an I don't complain, but if I was young again I'd sell off
and have a slap at the `Fields.'"
"Zat vould only prove you vas von fool," said Scholtz quietly.
"I believe it would," returned George.
In regard to the Scotch party at Glen Lynden, we have to record that
they continued to persevere and prosper. Wool became one of the staple
articles of colonial commerce, and the hills of the Baviaans River sent
a large contingent of that article to the flourishing seaport of the
eastern provinces.
Of course the people multiplied, and the sturdy sons of the South
African highlands did credit to their sires, both in the matter of
warring with the Kafir and farming on the hills.
Sandy Black stuck to his farm with the perseverance of a true Scot, and
held his own through thick and thin. He married a wife also, and when,
in later years, the native blacks made a sudden descent on his
homestead, they were repulsed by a swarm of white Blacks, assisted by an
army of McTavishes, and chased over the hills with a degree of energy
that caused them almost to look blue!
Andrew Rivers, being a man of progressive and independent mind, cast
about him in a state of uncertainty for some years, devoting himself
chiefly to hunting, until the value of ostrich feathers had induced
far-sighted men to domesticate the giant bird, and take to "farming"
ostriches--incubating them by artificial as well as natural means. Then
Rivers became an ostrich-farmer. He was joined in this enterprise by
Jerry Goldboy, and the two ultimately bought a farm on the karroo and
settled down. Rivers had a turn for engineering, and set himself to
form a huge dam to collect rain near his dwelling. From this reservoir
he drew forth constant supplies, not only to water flocks and herds, but
to create a garden in the karroo, which soon glowed with golden fruit.
In this he set a good example, which has been followed with great
success by many men of enterprise in those regions; and there is no
doubt, we think, that if such dams were multiplied, Artesian wells sunk,
and railways run into the karroos, those fine, though comparatively
barren regions of South Africa, would soon begin to blossom like the
rose.
Thus, what between ostrich feathers, wool, horses, cattle, and
enterprise, Rivers and Goldboy made themselves comfortable. Like other
men of sense, they married. Thereafter the garden had to be
considerably enlarged, for the golden fruit created by the streams which
had been collected and stored by Rivers, proved quite inadequate to the
supply of those oceans of babies and swarms of Goldboys that flooded the
karroo, and filled its solitudes with shouts and yells that would have
done credit to the wildest tribe of reddest Kafirs in the land.
Some of these descendants, becoming men of energy, with roving
dispositions like their sires, travelled into the far north, and west,
and helped to draw forth the copper ore, and to open the mines of Great
Namaqua-land--thus aiding in the development of South Africa's
inexhaustible treasure-house, while others of them, especially the sons
of Jerry, went into the regions of the Transvaal Republic, and there
proved themselves Goldboys in very truth, by successfully working the
now celebrated gold-fields of that region.
Stephen Orpin did not give up trade, but he prosecuted it with less and
less vigour as time went on, and at last merely continued it as a means
of enabling him to prosecute the great object of his life, the preaching
of the gospel, not merely to those whom men style _par excellence_ the
"heathen," but to every one who was willing to listen to the good news--
redemption from _sin_! Ah! there was great fervour in Stephen Orpin's
tones when he said, as he often did--"Men and women, I do not come here
to make you _good_, which, in the estimation of more than one half of
the so-called Christian world, means _goody_. My desire is to open your
eyes to see Jesus, the Saviour from _sin_. Who among you--except the
young--does not know the power of sin; our inability to restrain bad and
vicious habits; our passionate desire to do what we _know_ is wrong; our
frequent falling from courses that we _know_ to be right? It is not
that hell frightens us; it is not that heaven fails to attract us.
These ideas trouble us little--too little. It is _present_ misery that
torments. We long and desire to have, but cannot obtain; we fight and
strive, but do not succeed, or, it may be, we do succeed, and discover
success to be failure, for we are disappointed, and then feel a tendency
towards apathetic indifference. If, however, our consciences be
awakened, then the torment takes another form. We are tempted
powerfully, and cannot resist. We cannot subdue our passions; we cannot
restrain our tempers. No wonder. Has not God said, `Greater is he who
ruleth his own spirit, than he who taketh a city?' The greatest
conqueror is not so great as he who conquers himself. What then? Is
there _no_ deliverance from sin? Yes, there is. `Sin shall _not_ have
dominion over you,' are the words of Him who also said, `Come unto Me,
all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.'"
"Stephen Orpin," cried a sturdy sinner, in whose ears these words were
preached, "do you _know_ all that to be true? Can you speak from
experience of this deliverance, this rest?"
"Yes," cried Stephen, starting up with a sudden impulse, "I _do_ know
it--partly by some deliverances that have been wrought for me, partly
from some degree of rest attained to, and much, very much, from the firm
assurance I have that, but for God's forbearing and restraining mercy, I
should have been a lost soul long long ago. Man, wherein I have failed
in obtaining deliverance and rest, it has been owing to _my_ sin, not to
failure in the Lord's faithfulness."
But Stephen did not travel so far or so long as had been his wont in
days gone by. A wife and family, in the village of Salem, exercised an
attractive influence, fastening him, as it were, to a fixed point, and
converting his former erratic orbit into a circle which, with
centripetal force, was always drawing nearer to its centre.
In the course of his early wanderings Orpin managed to search out Ruyter
the Hottentot robber, and so influenced him as to induce him to give up
his lawless career, and return to the colony. Ruyter drew with him
Abdul Jemalee, Booby the Bushman, and one or two others, who settled
down to peaceful occupations.
The Malay in particular--slavery being by that time abolished--returned
to Capetown, and there found his amiable wife and loving children ready
to receive him with open arms. It is true the wife was somewhat aged,
like himself, and his children were grown up--some of them even
married,--but these little matters weighed nothing in his mind compared
with the great, glorious fact, that he was reunited to them in a land
where he might call his body his own!
If Jemalee had been a man of much observation, he might have noted that
many important changes had taken place in Capetown and its surroundings
during his long absence. A new South African college had been erected;
a library which might now stand in the front rank of the world's
libraries had been collected; the freedom of the press had been largely
taken advantage of, and education generally was being prosecuted with a
degree of rigour that argued well for the future of the colony--
especially in Stellenbosch, Wellington, and neighbouring places. But
Abdul Jemalee was not a man of observation. He did not care a straw for
these things, and although we should like much to enlarge on them, as
well as on other topics, we must hold our hand--for the new and eastern,
not the old and western provinces of South Africa claim our undivided
attention in this tale.
There is no necessary antagonism, however, between these two--`East' and
`West.' Circumstances and men have at present thrown a few apples of
discord into them, just as was the case with England and Scotland of
old; with the North and South in the United States of late; but,
doubtless, these apples, and every other source of discord, will be
removed in the course of time, and South Africa will ere long become a
united whole, with a united religious and commercial people, under one
flag, animated by one desire--the advancement of truth and righteousness
among themselves, as well as among surrounding savages,--and extending
in one grand sweep of unbroken fertility from the Cape of Good Hope to
the Equator.