CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.
TELLS OF DARK AND THREATENING CLOUDS, AND WAR.
The exigencies of our somewhat acrobatic tale require, at this point,that we should make a considerable bound. We shall beg the obligingreader 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 hisfather. Beside him sits his wife--formerly Miss Gertrude Brook, and nowas sweet and pretty a young woman as you would find in a month's ridethrough a country where sweet pretty women were, and still are, verynumerous in proportion to the population.
Whether it was that Hans was timid, or Gertie shy, we cannot tell, butsomehow 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 oldwoman. It is evident, however, that this ancient couple wear well, andare sufficiently happy--if we may presume to judge from appearances.
"Gertie," said Hans, patting the fingers which handed him his big Dutchpipe, "I fear that my father is determined to go."
"Do you think so?" said Gertie, while a sad expression chased thesunshine from her face.
"Yes, he says he cannot stand the treatment we Cape-Dutchmen receivefrom the British Government, and that he means to give up his farm, takehis waggons and goods, and treck away to the north, with the friends whoare already preparing to go, in search of free lands in the wildernesswhere the Union Jack does not fly."
"I must be very stupid, Hans," returned his wife, with a deprecatingsmile, "for although I've heard your father discussing these matters agood deal of late, I cannot quite understand them. Of course I see_well_ enough that those men who approve of slavery must feel very muchaggrieved by the abolition, but your father, like yourself and manyothers, is not one of these--what then does he complain of?"
"Of a great deal, Gertie," replied Hans, with an amused glance at herperplexed face, "and not only in connection with slavery, but otherthings. 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 fewwords?"
"Yes; at least I'll try," said Hans. "I need scarcely tell you thatthere has been a sort of ill-will in the Cape-Dutch mind against theBritish Government--more's the pity--ever since the colony passed intothe possession of England, owing partly to their not understanding eachother, partly to incompetent and tyrannical Governors pursuing unwisepolicy, partly to unprincipled or stupid men misrepresenting the truthin England, and partly to the people of England being too ready toswallow 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_ Dutchmenrebelling 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 sometimesincompetent, prejudice and ignorance prevent veils from being removed,and six thousand miles of ocean, to say nothing of six hundred miles ofland, 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 sensibleEnglishmen and sensible Cape-Dutchmen who are pretty well agreed as tothe true merits of the questions that trouble us. There is theabolition of slavery, for instance: many on both sides are convinced asto the propriety of that, but nearly all are agreed in condemning theway in which it is being gone about, believing that the consequences tomany of the slaveholders will be ruinous. But it is useless to go intosuch matters now, Gertie. Right or wrong, many of the Dutch farmers aretalking seriously of going out of the colony, and my father, I grieve tosay, is among the number."
"And you, Hans?"
"I will remain on the old homestead--at least for a time. If thingsimprove we may induce father to return; if not, I will follow him intothe wilderness."
"And what of Considine?" asked Gertie.
"He remains to help me to manage the farm. There is no chance for himin the present exasperated state of my father's mind. He unhappilyextends his indignation against England to Englishmen, and vows that mysister 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'swishes. Heigho! 'Tis the old story about the course of true love."
"He may change--he _will_ change his mind, I think," said Hans, "but inthe meantime he will go off into the wilderness, carrying Bertha alongwith him. I would have gone with him myself without hesitation, had itnot been that I cannot bear to think of tearing you away just yet fromthe old people, and I may perhaps do some good here in the way of savingthe old home."
Hans looked round with a somewhat mournful gaze at the home of hischildhood, which bore evidences of the preparations that were being madeby Conrad Marais to leave it.
That evening a large party of disaffected boers arrived at the homesteadof Conrad Marais, with waggons, wives, children, goods, and arms, ontheir way to the far north. Some of these men were sterling fellows,good husbands and fathers and masters, but with fiery independentspirits, which could not brook the restraints laid on them by aGovernment that had too frequently aroused their contempt orindignation. Others were cruel, selfish savages who scorned the ideathat a man might not "wallop his own nigger," and were more than halfpleased that the abolition of slavery and its consequences gave them asort of reason for throwing off allegiance to the British Crown, andforsaking their homes in disgust; and some there were who would havebeen willing to remain and suffer, but could not bear the idea of beingleft behind by their kindred.
Next morning Conrad completed the loading of his waggons, placed hiswife and children--there was still a baby!--in them, mounted his horsewith the sons who yet remained with him, and bade farewell to the oldhome on the karroo. He was followed by a long train of his compatriots'waggons. They all crossed the frontier into Kafirland and thenceforthdeemed 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 whichwas destined in the future to work a mighty change in the South Africancolony.
Hans and Gertie accompanied the party for several hours on theirjourney, and then, bidding them God-speed, returned to their desertedhome.
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 theKafirs--the only time that they took up arms for a brief space being intheir defence, at Hintza's request, against the Fetcani.
Latterly, we have also observed, the British settlers had toiled hardand prospered. The comforts of life they had in abundance. Trade beganto be developed, and missions were established in Kafirland. Amongother things, the freedom of the press had been granted them after ahard struggle! The first Cape newspaper, the _South African CommercialAdvertiser_, edited by Pringle the poet and Fairbairn, was published in1824, and the _Grahamstown Journal_, the first Eastern Provincenewspaper, was issued by Mr Godlonton in 1831. Schools were alsoestablished. Wool-growing began to assume an importance which was apremonition of the future staple of the Eastern Provinces.Savings-banks were established, and, in short, everything gave promiseof the colony--both east and west--becoming a vigorous, as it wasobviously a healthy, chip of the old block.
But amongst all this wheat there had been springing up tares. With thegrowing prosperity there were growing evils. A generous and we
ll-meanteffort on the part of Christians and philanthropists to give fullfreedom and rights to the Hottentots resulted to a large extent invagabondism, with its concomitant robbery. The Kafirs, emboldened bythe weak, and exasperated by the incomprehensible, policy of theColonial Government at that time, not only crossed the border to aid theHottentot thieves in their work, and carry off sheep and cattle by thehundred, but secretly prepared for war. Behind the scenes were theparamount chief Hintza, the chief Macomo, and others. The first,forgetting the deliverance wrought for him by the settlers and Britishtroops in 1828, secretly stirred up the Kafirs, whilst the second,brooding over supposed wrongs, fanned the flame of discontent raisedamong the Hottentots by the proposal of a Vagrancy Act.
When all is ready for war it takes but a spark to kindle the torch. TheKafirs were ready; the British, however, were not. The settlers hadbeen peacefully following their vocations, many of the troops, whichought to have been there to guard them, had been unwisely withdrawn, andonly a few hundred men remained in scattered groups along the frontier.The armed Hottentots of the Kat River--sent there as a defence--became apoint of weakness, and required the presence of a small force to overawethem and prevent their joining the Kafirs. At last the electric sparkwent forth. A farmer (Nell) was robbed of seven horses, which weretraced to the kraal of a chief on the neutral territory. Restorationwas refused. A military patrol was sent to enforce restitution.Opposition was offered, and the officer in command wounded with anassagai. Hintza began to retreat and plunder British traders who wereresiding in his territory under his pledged protection, and at length atrader named Purcell was murdered near the chief's kraal and his storerobbed. Then Macomo began hostilities by robbing and murdering somefarmers on the lower part of the Kat River, and two days afterwards theKafir hordes, variously estimated at from eight to fifteen thousand men,burst across the whole frontier, wrapped the eastern colony in the smokeand flames of burning homesteads, scattered the unprepared settlers,demolished the works of fourteen years' labour, penetrated to withintwenty miles of Algoa Bay, and drove thousands of sheep and cattle backin triumph to Kafirland.