ICULO 38.Elamashumi matatu anesibozo.Ungu-Tixo Umkululi,Wenza into zonke;Ungu-Tixo Umkululi,Ungopezu konke.Waba ngumntu Umkululi,Ngezizono zetu;Waba ngumntu Umkululi,Wafa ngenxa yetu.Unosizi UmkululiNgabasetyaleni;Unosizi UmkululiNgabasekufeni.Unxamile UmkululiUkusiguqula;Unxamile UmkululiUkusikulula.Unamandla UmkululiUkusisindisa;Unamandla UmkululiUkusonwabisa.Unotando Umkululi,Unofefe kuti;Unotando Umkululi,Masimfune futi.
ICULO 38.
Elamashumi matatu anesibozo.
Ungu-Tixo Umkululi,Wenza into zonke;Ungu-Tixo Umkululi,Ungopezu konke.Waba ngumntu Umkululi,Ngezizono zetu;Waba ngumntu Umkululi,Wafa ngenxa yetu.Unosizi UmkululiNgabasetyaleni;Unosizi UmkululiNgabasekufeni.Unxamile UmkululiUkusiguqula;Unxamile UmkululiUkusikulula.Unamandla UmkululiUkusisindisa;Unamandla UmkululiUkusonwabisa.Unotando Umkululi,Unofefe kuti;Unotando Umkululi,Masimfune futi.
Ungu-Tixo Umkululi,Wenza into zonke;Ungu-Tixo Umkululi,Ungopezu konke.
Waba ngumntu Umkululi,Ngezizono zetu;Waba ngumntu Umkululi,Wafa ngenxa yetu.
Unosizi UmkululiNgabasetyaleni;Unosizi UmkululiNgabasekufeni.
Unxamile UmkululiUkusiguqula;Unxamile UmkululiUkusikulula.
Unamandla UmkululiUkusisindisa;Unamandla UmkululiUkusonwabisa.
Unotando Umkululi,Unofefe kuti;Unotando Umkululi,Masimfune futi.
If the lover of sweet sounds will read the lines aloud, merely adding a half pronounced U at the beginning of those words which are commenced with an otherwise unpronounceable ng, so as to make a semi-elided syllable, I think he will understand the nature of the sweetness of sound which Kafirs produce in their singing. When he finds that nearly all the lines and more than half the words begin with the same letter he will of course be aware that their singing is monotonous.
I was glad to find that the Kafir-scholars at Healdtown among them paid £200 per annum towards the expense of the Institution. The Government grants £700, and the other moiety of the total cost—which amounts to £1,800,—is defrayed by the Wesleyan missionary establishment at home. As the Kafir contribution is altogether voluntary, such payment shews an anxiety on the part of the parents that their children should be educated. As far as I remember nothing was done at Healdtown to teach the children any trade. It is altogether a Wesleyan missionary establishment, combining a general school in which religious education is perhaps kept uppermost, with a training college for native teachers and ministers. I cannot doubt but thatits effect is salutary. It has been built on a sweet healthy spot up among the hills, and nothing is more certain than the sincerity and true philanthropy of those who are engaged upon its work.
My friend who had carried me off from Fort Beaufort kept his word like a true man the next morning, in allowing me to start at the time named, and himself drove me over a high mountain to Lovedale. How we ever got up and down those hill sides with a pair of horses and a vehicle, I cannot even yet imagine;—but it was done. There was a way round, but the minister seemed to think that a straight line to any place or any object must be the best way, and over the mountain we went. Some other Wesleyan minister before his days, he said, had done it constantly and had never thought anything about it. The horses did go up and did go down; which was only additional evidence to me that things of this kind are done in the Colonies which would not be attempted in England.
On my going down the hill towards Lovedale, when we had got well out of the Healdtown district, an argument arose between me and my companion as to the general effect of education on Kafir life. He was of opinion that the Kafirs in that locality were really educated, whereas I was quite willing to elicit from him the sparks of his enthusiasm by suggesting that all their learning faded is soon as they left school. “Drive up to that hut,” I said, picking out the best looking in the village, “and let us see whether there be pens, ink and paper in it.” It was hardly a fair test, because such accommodation would not be found in thecottage of many educated Englishmen. But again, on the other side, in my desire to be fair I had selected something better than a normal hut. We got out of our vehicle, undid the latch of the door,—which was something half way between a Christian doorway and the ordinary low hole through which the ordinary Kafir creeps in and out,—and found the habitation without its owners. But an old woman in the kraal had seen us, and had hurried across to exercise hospitality on behalf of her absent neighbours. Our desire was explained to her and she at once found pens and ink. With the pens and ink there was probably paper, on which she was unable to lay her hand. I took up, however, an old ragged quarto edition of St. Paul’s epistles,—with very long notes. The test as far as it was carried certainly supported my friend’s view.
Lovedale is a place which has had and is having very great success. It has been established under Presbyterian auspices but is in truth altogether undenominational in the tuition which it gives. I do not say that religion is neglected, but religious teaching does not strike the visitors as the one great object of the Institution. The schools are conducted very much like English schools,—with this exception, that no classes are held after the one o’clock dinner. The Kafir mind has by that time received as much as it can digest. There are various masters for the different classes, some classical, some mathematical, and some devoted to English literature. When I was there there were eight teachers, independent of Mr. Buchanan who was the acting Head or President of the whole Institution. Dr. Stewart,who is the permanent Head, was absent in central Africa. At Lovedale, both with the boys and girls black and white are mixed when in school without any respect of colour. At one o’clock I dined in hall with the establishment, and then the coloured boys sat below the Europeans. This is justified on the plea that the Europeans pay more than the Kafirs and are entitled to a more generous fare,—which is true. The European boys would not come were they called upon to eat the coarser food which suffices for the Kafirs. But in truth neither would the Europeans frequent the schools if they were required to eat at the same table with the natives. That feeling as to eating and drinking is the same in British Kafraria as it was with Shylock in Venice. The European domestic servant will always refuse to eat with the Kafir servant. Sitting at the high table,—that is the table with the bigger of the European boys, I had a very good dinner.
At Lovedale there are altogether nearly 400 scholars, of whom about 70 are European. Of this number about 300 live on the premises and are what we call boarders. The others are European day scholars from the adjacent town of Alice who have gradually joined the establishment because the education is much better than anything else that can be had in the neighbourhood. There are among the boarders thirty European boys. The European girls were all day scholars from the neighbourhood. The coloured boarders pay £6 per annum, for which everything is supplied to them in the way of food and education. The lads are expected to supply themselves with mattresses, pillows, sheets, andtowels. I was taken through the dormitories, and the beds are neat enough with their rug coverings. I did not like to search further by displacing them. The white boarders pay £40 per annum. The Kafir day scholars pay but 30s., and the European day scholars 60s. per annum. In this way £2,650 is collected. Added to this is an allowance of £2,000 per annum from the Government. These two sources comprise the certain income of the school, but the Institution owns and farms a large tract of land. It has 3,000 acres, of which 400 are cultivated, and the remainder stocked with sheep. Lovedale at present owns a flock numbering 2,000. The native lads are called upon to work two hours each afternoon. They cut dams and make roads, and take care of the garden. Added to the school are workshops in which young Kafirs are apprenticed. The carpenters’ department is by far the most popular, and certainly the most useful. Here they make much of the furniture used upon the place, and repair the breakages. The waggon makers come next to the carpenters in number; and then, at a long interval, the blacksmiths. Two other trades are also represented,—printing namely, and bookbinding. There were in all 27 carpenters with four furniture makers, 16 waggon makers, 8 blacksmiths, 5 printers, and 2 book-binders;—all of whom seemed to be making efficient way in their trades.
This direction of practical work seems to be the best which such an Institution can take. I asked what became of these apprentices and was told that many among them established themselves in their own country as master tradesmen in asmall way, and could make a good living among their Kafir neighbours. But I was told also that they could not often find employment in the workshops of the country unless the employers used nothing but Kafir labour. The white man will not work along with the Kafir on equal terms. When he is placed with Kafirs he expects to be “boss,” or master, and gradually learns to think that it is his duty to look on and superintend, while it is the Kafir’s duty to work under his dictation. The white bricklayer may continue to lay his bricks while they are carried for him by a black hodsman, but he will not lay a brick at one end of the wall while a Kafir is laying an equal brick at the other.
But in this matter of trades the skill when once acquired will of course make itself available to the general comfort and improvement of the Kafir world around. I was at first inclined to doubt the wisdom of the printing and bookbinding, as being premature; but the numbers engaged in these exceptional trades are not greater perhaps than Lovedale itself can use. I do not imagine that a Kafir printing press will for many years be set up by Kafir capital and conducted by Kafir enterprise. It will come probably, but the Kafir tables and chairs and the Kafir waggons should come first. At present there is a “Lovedale News,” published about twice a month. “It is issued,” says the Lovedale printed Report, “for circulation at Lovedale and chiefly about Lovedale matters. The design of this publication was to create a taste for reading among the native pupils.” It has been carried on through twelve numbers, says the report, “with a fair prospect of success and rather more than a fair share ofdifficulties.” The difficulties I can well imagine, which generally amount to this in the establishment of a newspaper,—that the ambitious attempt so often costs more than it produces. Mr. Theal is one of the masters of Lovedale, and his History of South Africa was here printed;—but not perhaps with so good a pecuniary result as if it had been printed elsewhere. I was told by the European foreman in the printing establishment that the Kafirs learned the art of composition very readily, but that they could not be got to pull off the sheets fairly and straightly. As to the bookbinding, I am in possession of one specimen which is fair enough. The work is in two volumes and it was given to me at Capetown;—but unfortunately the two volumes are of different colours.
In the younger classes among the scholars the Kafirs were very efficient. None of them, I think, had reached the dignity of Greek or Natural Philosophy, but some few had ascended to algebra and geometry. When I asked what became of all this in after life there was a doubt. Even at Lovedale it was acknowledged that after a time it “fell off,”—or in other words that much that was taught was afterwards lost. Out in the world, as I have said before, among the Europeans who regard the Kafir simply as a Savage to whom pigeon-English has to be talked, it is asserted broadly that all this education leads to no good results,—that the Kafir who has sung hymns and learned to do sums is a savage to whose natural and native savagery additional iniquities have been added by the ingenuity of the white philanthropist. To this opinion I will not accede. Thatsuch a place as Lovedale should do evil rather than good is to my thinking impossible.
To see a lot of Kafir lads and lasses at school is of course more interesting than to inspect a seminary of white pupils. It is something as though one should visit a lion tamer with a group of young lions around him. The Kafir has been regarded at home as a bitter and almost terrible enemy who, since we first became acquainted with him in South Africa, has worked us infinite woe. I remember when a Kafir was regarded as a dusky demon and there was a doubt whether he could ever be got under and made subject to British rule;—whether in fact he would not in the long run be too much for the Britons. The Kafir warrior with his assegai and his red clay, and his courageous hatred, was a terrible fellow to see. And he is still much more of a Savage than the ordinary negro to whom we have become accustomed in other parts of the world. It was very interesting to see him with a slate and pencil, wearing his coarse clothing with a jaunty happy air, and doing a sum in subtraction. I do not know whether an appearance of good humour and self-satisfaction combined does not strike the European more than any other Kafir characteristic. He never seems to assert that he is as good as a white man,—as the usual negro will do whenever the opportunity is given to him,—but that though he be inferior there is no reason why he should not be as jolly as circumstances will admit. The Kafir girl is the same when seen in the schools. Her aspect no doubt will be much altered for the worse when she follows the steps of her Kafir husband as his wife and slave.But at Lovedale she is comparatively smart, and gay-looking. Many of these pupils while still at school reach the age at which young people fall in love with each other. I was told that the young men and young women were kept strictly apart; but nevertheless, marriages between them on their leaving school are not uncommon,—nor unpopular with the authorities. It is probable that a young man who has been some years at Lovedale will treat his wife with something of Christian forbearance.
I find from the printed report of the seminary that the four following young ladies got the prizes in 1877 at Lovedale for the different virtues appended to their names. I insert the short list here not only that due honour may be given to the ladies themselves, but also that my readers may see something of Kafir female nomenclature.
Miss Kwankwa and Miss Bobi had I suppose Christian names given to them early in life. The other two are in possession of thoroughly Kafir appellations,—especially the young lady who has excelled in tidiness, and who no doubt will have become a bride before these lines are read in England.
I was taken out from King Williamstown to Peeltown tosee another educational Kafir establishment. At Peeltown the Rev. Mr. Birt presides over a large Kafir congregation, and has an excellent church capable of holding 500, which has been built almost exclusively by Kafir contributions. The boys’ school was empty, but I was taken to see the girls who lived together under the charge of an English lady. I wished that I might have been introduced to the presence of the girls at once, so as to find how they occupied themselves when not in school. But this was not to be. I was kept waiting for a few moments, and then was ushered into a room where I found about twenty of them sitting in a row hemming linen. They were silent, well behaved and very demure while I saw them,—and then before I left they sang a hymn.
If I had an Institution of my own to exhibit I feel sure that I should want to put my best foot forward,—and the best foot among Kafir female pupils is perhaps the singing of hymns and the hemming of linen.
Lateron in my journey, when I was returning to Capetown, I came back through some of the towns I have mentioned in the last chapter or two, and also through other places belonging to the Western Province. On that occasion I took my place by coach from Bloemfontein, the capital of the little Orange Free State or Republic to Port Elizabeth,—or to the railway station between Grahamstown and Port Elizabeth,—and in this way passed through the Stormberg and Catberg mountains. Any traveller visiting South Africa with an eye to scenery should see these passes. For the mere sake of scenery no traveller does as yet visit South Africa, and therefore but little is thought about it. I was, however, specially cautioned by all who gave me advice on the subject, not to omit the Catberg in my journey. I may add also that this route from the Diamond Fields to Capetown is by far the easiest, and for those travelling by public conveyances is the only one that is certain as to time and not so wearisome as to cause excruciating torment. When travelling with a friend in our own conveyance I had enjoyed our independence,—especially our breakfasts in the veld; but I had become weary of sick and dying horses, andof surrounding myself with horse provender. I was therefore glad to be able to throw all the responsibility of the road on to the shoulders of the proprietor of the coach, especially when I found that I was not to be called on to travel by night. A mail cart runs through from the Diamond Fields to Capetown, three times a week;—but it goes day and night and has no provision for meals. The journey so made is frightful, and is fit only for a very young man who is altogether regardless of his life. There is also a decent waggon;—but it runs only occasionally. Families, to whom time is not a great object, make the journey with ox-waggons, travelling perhaps 24 miles a day, sleeping in their waggons and carrying with them all that they want. Ladies who have tried it have told me that they did not look back upon the time so spent as the happiest moments of their existence. The coach was tiresome enough, taking seven days from the Diamond Fields to Port Elizabeth. Between Bloemfontein and Grahamstown, a trip of five days, it travels about fourteen hours a day. But at night there was always ten hours for supper and rest, and the accommodation on the whole was good. The beds were clean and the people along the road always civil. I was greatly taken with one little dinner which was given to us in the middle of the day at a small pretty Inn under the Catberg Mountain. The landlord, an old man, was peculiarly courteous, opening our soda water for us and handing us the brandy bottle with a grace that was all his own. Then he joined us on the coach and travelled along the road with us, and it turned out that he had been a member of the old Capetown Parliament, andhad been very hot in debate in the time of the Kafir wars. He became equally hot in debate now, declaring to us that everything was going to the dogs because the Kafirs were not made to work. I liked his politics less than his leg of mutton,—which had been excellent. The drive through the Stormberg is very fine;—but the mountains are without timber or water. It is the bleak wildness of the place which gives it its sublimity. Between the Stormberg and the Catberg lies Queenstown,—a picturesque little town with two or three hotels. The one at which the coach stopped was very good. It was a marvel to me that the Inns should be so good, as the traffic is small. We sat down to a table d’hôte dinner, at which the host with all his family joined us, that would have done credit to a first class Swiss hotel. I don’t know that a Swiss hotel could produce such a turkey. When the landlord told his youngest child, who had modestly asked for boiled beef, that she might have turkey in spite of the number at table, I don’t know whether I admired most, the kind father, the abstemious daughter, or the capacious turkey.
I think that South Africa generally is prouder of the road over the Catberg than of any other detail among its grand scenery. I had been told so often that whatever I did I must go over the Catberg! I did go over the Catberg, walking up the bleak side from the North, and travelling down in the coach, or Cape cart which we had got there, among the wooded ravines to the South. It certainly is very fine,—but not nearly so grand in my opinion as Montague Pass or Southey’s Pass in the Western Province.From the foot of the Catberg we ran into Fort Beaufort, to which town I carried my reader in a previous chapter. It was over this road that I had poured into my ears the political harangue of that late member of the Legislature. He belonged to a school of politicians which is common in South Africa, but which became very distasteful to me. The professors of it are to be found chiefly in the Eastern Province of the Cape Colony, in which I was then travelling, though the West is by no means without them. Their grand doctrine is that the Kafirs should be “ruled with a rod of iron.” That phrase of the rod of iron had become odious to me before I left the country. “Thieves!” such a professor will say. “They are all thieves. Their only idea is to steal cattle.” Such an one never can be made to understand that as we who are not Savages have taken the land, it is hardly unnatural that men who are Savages should think themselves entitled to help themselves to the cattle we have put on the land we have taken from them. The stealing of cattle must of course be stopped, and there are laws for the purpose; but this appealing to a “rod of iron” because men do just that which is to be expected from men so placed was always received by me as an ebullition of impotent and useless anger. A farmer who has cattle in a Kafir country, on land which has perhaps cost him 10s. or 5s., or perhaps nothing, an acre for the freehold of it, can hardly expect the same security which a tenant enjoys in England, who pays probably 20s. an acre for the mere use of his land.
As I have now finished the account of my travels in thetwo Provinces and am about to go on to Natal, I will say a few words first as to the produce of the Cape Colony.
In the Cape Colony, as in Australia, wool has been for many years the staple of the country;—and, as in Australia the importance or seeming importance of the staple produce has been cast into the shade by the great wealth of the gold which has been found there, so in South Africa has the same been done by the finding of diamonds. Up to the present time, however, the diamond district has not in truth belonged to the Cape Colony. Soon after these pages will have been printed it will probably be annexed. But the actual political possession of the land in which the diamonds or gold have been found has had little to do with the wealth which has flowed into the different Colonies from the finding of the treasures. That in each case has come from the greatly increased consumption created by the finders. Men finding gold and diamonds eat and drink a great deal. The persons who sell such articles are enriched,—and the articles are subject to taxation, and so a public revenue is raised. It is hence that the wealth comes rather than from the gold and diamonds themselves. Had it been possible that the possession of the land round the Kimberley mines should have been left in the hands of the native tribes, there would have been but little difference in the money result. The flour, the meat, the brandy, and the imported coats and boots would still have been carried up to Kimberley from the Cape Colony.
But of the Colony itself wool has been the staple,—and among its produce the next most interesting are its wheat,its vines, and its ostriches. In regard to wool I find that the number of wooled sheep in the Cape Colony has considerably increased during the last ten years. I say wooled sheep, because there is a kind of sheep in the Colony, native to the land, which bear no wool and are known by their fat tails and lob ears. As they produce only mutton I take no reckoning of them here. In 1875 there were 9,986,240 wooled sheep in the Colony producing 28,316,181 pounds of wool, whereas in 1865 there were only 8,370,179 sheep giving 18,905,936 pounds of wool. This increase in ten years would seem to imply a fair progress,—especially as it applies not only to the number of sheep in the Colony, but also to the amount of wool given by each sheep; but I regret to say that during the latter part of that period of ten years there has been a very manifest falling off. I cannot give the figures as to the Cape Colony itself, as I have done with the numbers for 1865 and 1875;—but from the ports of the Cape Colony there were exported—
These figures not only fail to shew that ratio of increase without which a colonial trade cannot be said to be in a healthy condition; but they exhibit also a very great decrease,—the falling off in the value of wool from 1872 to 1876 being no less than £1,048,208, or nearly a third of thewhole. They whom I have asked as to the reason of this, have generally said that it is due to the very remunerative nature of the trade in ostrich feathers, and have intimated that farmers have gone out of wool in order that they might go into feathers. To find how far this may be a valid excuse we must enquire what has been the result of ostrich farming during the period. What was the export of ostrich feathers for each of the ten executive years, I have no means of saying. In 1865 there were but 80 tame ostriches kept by farmers in the Colony, though no doubt a large amount of feathers from wild ostriches was exported. In 1875, 21,751 ostriches were kept, and the total value of feathers exported was £306,867, the whole amount coming from ostriches thus being less by £700,000 than the falling off in the wool. Had the Colony been really progressing, a new trade might well have been developed to the amount above stated without any falling off in the staple produce of the country. The most interesting circumstance in reference to the wool and sheep of the country is the fact that the Kafirs own 1,109,346 sheep, and that they produced in 1875 2,249,000 pounds of wool.
It is certainly the case that the wools of the Cape Colony are very inferior to those of Australia. I find from the Prices Current as published by a large woolbroker in London for the year 1877, that the average prices through the year realized by what is called medium washed wool were for Australian wools,—taking all the Australian Colonies together,—something over 1s. 6d. a pound, whereas the average price for the same class of wool from the CapeColony was only something over 1s. 1d. a pound. There has been a difference of quite 5d. a pound; or about 40 per cent. in favour of the Australian article. “There is no doubt,” says my friend who furnished me with this information, “that valuable and useful as are Cape wools they are altogether distanced by the fine Australian. Breeding has to do with this. So has climate and country.” For what is called Superior washed wool, the Victorian prices are fully a shilling a pound higher than those obtained by the growers of the Cape, the average prices for the best of the class being 2s. 6d. for Victorian, and 1s. 6d. a pound for Cape Colony wool.
Perhaps the fairest standard by which to test the prosperity of a new country is its capability of producing corn,—especially wheat. It is by its richness in this respect that the United States have risen so high in the world. Australia has not prospered so quickly, and will never probably prosper so greatly, because on a large portion of her soil wheat has not been grown profitably. The first great question is whether a young country can feed herself with bread. The Cape Colony has obtained a great reputation for its wheat, and does I believe produce flour which is not to be beaten anywhere on the earth. But she is not able to feed herself. In 1875, she imported wheat and flour to the value, including the duty charged on it, of £126,654. In reaching this amount I have deducted £2,800 the value of a small amount which was exported. This is more than 10s. per annum for each white inhabitant of the country, the total white population being 236,783. The deficiency is not very large; but in a Colony the climate of which is in so manyrespects adapted to wheat there should be no deficiency. The truth is that it is altogether a question of artificial irrigation. If the waters from the mountains can be stored and utilized, the Cape will run over with wheat.
I find that in the whole Colony there were in 1875 about 80,000,000 acres of land in private hands;—that being the amount of land which has been partly or wholly alienated by Government. I give the number of acres in approximate figures because in the official return it is stated in morgen. The morgen is a Dutch measure of land and comprises a very little more, but still little more than two acres. Out of this large area only 550,000 acres or less than 1-14th are cultivated. It is interesting to know that more than a quarter of this, or 150,000 acres are in the hands of the native races and are cultivated by them;—cultivated by them as owners and not as servants. In 1875 there were 28,416 ploughs in the Cape Colony and of these 9,179, nearly a third, belonged to the Kafirs or Hottentots.
In 1855 there were 55,300,025 vines in the Colony, and in 1875 this number had increased to 69,910,215. The increase in the production of wine was about in the same proportion. The increase in the distilling of brandy was more than proportionate. The wine had risen from 3,237,428 gallons to 4,485,665, and the brandy from 430,955 to 1,067,832 gallons. I was surprised to find how very small was the exportation of brandy, the total amount sent away, and noted by the Custom House as exported being 2,910 gallons. No doubt a comparatively large quantity is sent to the other districts of South Africa byinland carriage, so that the Custom House knows nothing about it. But the bulk of this enormous increase in brandy has been consumed in the Colony, and must therefore have had its evil as well as its good results. Of the brandy exported by sea by far the greatest part is consumed in South Africa, the Portuguese at Delagoa Bay taking nearly half. Great Britain, a country which is fond of brandy, imports only 695 gallons from her own brandy-making Colony. As the Cape brandy is undoubtedly made from grapes, and as the preference for grape-made brandy is equally certain, the fact I fear tells badly for the Cape manufacture. It cannot be but that they might make their brandy better. Of wine made in the Colony 60,973 gallons were exported in 1875, or less than 1-7th of the amount produced. This is a very poor result, seeing that the Cape Colony is particularly productive in grapes and seems to indicate that the makers of wine have as yet been hardly more successful in their manufacture, than the makers of brandy. Much no doubt is due to the fact that the merchants have not as yet found it worth their while to store their wines for any lengthened period.
At the time of my visit ostrich feathers were the popular produce of the Colony. Farmers seemed to be tired of sheep,—tired at least of the constant care which sheep require, to be diffident of wheat, and down-hearted as to the present prices of wine. It seemed to me that in regard to all these articles there was room for increased energy. As to irrigation, which every one in the Colony feels to be essential to agricultural success in the greater part not only of theColony but of South Africa generally, the first steps must I think be taken by the governments of the different districts.
The total population of the Colony is 720,984. Of these less than a third, 209,136, are represented as living on agriculture which in such a Colony should support more than half the people. The numbers given include of course men women and children. Of this latter number, less than a third again, or 60,458, are represented as being of white blood,—or Dutch and English combined. I believe about two-thirds of these to be Dutch,—though as to that I can only give an opinion. From this it would result that the residue, perhaps about 20,000 who are of English descent, consists of the farmers themselves and their families. Taking four to a family, this would give only 5,000 English occupiers of land. There is evidently no place for an English agricultural labourer in a Colony which shows such a result after seventy years of English occupation. And indeed there is much other evidence proving the same fact. Let the traveller go where he will he will see no English-born agricultural labourer in receipt of wages. The work, if not done by the farmer or his family, is with but few exceptions done by native hands. Should an Englishman be seen here or there in such a position he will be one who has fallen abnormally in the scale, and will, as an exception, only prove the rule. If a man have a little money to commence as a farmer he may thrive in the Cape Colony,—providing that he can accommodate himself to the peculiarities of the climate. As a navvy he may earn good wages on the railways, or as a miner at the copper mines. But, intending to be anagricultural labourer, he should not emigrate to South Africa. In South Africa the Natives are the labourers and they will remain so, both because they can live cheaper than the white man, and because the white man will not work along side of them on equal terms. Though an Englishman on leaving his own country might assure himself that he had no objection to such society, he would find that the ways of the Colony would be too strong for him. In Australia, in Canada, in New Zealand, or the United States, he may earn wages as an agriculturist;—but he will not do so in South Africa with content and happiness to himself. The paucity of the English population which has settled here since we owned the country is in itself sufficient proof of the truth of my assertion.
It is stated in the Blue Book of the Colony for 1876,—which no doubt may be trusted implicitly,—that the average daily hire for an agricultural labourer in the Colony is 3s. for a white man, and 2s. for a coloured man, with diet besides. But I observe also that in some of the best corn-districts,—especially in Malmsbury,—no entry is made as to the wages of European agricultural labourers. Where such wages are paid, it will be found that they are paid to Dutchmen. There are no doubt instances of this sufficient in most districts to afford an average. A single instance would do so.
Taking the whole of the Colony I find that the wages of carpenters, masons, tailors, shoemakers and smiths average 9s. a day for white men and 6s. for coloured men. This is for town and country throughout. In some places wages ashigh as 15s. a day has been paid for white workmen, and as high as 8s.—9s.—and even 10s. for coloured. The European artizan is no doubt at present more efficient than the native, and when working with the native, works as his superintendent or Boss. For tradesmen such as these,—men who know their trades and can eschew drink,—there is a fair opening in South Africa, as there is in almost all the British Colonies.
The price of living for a working man is, as well as I can make a calculation on the subject, nearly the same as in England, but with a slight turn in favour of the Colony on account of the lower price of meat. Meat is about 6d. a pound; bacon 1s. 5d. Bread is 4d. a pound; tea 3s. 10d., coffee 1s. 4d. Butter, fresh 1s. 10d.; salt 1s. 6d. Ordinary wine per gallon,—than which a workman can drink no more wholesome liquor,—is 6s. In the parts of the Colony adjacent to Capetown it may be bought for 2s. and 3s. a gallon. The colonial beer is 5s. a gallon. Whether it be good or bad I omitted to enable myself to form an opinion. Clothing, which is imported from England, is I think cheaper than in England. This I have found to be the case in the larger Colonies generally, and I must leave those who are learned in the ways of Commerce to account for the phenomenon. I will give the list, as I found it in the Blue Book of the Cape Colony, for labourers’ clothing. Shirts 30s. 5d. per dozen. Shoes 10s. per pair. Jackets 15s. each. Waistcoats 7s. each. Trowsers 11s. 6d. per pair. Hats 5s. 6d. each. In these articles so much depends on quality that it is hard to make a comparison. In South Africa Iwas forced to buy two hats, and I got them very much cheaper than my London hatmaker would have sold me the same articles. House-rent, taking the Colony through, is a little dearer than in England. Domestic service is dearer;—but the class of whom I am speaking would probably not be affected by this. The rate of wages for house servants as given in the Blue Book is as follows:—
I profess the greatest possible respect for the Cape Colony Blue Book and for its compilers. I feel when trusting to it that I am standing upon a rock against which waves of statistical criticism may dash themselves in vain. Such at least is my faith as to 968 out of the 969 folio pages which the last published volume contains. But I would put it to the compilers of that valuable volume, I would put it to my particular friend Captain Mills himself, whether they, whether he, can get a European man-servant for £30 a year, or a European damsel for £16 4s.! Double the money would not do it. Let them, let him, look at the book;—Section v. page 3;—and have the little error corrected, lest English families should rush out to the Cape Colony thinking that they would be nicely waited upon by white fingers at these easy but fabulous rates. The truth is that European domestic servants can hardly be had for any money.
Thelittle Colony of Natal has a special history of its own quite distinct from that of the Cape Colony which cannot be said to be its parent. In Australia, Queensland and Victoria were, in compliance with their own demands, separated from New South Wales. In South Africa the Transvaal Republic,—now again under British rule,—and the Orange Free State were sent into the world to shift for themselves by the Mother Country. In these cases there is something akin to the not unnatural severance of the adult son from the home and the hands of his father. But Natal did not spring into existence after this fashion and has owed nothing to the fostering care of the Cape Colony. I will quote here the commencing words of a pamphlet on the political condition of Natal published in 1869, because they convey incidentally a true statement of the causes which led to its colonization. “The motives which induced the Imperial Government to claim Natal from the Dutch African emigrants were not merely philanthropic. The Dutch in their occupation of the country had been involved in serious struggles with the Zulus. The apprehension that these struggles might be renewed and that the wave of disturbance might be carriedtowards the Eastern frontier of the Cape influenced to some extent the resolution to colonize Natal. But whatever may have been the prudential considerations that entered into their counsels, the Government were deeply impressed with the wish to protect the Natives and to raise them in the scale of humanity.”[14]From this the reader will learn that the British took up the country from the Dutch who had on occupying it been involved in difficulties with the Natives, and that the English had stepped in to give a government to the country, partly in defence of the Dutch against the Natives,—but partly also, and chiefly in defence of the Natives against the Dutch. This was, in truth, the case. The difficulties which the Dutch wanderers had encountered were awful, tragic, heartrending. They had almost been annihilated. Dingaan, the then chief of the Zulus, had resolved to annihilate them, and had gone nearer to success than the Indians of Mexico or Peru had ever done with Cortez or Pizarro. But they had stood their ground,—and were not inclined to be gentle in their dealings with the Zulus,—as the congregation of tribes was called with which they had come in contact.
Natal received its name four centuries ago. In 1497 it was visited,—or at any rate seen,—by Vasco da Gama on Christmas day and was then called Terra Natalis from thatcause. It is now called Na-tal, with the emphasis sharp on the last syllable. I remember when we simply translated the Latin word into plain English and called the place Port Natal in the ordinary way,—as may be remembered by the following stanza from Tom Hood’s “Miss Kelmansegg”:—
Into this world we come like ships,Launched from the docks and stocks and slips,For future fair or fatal.And one little craft is cast awayOn its very first trip to Babbicombe Bay,While another rides safe at Port Natal.
Into this world we come like ships,Launched from the docks and stocks and slips,For future fair or fatal.And one little craft is cast awayOn its very first trip to Babbicombe Bay,While another rides safe at Port Natal.
Into this world we come like ships,Launched from the docks and stocks and slips,For future fair or fatal.And one little craft is cast awayOn its very first trip to Babbicombe Bay,While another rides safe at Port Natal.
After that no more was known of the coast for more than a hundred and fifty years. In the latter part of the eighteenth century the Dutch seem to have had a settlement there,—not the Dutch coming overland as they did afterwards, but the Dutch trading along the coast. It did not, however, come to much, and we hear no more of the country till 1823,—only fifty-five years ago,—when an English officer of the name of Farewell, with a few of his countrymen, settled himself on the land where the town of D’Urban now stands. At that time King Chaka of the Zulus, of whom I shall speak in a following chapter, had well-nigh exterminated the natives of the coast, so that there was no one to oppose Mr. Farewell and his companions. There they remained, with more or less of trouble from Chaka’s successor and from invading Zulus, till 1835, when the British of the Cape Colony took so much notice of the place as to call the settlement Durban, after Sir Benjamin D’Urban, its then Governor.
Then began the real history of Natal which like so manyother parts of South Africa,—like the greater part of that South Africa which we now govern,—was first occupied by Dutchmen trekking away from the to them odious rule of British Governors, British officers, British laws,—and what seemed to them to be mawkish British philanthropy. The time is so recent that I myself have been able to hear the story told by the lips of those who were themselves among the number of indignant emigrants,—of those who had barely escaped when their brethren and friends had been killed around them by the natives. “Why did you leave your old home?” I asked one old Dutch farmer whom I found still in Natal. With the urbanity which seemed always to characterize the Dutch he would say nothing to me derogatory to the English. “He says that there was not land enough for their wants,” explained the gentleman who was acting as interpreter between us. But it meant the same thing. The English were pressing on the heels of the Dutchmen.
The whole theory of life was different between the two people and remains so to the present day. The Englishman likes to have a neighbour near him; the Dutchman cannot bear to see the smoke of another man’s chimney from his own front door. The Englishman would fain grow wheat; the Dutchman is fond of flocks and herds. The Englishman is of his nature democratic;—the Dutchman is patriarchal. The Englishman loves to have his finger in every pie around him. The Dutchman wishes to have his own family, his own lands, above all his own servants and dependants, altogether within his own grasp, and cares for little beyond that.There had come various laws in the Cape Colony altogether antagonistic to the feelings of the Dutch farmer, and at last in 1834, came the emancipation act which was to set free all the slaves in 1838. Although the Dutch had first explored Natal before that act came into operation,—it had perhaps more to do with the final exodus of the future Natalians than any other cause. The Dutchman of South Africa could not endure the interference with his old domestic habits which English laws were threatening and creating.
In 1834 the first Dutch party made their way from Uitenhage in the Eastern Province of the Cape Colony, by land, across the South Eastern corner of South Africa over the Drakenberg mountains to the Natal coast. Here they fraternised with the few English they found there, examined the country and seemed to have made themselves merry,—till news reached them of the Kafir wars then raging. They gallantly hurried back to their friends, postponing their idea of permanent emigration till this new trouble should be over. It was probably the feeling induced by Lord Glenelg’s wonderful despatch of Dec. 1835,—in which he declared that the English and Dutch had been all wrong and the Kafirs all right in the late wars,—which at last produced the exodus. There were personal grievances to boot, all of which sprang from impatience of the Dutch to the English law; and towards the end of 1836 two hundred Dutchmen started under Hendrik Potgieter. A more numerous party followed under Gerrit Maritz. They crossed the Orange river, to which the Cape Colony wasthen extended, and still travelling on, making their waggons their homes as they went, they came to the Vaal, leaving a portion of their numbers behind them in what is now the Orange Free State. We have no written account of the mode of life of these people as they trekked on, but we can conceive it. No Dutchman in South Africa is ever without a waggon big enough to make a home for his family and to carry many of his goods, or without a span or team of oxen numerous enough to drag it. They took their flocks and horses with them, remaining here and there as water and grass would suit them. And here and there they would sow their seeds and wait for a crop, and then if the crop was good and the water pleasant, and if the Natives had either not quarrelled with them or had been subdued, they would stay for another season till the waggon would at last give place to a house, and then, as others came after them, they would move on again, jealous of neighbourhood even among their own people. So they went northwards till they crossed the Vaal river and came into hostile contact with the fierce tribes of the Matabeles which then occupied the Transvaal.
What took place then belongs rather to the history of the Transvaal than to that of Natal; but the Dutch pioneers who had gone thus far were forced back over the Vaal; and though they succeeded in recovering by renewed raids many of the oxen and waggons of which they had been deprived by a great Chief of the Matabele tribe named Mazulekatze, they acknowledged that they must carry their present fortunes elsewhere, and they remembered the pleasantvalleys which some of them had seen a few years earlier on the Natal coast. With great difficulty they found a track pervious to wheels through the Drakenbergs, and made their way down to the coast. There had been disagreements among the Dutch themselves after their return back over the Vaal river, and they did not all go forth into Natal. Pieter Retief, who had now joined them from the old Colony and who had had his own reasons for quarrelling with the British authorities in the Cape, was chosen the Chief of those who made their way eastwards into Natal, and he also, on reaching the coast, fraternised with the English there who at that time acknowledged no obedience to the British Government at Capetown. It seems that Retief and the few English at Durban had some idea of a joint Republic;—but the Dutchman took the lead and finding that the natives were apparently amenable, he entertained the idea of obtaining a cession of the land from Dingaan, who had murdered and succeeded his brother Chaka as King of the Zulus.
Dingaan made his terms, which Retief executed. A quantity of cattle which another tribe had taken was to be returned to Dingaan. The cattle were obtained and given up to the Zulu Chief. In the meantime Dutchman after Dutchman swarmed into the new country with their waggons and herds through the passes which had been found. We are told that by the end of 1837 a thousand waggons had made their way into this district now called Natal and had occupied the northern portion of it. Probably not a single waggon was owned by an Englishman,—though Natal is nowspecially an English and not a Dutch Colony. There was hardly a Native to be seen, the country having been desolated by the King of the Zulus. It was the very place for the Dutch,—fertile, without interference, and with space for every one.
Early in 1838 Retief with a party of picked men started for the head quarters of Dingaan, the Zulu King, with the recovered cattle which he was to give up as the price of the wide lands assigned to him. Then there was a festival and rejoicings among the Zulus in which the Dutchmen joined. A deed of cession was signed, of which Dingaan, the King, understood probably but little. But he did understand that these were white men coming to take away his land and at the moment in which the ceremonies were being completed,—he contrived to murder them all. That was the end of Pieter Retief, whose name in conjunction with that of his friend and colleague Gerrit Maritz still lives in the singular appellation found for the capital of Natal,—Pieter Maritzburg.
Then Dingaan, with a spirit which I cannot reprobate as I find it reprobated by other writers, determined to sally forth and drive the Dutch out of the land. It seems to me of all things the most natural for a king of Natives to do,—unless the contemplation of such a feat were beyond his intelligence or its attempt beyond his courage. It may be acknowledged that it is the business of us Europeans first to subjugate and then to civilize the savage races—but that the Savage shall object to be subjugated is surely natural. To abuse a Savage for being treacherous and cruel is to abusehim for being a Savage, which is irrational. Dingaan failed neither in intelligence or courage, and went forth to annihilate the Dutch in those northern portions of the present Colony which are now called Klip-River and Weenen. The latter word is Dutch for wailing and arose from the sufferings which Dingaan then inflicted. He first came across a party of women and children at the Blue Krans river,—in the district now called Weenen,—and killed them all. Various separated parties were destroyed in the same way, till at last an entrenchment of waggons was formed,—a “laager” as it is called in Dutch,—and from thence a battle was fought as from a besieged city against the besiegers. The old man who told me that he had trekked because land in the Colony was insufficient had been one of the besieged, and his old wife, who sat by and added a word now and then to the tale, had been inside the laager with him and had held her baby with one hand while she supplied ammunition to her husband with the other. It was thus that the Dutch always defended themselves, linking their huge waggons together into a circle within which were collected their wives and children, while their cattle were brought into a circle on the outside. It must be remembered that they, few in number, were armed with rifles while the Savages around were attacking them with their pointed spears which they call assegais.
By far the greater number of Dutch who had thus made their way over into Natal were killed,—but a remnant remained sufficient to establish itself. In these contests the white man always comes off as conqueror at last. Dingaan,however, carried on the battle for a long time, and though driven out of Natal was never thoroughly worsted on his own Zulu territory. Both Dutch and English attacked him in his own stronghold, but of those who went over the Buffalo or Tugela river in Dingaan’s time with hostile intentions but few lived to return and tell the tale. There was one raid across the river in which it is said that 3,000 Zulus were killed, and that Dingaan was obliged to burn his head kraal or capital, and fly; but even in this last of their attacks on Zulu land the Dutch were at first nearly destroyed.
At last these battles with Dingaan were brought to an end by a quarrel which the emigrants fostered between Dingaan and his brother Panda,—who was also his heir. I should hardly interest my readers if I were to go into the details of this family feud. It seems however that in spite of the excessive superstitious reverence felt by these Savages for their acknowledged Chief, they were unable to endure the prolonged cruelties of their tyrant. Panda himself was not a warrior, having been kept by Dingaan in the back-ground in order that he might not become the leader of an insurrection against him; but he was put forward as the new king; and the new king’s party having allied themselves with the Europeans, Dingaan was driven into banishment and seems to have been murdered by those among whom he fell. That was the end of Dingaan and has really been the end, up to this time, of all fighting between the Zulus and the white occupiers of Natal. From the death of Dingaan the ascendancy of the white man seems tohave been acknowledged in the districts south and west of the Tugela and Buffalo rivers.
The next phase in the history of Natal is that which has reference to the quarrels between the Dutch and the English. There is I think no doubt that during the first occupation of the land by the Dutch the English Government refused to have anything to do with the territory. It was then the same as it has been since when we gave up first the Transvaal, and afterwards the Orange Free State, or “Sovereignty” as it used to be called. A people foreign to us in habits and language, which had become subject to us, would not endure our rule,—would go further and still further away when our rule followed them. It was manifest that we could not stop them without the grossest tyranny;—but were we bound to go after them and take care of them? The question has been answered in the negative even when it has been asked as to wandering Englishmen who have settled themselves on strange shores,—but though answered in the negative it has always turned out that when the Englishmen have reached a number too great to be ignored the establishment of a new Colony has been inevitable. Was it necessary that Downing Street should run after the Dutch? Downing Street declared that she would do nothing of the kind. Lord Glenelg had disclaimed “any intention on the part of Her Majesty’s Government to assert any authority over any part of this territory.” But Downing Street was impotent to resist. The Queen’s subjects had settled themselves in a new country, and after some shilly-shallying on the part of the Cape authorities, after the coming and going of asmall body of troops, these subjects declared their intention of establishing themselves as a Republic—and begged Her Majesty to acknowledge their independent existence. This was in January 1841, when Sir George Napier was Governor. In the meantime the Dutch had had further contests with remaining natives,—contests in which they had been the tyrants and in which they shewed a strong intention of driving the black tribes altogether away from any lands which they might want themselves. This, and probably a conviction that there were not sufficient elements of rule among the Dutch farmers to form a government,—a conviction for which the doings of the young Volksraad of Natalia gave ample reason,—at last caused our Colonial Office to decide that Natal was still British territory. Sir George Napier on 2nd Dec. 1841 issued a proclamation stating, “That whereas the Council of emigrant farmers now residing at Port Natal and the territory adjacent thereto had informed His Excellency that they had ceased to be British subjects,” &c. &c.; the whole proclamation is not necessary here;—“his Excellency announced his intention of resuming military occupation of Port Natal by sending thither without delay a detachment of Her Majesty’s forces.” And so the war was declared.[15]
The war at first went very much in favour of the Dutch. A small detachment of British troops,—about 300 men,—was marched overland to Durban, and two little vessels of war were sent round with provisions and ammunition.The proceedings of this force were so unfortunate that a part of it was taken and marched up to prison at Pieter Maritzburg and the remainder besieged in its own camp where it was nearly starved to death. The story of the whole affair is made romantic by the remarkable ride made by one Mr. King, during six days and nights, along the coast and through the Kafir country, into the Cape Colony, bearing the sad news and demanding assistance. As Great Britain had now begun the campaign, Great Britain was of course obliged to end it successfully. A larger force with better appurtenances was sent, and on 5th July, 1842, a deed of submission was signed on behalf of the Dutch owning the sovereignty of Queen Victoria. That is the date on which in fact Natal did first become a British possession. But a contest was still carried on for more that a twelvemonth longer through which the Dutch farmers strove to regain their independence, and it was not till the 8th of August, 1843, that the twenty-four members of the still existing Volksraad declared Her Majesty’s Government to be supreme in Port Natal.
But the Dutchmen could hardly even yet be said to be beaten. They certainly were not contented to remain as British subjects. Very many of them passed again back over the Drakenberg mountains determined to free themselves from the British yoke, and located themselves in the districts either to the North or South of the Vaal river,—although they did so far away from the ocean which is the only highway for bringing to them stores from other countries, and although they were leaving good low-lying fertile lands for a high arid veld the most of which was only fit for pastoralpurposes. But they would there be, if not free from British rule,—for the Republics were not yet established,—far at any rate from British interference. If any people ever fought and bled for a land, they had fought and bled for Natal. But when they found they could not do what they liked with it, they “trekked” back and left it. And yet this people have shewn themselves to be generally ill-adapted for self government,—as I shall endeavour to shew when I come to speak of the Transvaal Republic,—and altogether in want of some external force to manage for them their public affairs. Nothing perhaps is harder than to set a new Government successfully afloat, and the Dutch certainly have shewn no aptitude for the task either in Natal or in the Transvaal.
It is not to be supposed that all the Dutch went, or that they went all at once. In some parts of the Colony they are still to be found prospering on their lands,—and some of the old names remain. But the country strikes the stranger as being peculiarly English, in opposition to much of the Cape Colony which is peculiarly Dutch. In one district of Natal I came across a congregation of Germans, with a German minister and a German church service, and German farmers around, an emigration from Hanover having been made to the spot. But I heard of no exclusively Dutch district. The traveller feels certain that he will not require the Dutch language as he moves about, and he recognises the Dutchman as a foreigner in the land when he encounters him. In the Transvaal, in the Orange Free State, and in many parts of the Western districts of the Cape Colony,—even in Capetown itself,—he feels himself to be among a Dutch people. He knows as a fact that the Dutch in South Africa are more numerous than the English. But in Natal he is on English soil, among English people,—with no more savour of Holland than he has in London when he chances to meet a Dutchman there. And yet over the whole South African continent there is no portion of the land for which the Dutchman has fought and bled and dared and suffered as he has done for Natal. As one reads the story one is tempted to wish that he had been allowed to found his Natalia, down by the sea shore, in pleasant lands, where he would not have been severed by distance and difficulties of carriage from the comforts of life,—from timber for instance with which to floor his rooms, and wood to burn his bricks, and iron with which to make his ploughs.
But the Dutch who went did not go at once, nor did the English who came come at once. It is impossible not to confess that what with the Home Government in Downing Street and what with the Governors who succeeded each other at the Cape there was shilly-shallying as to adopting the new Colony. The province was taken up in the manner described in 1843, but no Governor was appointed till 1845. Major Smith, who as Captain Smith had suffered so much with his little army, was the military commander during the interval, and the Dutch Volksraad continued to sit. Questions as to the tenure of land naturally occupied the minds of all who remained. If a Boer chose to stay would he or would he not be allowed to occupy permanently the farm, probably of 6,000 acres which he had assumed to himself? And then, during this time, the tribes who had fled in fear of the Dutch or who had been scattered by the Zulu King, flocked in vast hordes into the country when they had been taught to feel that they would be safe under British protection. It is said that in 1843 there were not above 3,000 natives in all Natal, but that within three or four years 80,000 had crowded in. Now the numbers amount to 320,000. Of course they spread themselves over the lands which the Dutch had called their own, and the Dutch were unable to stop them. In December 1845 Mr. West was appointed the first Governor of Natal, and attempts were made to arrange matters between the remaining Boers and the Zulus. A commission was appointed to settle claims, but it could do but little,—or nothing. Native locations were arranged;—that is large tracts of land were given over to the Natives. But this to the Boers was poison. To them the Natives were as wild beasts,—and wild beasts whom they with their blood and energy had succeeded in expelling. Now the wild beasts were to be brought back under the auspices of the British Government!
In 1847 Andrias Pretorius was the dominant leader of the Natal Boers and he went on a pilgrimage to Sir Henry Pottinger who was then Governor in the Cape Colony. Sir Henry Pottinger would not see him,—required him to put down what he had to say in writing, which is perhaps the most heartbreaking thing which any official man can do to an applicant. What if our Cabinet Ministers were to desire deputations to put down their complaints in writing? Pretorius, who afterwards became a great rebel againstBritish authority and the first President of the Transvaal Republic, returned furious to Pieter Maritzburg,—having however first put down “what he had to say” in very strong writing. Sir Henry was then leaving the Colony and answered by referring the matter to his successor. Pretorius flew to the public press and endeavoured to instigate his fellow subjects to mutiny by the indignant vehemence of his language. When the news of his failure with Sir Henry Pottinger reached the Boers in Natal, they determined upon a further wholesale and new expatriation. They would all “trek” and they did trek, on this occasion into the district between the Orange and the Vaal,—where we shall have to follow them in speaking of the origin of the two Dutch Republics. In this way Natal was nearly cleared of Dutchmen in the year 1848.
It all happened so short a time ago that many of the actors in those early days of Natal are still alive, and some of my readers will probably remember dimly something of the incidents as they passed;—how Sir Harry Smith, who succeeded Sir Henry Pottinger as Governor of the Cape, became a South African hero, and somewhat tarnished his heroism by the absurdity of his words. The story of Retief hardly became known to us in England with all its tragic horrors, but I myself can well remember how unwilling we were to have Natal, and how at last it was borne in upon us that Natal had to be taken up by us,—perhaps as a fourth rate Colony, with many regrets, much as the Fiji islands have been taken up since. The Transvaal, inferior as it is in advantages and good gifts, has just now been acceptedwith very much greater favour. The salary awarded to a Governor may perhaps best attest the importance of a new Colony. The Transvaal has begun with £3,000 a year. A poor £2,500 is even still considered sufficient for the much older Colony of Natal.
Since 1848 Natal has had its history, but not one that has peculiarly endeared it to the Mother Country. In 1849 a body of English emigrants went out there who have certainly been successful as farmers, and who came chiefly I think from the County of York. I do not know that there has since that been any one peculiar influx of English, though of course from time to time Englishmen have settled there,—some as farmers, more probably as traders, small or large. In 1850 Mr. Pine succeeded Mr. West as second Governor,—a gentleman who has again been Governor of the same Colony as Sir Benjamin Pine, and who has had to encounter,—somewhat unfairly, as I think,—the opprobrium incident to the irrational sympathy of a certain class at home in the little understood matter of Langalibalele. Langalibalele has, however, been so interesting a South African personage that I must dedicate a separate chapter to his history. In 1853 Dr. Colenso was appointed Bishop of Natal, and by the peculiarity of his religious opinions has given more notoriety to the Colony,—has caused the Colony to be more talked about,—than any of its Governors or even than any of its romantic incidents. Into religious opinion I certainly shall not stray in these pages. In my days I have written something about clergymen but never a word about religion. No doubt shall be thrown by me either upon themiracles or upon Colenso. But when he expressed his unusual opinions he became a noted man, and Natal was heard of for the first time by many people. He came to England in those days, and I remember being asked to dinner by a gushing friend. “We have secured Colenso,” said my gushing friend, as though she was asking me to meet a royal duke or a Japanese ambassador. But I had never met the Bishop till I arrived in his own see, where it was allowed me to come in contact with that clear intellect, the gift of which has always been allowed to him. He is still Bishop of Natal, and will probably remain so till he dies. He is not the man to abandon any position of which he is proud. But there is another bishop—of Maritzburg—whose tenets are perhaps more in accord with those generally held by the Church of England. The confusion has no doubt been unfortunate,—and is still unfortunate, as has been almost everything connected with Natal. And yet it is a smiling pretty land, blessed with numerous advantages; and if it were my fate to live in South Africa I should certainly choose Natal for my residence. Fair Natal, but unfortunate Natal! Its worldly affairs have hitherto not gone smoothly.
In 1856 the Colony, which had hitherto been but a sub-Colony under the Cape was made independent, and a Legislative Council was appointed, at first of twelve elected and of four official members;—but this has since been altered. From that day to this there seems to have always been alive in Natal questions of altering the constitution, with a desire on the part of many of the English to draw nearer to, if notto adopt a system of government by parliamentary majorities,—and with a feeling on the part of a few that a further departure and a wider severance from such form of government would be expedient.
In 1873 came the Langalibalele affair to which I will only refer here for the purpose of saying that it led to the sending out of Sir Garnet Wolseley as a temporary governor or political head mediciner to set things right which were supposed at home to be wrong. There can be no doubt that the coming of a picked man, as was Sir Garnet, had the effect of subordinating the will of the people of the Colony to the judgment of the Colonial Office at home. Such effects will always be caused by such selections. A Cabinet Minister will persuade with words which from an Under Secretary would be inoperative. A known man will be successful with arguments which would be received with no respect from the mouth of one unknown. Sir Garnet Wolseley enjoyed an African reputation and was recognised as a great man when he landed in South Africa. The effect of his greatness was seen in his ability to induce the Legislative Council to add eight nominated members to their own House and thus to clip their own wings. Before his coming there were 15 elected members, and 5 official members—who were the Governor’s Council and who received a salary. Now there are 13 nominated members, of whom eight are chosen by the Governor but who receive no salaries. The consequence is that the Government can command a majority in almost all cases, and that Natal is therefore, in truth, a Crown Colony. I know that the wordwill be received with scorn and denial in Natal. A Legislative Council with a majority of freely elected members will claim that it has the dominant power and that it can do as it pleases. But in truth a Chamber so constituted as is that now at Natal has but little power of persistent operation.
It was stated in the House of Commons, in the debate on the South African Permissive Bill in the summer of 1877, that Natal contained a population of 17,000 white and 280,000 Natives. I am assured that the former number is somewhat understated, and I have spoken therefore of 20,000 white people. The Natives are certainly much more numerous than was supposed. I have taken them as 320,000; but judging from the hut tax I think they must be at least 10,000 more. Many probably evade the hut tax and some live without huts. Let us take the numbers as 20,000 and 320,000. With such a population can it be well to draw even near to a system of government by parliamentary majorities? We cannot exclude the black voter by his colour. To do so would be to institute a class legislation which would be opposed to all our feelings. Nor can any one say who is black or who white. But we all know how impossible it is that any number of whites, however small, should be ruled by any number of blacks, however great. In dealing with such a population we are bound to think of Ceylon or British Guiana, or of India,—and not of Canada, Australia, or New Zealand. At present the franchise in Natal is only given to such Natives as have lived for seven years in conformity with European laws andcustoms,—having exempted themselves in that time from native law,—and who shall have obtained from the Governor of the Colony permission to vote on these grounds. At present the Native is in this way altogether excluded. But the embargo is of its nature too arbitrary;—and, nevertheless, would not be strong enough for safety were there adventurous white politicians in the Colony striving to acquire a parliamentary majority and parliamentary power by bringing the Zulus to the poll.