pr 
 
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 CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME 
 OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT 
 FUND GIVEN IN 1 89 1 BY 
 
 HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE 
 
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 Cornell University Library 
 DT 844.2.D86A2 
 
 3 1924 028 730 442 
 
AN 
 
 Albany Settler's 
 REMINISCEICES. 
 
I I I / I Y 
 THE 
 
 W» + 
 
 OF 
 
 AN ALBANY SETTLER. 
 
 ♦®- 
 
 DELrVEEEB IN 
 
 GRAHAM'S Town, 
 
 AT THE 
 
 British Settlers' jJubilee, 
 
 May, 187D, 
 
 BY 
 
 REV, H, H, DUGMORE, 
 
 RICHARDS, CtLANVILLE & CO., CHURCH SQUARE. 
 
 1S71. 
 
 !6o 
 
■•)■■]] c r.-VI|:iU 
 
 
 London : 
 
 EioHAEDS, White & Co., Pkintess, 4, Bbown's Bdtldinqs, 
 
 St. Mabt Axe, E.C. 
 
Advertisement, 
 
 rpHE Author of tlie folio-wing Leoture offers to his Brother Settlers 
 the " Eeminisoenoes " it contains as his contribution towards a 
 "Jubilee Memorial." It will be a, great satisfaction to him should 
 they prove the means of awakening many other reooUections of our 
 first haJf-oentury of Colonial life, and of inducing those in whose 
 memories they are stored to place them on record, before the possibility 
 of doing so passes away for ever. It is in the hope that what he 
 has written may become a nucleus around which such recollections 
 may cluster, that he now submits it to the consideration of the Sons 
 and Daughters of the British Settlers of 1820. 
 
The original of tliis bool< is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028730442 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Part I. 
 „ II. 
 „ III. 
 
 LECTUEE. 
 
 PAGE. 
 1 
 
 21 
 37 
 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 
 I. 
 
 Ohoral March ... 
 
 i. 
 
 II. 
 
 A Reminiscence of 1820 ... 
 
 i. 
 
 III. 
 
 Prospect and Jtetrospect ... 
 
 iii. 
 
 
 The Sunny Land 
 
 iv. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The Dear Old Land 
 
 iv. 
 
 V. 
 
 Jubilee Ode 
 
 V. 
 
AN 
 
 LBANY Settler's 
 
 REMOISCENCES. 
 
 mTEODUCTION : 
 
 ®"I)0tal XiRatrf), see ..^Lppentii Jfia. \, 
 
 'i^^IS fifty years since!" Descendants of tlie Pioneers of 
 B^ro 1820, we are looMng back over tlie lapse of half a 
 ^^ century ! Few and feeble are tbe genuine Fathers and 
 Mothers of the Settlement that still linger among us ; 
 yet even of these there are some with us in this Jubilee gathering. 
 Men and women who headed their families from the home 
 beyond the waters ; and who have lived in this sunny clime to 
 see their children's children, even down to the fourth generation. 
 These are they who really "bore the burden and heat of the 
 day" in the work of colonizing South-Eastern Africa, for their 
 anxieties on behalf of their offspring doubled their care and 
 toil. And now those Children stand, themselves grey-headed and 
 almost patriarchal, the link between the old country and the 
 land of their adoption: — bom in the one, naturalized in the 
 other. It is for the information of their children that I would 
 on this occasion call up some reminiscences of the past, and 
 hold up to their view a few of memory's pictures of what their 
 fathers' fathers, and their mothers' mothers did and bore in the 
 olden time. 
 
 But little more than fifty years ago, when the few surviving 
 hoary-headed Fathers of the Albany Settlement were yet dwellers 
 
2 AN ALBANY SBTTLEE's REMINISCENCES. 
 
 in "The dear Old Land," the word "Africa" was suggestive of 
 little but waterless wilds, burning suns, tbe death-wind of the 
 desert, and the slave trade. In many minds the distinctions of 
 South, East, and West coasts were little recognised, and their 
 differences — physical, climatic, or social — hardly known. But 
 despite the appalling, which is so often associated with the 
 Tuiknown, and despite the gloomy pictures drawn by those who 
 would fain have detained them, there was courage enough in the 
 breasts of these pioneers, and of their life-companions, to brave 
 the dangers, real or imagiaary, of a voyage to, and a settlement 
 on, the shores of South Africa, although that was the point 
 remotest of all from the land of their birth. Some four thousand 
 British Settlers sailed from the Island Home of their fathers, in 
 the year 1820, to found the Anglo-African Community which 
 now exists in the Eastern Province of the Cape Colony. 
 
 It is hardly to be supposed that a child of nine years old 
 could enter into full sympathy with the feelings of those who 
 were rending the ties of home and Mndred, and launching the 
 boat of life upon an unknown sea. But the picture of the last 
 parting which I myself beheld has never faded from my memory. 
 It has rather become more vivid with the lapse of years, as 
 growing faculties enabled me the better to appreciate what I 
 remembered — the last wish and blessing of neighbours and 
 friends, mingling hopes and fears for us — the last clasp of 
 brothers' hands — the last falling upon sisters' necks by those 
 who were never to look into each other's eyes again. I see them 
 still! The faint hope of one day returning to visit once more 
 the old home was never realised by those who then ventured to 
 give utterance to it. Every one of them lies in an African 
 grave. 
 
 I affect no Statesman's view of the expediency of settling our 
 Eastern frontier with an English colony, though the subject is 
 one that invites some political reflections. Nor wUl I, just now, 
 attempt any estimate, or hazard any prophecy as to its results — 
 present or future. My task is the humbler one of "reminis- 
 
AN ALBANY 8ETTLEE S EEMINISCENCES. 3 
 
 cence." I am trying to gather up some of the fragments that 
 memory has saved from, ohlivion. 
 
 Long delays interfered with the departure of the Sir George 
 Oshom, the ship in -which our party were to sail. We chafed 
 imder them, but they, perhaps, saved our lives, for a few days 
 before our expected time of starting, one of those January gales, 
 for which the coast of England is so fearfully noted, burst upon 
 us as we lay moored in the Thames. Whole tiers of vessels 
 were driven from their moorings, and drifted in the darkness 
 down the river. Lads sleep soundly, and so the first effects of 
 the storm did not disturb me ; but I remember being awakened 
 by a crashing noise soon after daybreak, and looking up through 
 the hatchway just in time to see the rigging of our ship torn 
 away like cobwebs by the yards of another that had come foul of 
 us. This first and involuntary stage of our voyage ended in 
 our running aground just opposite G-reenwich Hospital, and 
 having all the women and children landed, lest the ship should 
 heel over and capsize with the ebb tide. Had the gale (which 
 was said to be the severest that had been known for forty years,) 
 caught us while going down the channel, we should, perhaps, 
 have foundered, as many others did. 
 
 I would apologise for adverting to these personal matters, did 
 I not know that such references are among the best means of 
 calling up kindred reminiscences in the minds of those who 
 passed through experiences more or less similar. I have no 
 doubt that what I have just said has recalled to the recollection 
 of some present the circumstances of their own embarkation. 
 
 The sailing day did arrive at last, and "the last glimpse,'' not 
 "of Erin," but of "Old England," was obtained through many 
 an eye dimmed with tears, as the Land's End faded finally from 
 view, and then the wide shoreless ocean spread around us. 
 
 I know nothing about the regular emigrant ships of the pre- 
 sent day; that is, so far as respects the quality of the food, oi 
 the accommodation they supply; but I remember the close 
 
 packing "between decks," the "banyan days," and the hard 
 
 B 2 
 
4 AN AliBANT SETTLEe's EBMINISCENCES. 
 
 salt junk and harder biscuit of 1820. I have not forgotten how 
 salt the outside of the puddings used to taste whioh the old 
 weather-beaten coot had boiled with sea water in the general 
 "copper;" nor how the passengers sometimes quarrelled with 
 the steward for cheating them out of the supplies. I remember, 
 too, how the little fellows, who were too young to see danger, 
 having got over the sea-sickness in the channel, would climb 
 into the long boat amidships, or oliag to the "main shrouds," 
 singing in chorus to the rocking of the vessel — 
 
 "There she lay. 
 All that day. 
 In the Bay of Biscay, O!" 
 
 as the rough seas were rolling around us. And I remember the 
 steep vine-clad lulls, and the grapes and oranges of Madeira ; 
 where the boats with their tempting freight, and their dark- 
 looking rowers, swarmed around the ships. Then came the 
 tantalizing "variables," — the calms of the "line," — the rough 
 shaving operations of old Father Neptune, the lather of whose 
 brush, and the edge of whose razor stuck, the one to the chin 
 and the other to the memory, for some time afterwards. Nor 
 have I forgotten the one or two fearfnl storms we encountered, 
 when the hatches were battened down, the heavy seas were 
 shipped, and while the torrents poured down among us ia the 
 midnight darkness, the mothers clasped their children to their 
 bosoms, exclaiming, " We'U all go together !" 
 
 But, thanks to Him who " holds the waters in the hollow of 
 His hand," the storms were weathered, the perils passed ; and 
 after many a weary day, the welcome cry of "Land!" rang 
 through the ship, gladdened every heart, and made young and 
 old start to their feet, and strain every eye to catch a first glimpse 
 of what they had long been pining to see. And the scene was 
 repeated as ship after ship made the coast. The Chapman, 
 and the Nautilus, the Northampton, the Grarland, the Kennersly 
 Castle, the Ocean, the Amphitrite, the John, the Stenton, the 
 Weymouth, the Canada, Brilliant, Aurora, Zowaster, Belle 
 
AN ALBANY SETTLEE S EEMINISCENCES. O 
 
 Alliance, and all the rest, as they ranged along the coast, with its 
 
 high blue mountains fuU in view, had their decks thronged with 
 
 anxious gazers on the new strange land in which their fature lot 
 
 was to be cast. At length Cape Eecife was rounded, Algoa Bay 
 
 spread its broad bosom, and ship after ship bore its living freight 
 
 to the last anchorage. 
 
 " Over the waters wide and deep. 
 Where the storm-waves roll, and the storm-winds sweep. 
 Over the waters see them come ! 
 Breasting the billows' curling foam; 
 Fathers for children seeking a home 
 In Afrio's Southern wilds." 
 
 The desolate sand-hills and salt-marshes of their then solitary 
 landing place were not calculated to raise the spirits of the new 
 comers, or realize the visions which had probably flitted before 
 the eyes of the sanguine when the Mountains of George first 
 loomed into view. The " Liverpool of the Cape " was not yet in 
 existence, and a dreary barren looMng waste met many a dis- 
 appointed eye. A few, indeed, landed only to die; and, as in the 
 case of Dr. Cotton, the "Head" of the Nottingham party. Dr. 
 Caldecott, and some others, ended their emigrant's career before 
 it had well begun. I can well believe that many a doubt and 
 fear were exchanged by the anxious elders of the new colony, as 
 they first made each other's acquaintance among the tents of 
 " Settler's Town " behind the sand hills. But the adventurers 
 had bidden a long " Farewell " to the land of their fathers, and 
 for weal or for woe they had come to dwell in the wilds of Africa. 
 They must e'en make the best of it. There was little prospect 
 of seeing waving corn-fields where they first pitched their tents, 
 and some of the agriculturists might look back despondingly on 
 the golden harvests of old England. But this was not to be 
 their resting place. A jom-ney of a hundred miles " up the 
 country" might give brighter prospects to their eyes ; and so 
 they braced themselves for action. And then began to arrive the 
 strange-looking conveyances that were to carry them inland, — the 
 light loosely-made waggons, — the long "spans" of long-homed 
 
6 AN ALBANY SETTLEe's BEMINISCENCES. 
 
 oxen, — the drivers witli their monster whips and strange speech, — 
 the little impish-looking leaders with dark skins and scanty 
 clothing, and with stranger speech than their masters. We have 
 long since become used to all these things ; hut they were won- 
 ders then. Next came the visit to the stores provided hy the 
 government ; and the picks and spades, the axes and hammers; 
 the ploughs and harrows, that were to " subdue the earth " for 
 its new occupants, were added to their miscellaneous luggage. 
 And so the trains of pilgrims began to wend their way towards a 
 centre of attraction, where the hope of bettering their condition 
 was the only shrine — for there were, as yet, no temples in the 
 wilderness. 
 
 We " little ones " of those days felt none of the care that 
 weighed on the hearts of our fathers and mothers. The gipsy- 
 looking camp-fires of the first night's outspanning at the Zwaart- 
 kops — the ringing echo of the whips among the hills, as driver 
 assisted driver up the steep bush-paths — ^the scarlet blossoms 
 and the honey-dew of the aloes, that stood like soldiers on the 
 mountain sides — the wild flowers of the wildemess, so new and 
 strange — the bounding of the springboks over the plains — ^these 
 were excitements for us that banished both care and fear, and 
 made the journey a happy and beguiling one. 
 
 And now the Sunday's Eiver is crossed, and the terrible old Ado 
 Hill is climbed, and Quaggas Flat is passed, and the Bushman's 
 Eiver heights are scaled. The points of divergence are reached, 
 and the long column breaks into divisions. Baillie's party made 
 their way to the mouth of the Pish Eiver, where, it was said, the 
 " Head " had been allowed to choose a territory, and where he 
 hoped to realize imaginations of comiJiercial wealth by founding 
 a seaport town. And the Duke of Newcastle's proteges from 
 Nottingha,m took possession of the beautiful vale of Clumber, 
 naming it in honour of their noble patron. And Wilson's party 
 settled between the plains of Waay-plaats and the Kowie bush, 
 right across the path of the elephants, some of which they tried 
 to shoot with fowling-pieces. And Sefton's party, after an im.- 
 
AN ALBANY SETTLEB's BEMINISCBNCES. 7 
 
 ceremonious oustiiig from tteir first location at Eeed Fountain, 
 founded the village of Salem, the religious importance of wHch 
 to the early progress of the Settlement is not to be estimated by- 
 its present size and population. These four were the large 
 parties. The smaller ones filled up the intervening spaces 
 between them. Behind the thicket-clad sand hills of the Kowie 
 and Green Fountain, and extending over the low plains beyond 
 Bathurst, were the locations of Cock's, Thornhill's, Osier's, 
 Smith's, and Eichardson's parties. Skirting the wooded kloofs 
 from Bathurst towards the banks of the Klienemonden, were 
 ranged the parties of James and Hyman. It was the latter who 
 gravely announced to Captain Trapps, the Bathurst Magistrate, 
 the discovery of "precious stones" on his location; and which 
 the irascible gentleman, jealous of the reserved rights of Govern- 
 ment, found on farther enquiry were only " precious big ones." 
 The rich valley of Lushington afforded a resting place to 
 Dyason's party. Holder's people called their location New 
 Bristol ; which never, however, acquired any resemblance to old 
 Bristol. PassLEig on towards the front, there were Mounceys 
 party, Hayhurst's party, Bradshaw's party, Southey's party, 
 stretching along the edge of the wide plains of the Round Hill, 
 and drioking their Western waters. The post of honour and 
 danger was the line of the Kap Eiver. This was occupied by the 
 party of Scott below Kaffer Drift, and by the Irish party above 
 it. The Forlorn Hope of the entire settlement was Mahoney's 
 party at the Clay pits, who had to bear the first brunt of every 
 Eaffer depredation in the Lower Albany direction. Names 
 thicken as we proceed from Waay-plaats towards Graham's Town. 
 Passing Greathead's location, we come among the men of 
 Dalgaims at Blauw Erantz. Then those of Liversage, about 
 Manley's Flat. John Stanley, "Head of all Parties," as he styled 
 himself, belonged to the same neighbourhood. Turvey's party 
 were in Grobblaar's Kloof; WiUiam Smith's at Stony Vale; Dr. 
 Clarke's at CoUingham. Howard's, Morgan's, and Carlisle's 
 bring us by successive steps to the neighbourhood of Graham's 
 
8 AN ALBANY SETTLEr's REMINISCENCES. 
 
 Town ; tte suburbs of wbicb were indicated by the painted 
 pigeon-house at Burnett's, To the South-westward, the valley 
 of the Kareiga was occupied by Menzies', Mills', and Gardner's 
 parties. The rear-guard of the Settlement may be said to have 
 been formed by the men of Norman's and Captain Butler's 
 parties, who occupied Seven Fountains, and the upper end of the 
 Assegai Bush Eiver. 
 
 Besides these "parties," there were other companies of a more 
 select and exclusive kind. Elderly gentlemen of upper-class 
 connections, and retired officers from various departments of 
 the king's service, came with small numbers of men under special 
 conditions, and engaged for a term of years. The names of 
 Bowker, Campbell, Philips, Piggott, and others, will suggest 
 themselves; and such designations as Piggott Park and Barville 
 Park, given to their domains, indicate the social position assumed 
 by their owners. 
 
 My "reminiscences" are those of an Albany settler; but I do 
 not forget that there was another party, who, though locally 
 separated from the main body, occupied a position, the import- 
 ance of which developed itself in the after-history of the Settle- 
 ment. I refer to the Scotch party, who were located on the 
 Baviaan's Eiver, among mountains and glens that have been 
 rendered classic by the poetry of their leader, and historic by the 
 gallant deeds and indomitable endurance of his compatriots, in 
 the after-struggles of the frontier. I need make no particular 
 reference, however, to the early circumstances of that body of 
 men, as in Pringle's "African Sketches" they have a most 
 graphically- written history of their own. 
 
 Of the many "Heads of Parties" whose names I have men- 
 tioned, I know of but one who still survives. That one is a man 
 who surely must, when first located near the mouth of the 
 Kowie, have had some prophetic instinct that looked on into the 
 future; and, true to that instinct, though half a century has 
 elapsed, there he is now, white with the snows of age; but with 
 energy unexhausted ; destined, I trust, to reap the reward of 
 
AN ALBANY SETTLBK S REMINISCENCES. K 
 
 long years of labour in the realization of Ids wish to giye Albany 
 a free and safe port of her own. If ever man deserved success 
 for perseverance in the fe.ce of multiplied discouragements, and 
 for bearing up against that "deferring of hope" which "maketh 
 the heart sick," William Cock deserves it. Finis coronat opus; 
 and most heartily do I hope, that before the last of our old 
 leaders passes from amongst us, he may see Ms "work crowned" 
 with a result that shaU carry its benefits down to future 
 generations. 
 
 As to the rest of the "Heads," some of them soon found that 
 '"Twas distance lent enchantment to tlie view" 
 of manorial dignities and immunities to which they had looked 
 forward across the broad waters. These soon left their parties to 
 shift for themselves, and sought their own fortunes elsewhere. 
 Others manfully stood by those whom they represented till their 
 early struggles were over. All have passed away, and even the 
 names of some of them are almost forgotten. 
 
 But now to return to the first arrival " on the location." It 
 was a forlorn-looking plight in which we found ourselves, when 
 the Dutch waggoners had emptied us and our luggage on to the 
 green-sward, and left us sitting on our boxes and bundles "under 
 the open firmament of heaven." Our roughly-kind carriers 
 seemed, as they wished us good-bye, to wonder what would 
 become of us. There we were in the wilderness ; and when they 
 were gone we had no means of following, had we wished to do so. 
 Towns, villages, inns, hostelries, there were none. We must 
 take root and grow, or die where we stood. But we were stand- 
 ing on our own ground, and it was the first time many could say 
 so. This thought roused to action, — the tents were pitched — 
 the night-fires kindled around them to scare away the wild 
 beasts, and the life of a settler was begun.* 
 
 Thus was the land overspread by a new race of occupiers; 
 sanguine in their hopes, and eager to develope its capabilities. 
 Tribes of barbarians had dwelt in it — had hunted in the forests 
 of Oliphant's Hoek and made their Vee places along the banks of 
 
 * See Appendix, No. II., " A Kemiuiscence of 1820." 
 
10 AN ALBANY SETTLEe's EEMINISCENCBS. 
 
 the Kareiga. But they had gone "before the British Settlers 
 came, and the new occupants had to dispute the possession of 
 the soU with inhabitants of other kinds. 
 
 "Wilderness lands of brake and glen, — 
 Tlie wolf's and tlie leopard's gloomy den; 
 Wilderness plains where the springbok bounds^ 
 And the lion's voice from the hills resonndSj 
 And the vnlture circles in airy rounds — 
 Are Afric's southern wilds." 
 
 Elephants in hundreds roamed leisurely from the Eooms to the 
 Kowie, and from thence to the Ado. The rhinoceros crushed 
 at -will the thickets of the Fish Eiver ravines. The Uon stalked 
 in undisputed sovereignty on the slopes of the Winterberg, 
 and his roar was occasionally heard in the lower districts. The 
 howl and laugh of the hyena, and the shrill yell of the jackall ; 
 were the regular nightly serenade of the new settlers, to which 
 the little ones listened and trembled. By day even, the tiger's 
 deep bass sounded for hours together among the krantzes, and 
 the ominous responsive call of the wild dog to his fellow, too 
 often sent its melancholy sound on the breeze, as the pack 
 ranged ravenonsly over the pasture grounds ; while from every 
 high ridge whole armies of baboons shouted their defiance, and 
 demanded what business we had on their domaias. And then, 
 over the plains of Mount Donkia, and the Salem flats, spriag- 
 boks in thousands bounded playfully, as their snowy backs shone 
 in the sunlight, while the ostriches ruffled their plumes, the 
 hartebeeste raised their homed crests, and the quaggas galloped 
 heavily among them. We must go far from Albany to see such 
 sights now, but the long-range rifles of Ayton and Bowker had 
 not then arrived. 
 
 A bird's-eye view of Albany, at the earliest stage of the Settle- 
 ment, would have shown a widely-spread camp of many divisions. 
 The tents supplied by the government studded the locations in 
 all directions, and marked the first phase of life there. And 
 then came the selection of sites, and the preparation of material 
 for more permanent dwellings. The nervous looked out for 
 defensible positions. The men of sentiment sought picturesque 
 
AN AlBANT SETTLEE's SEMIlSriSCElirCES. 11 
 
 spots, where tlie beauties of nature migM be seen to advantage, 
 forgetting, however, sometimes to enquire whether they were 
 within the reach of water or not. More practically, the sober 
 father of a family of healthy lads from the rural districts 
 examined the soils, and fixed on a homestead in the midst of his 
 prospective corn-fields. As_ to the first dwelliags themselves, 
 they were of veiy various, and very original orders of architec- 
 ture. A young brotherhood of bachelors built for themselves a 
 booth of leafy branches, after the manner of the Israelites of old. 
 An economist of materials dug his house out of the bank of a 
 river. The wattled framework of two or three square rooms 
 looked, in the eyes of some, like the founding of a mansion. 
 Many a father and son, vdth axe on shoulder, ranged the wooded 
 kloofs in search of door-posts and rafters ; and many a mother 
 and daughter cut wattles and thatch nearer home for walls and 
 roof ; aye, and many a back ached under successive loads, borne 
 toilsomely from tangled thicket and rushy swamp. Stone and 
 brick were among the visions of an advanced order of things 
 belonging to the future. Even the Devonshire Cot was rarely 
 ventured upon at first. 
 
 The " Great Flood " of 1823 made strange wort with many of 
 these primitive dwellings. The bachelors' booths did not keep 
 out the rain like Roman cement. The underground residence in 
 the river's bank presented a remarkable appearance when the 
 flood had subsided. One man was heard asking his neighbour 
 if he had seen anything of his Jiouse passing that way. 
 
 The Settlers were earnest and energetic in their first attempts 
 to make Albany an agricultural district. When they took their 
 first survey of their new possessions, the language of many a 
 father was, in substance — 
 
 "Hand to the labour! yieari and hand! 
 Our sons shall inherit an alter" d land. 
 Harvests shall wave o'er the virgin soil; 
 Cottages standi and gardens smiley 
 And the songs of our children the hours beguile 
 'Midst Afrio's Southern Wilds." 
 
12 AN ALBANY SETTLEb's REMINISCENCES. 
 
 But there were days of trial and privation before them. The 
 romance of first impressions had to give place to the stern 
 realities that followed. Crops failed. The terrible "rust" blighted 
 the hopes of season after season, and the hearts of many began 
 to sink within them. Want stared them in the face, and the 
 extension of the period of Grovemment rationing became an ab- 
 solute necessity. They were pinching times when one, though 
 not a Spartan boy, had to fast in the momiug till he could shoot 
 a wild pigeon for his breakfast ; and another, being somewhat less of 
 asportsman,waitedanxiously for the noisy signal from his solitary 
 bam-door fowl that there was a fresh egg ready for boiling — ^which, 
 like a true husband, he divided equally with his wife ; and another, 
 leaving his family to a "dinner of herbs," with as much of" love" as 
 there might be to give it a relish, trudged a twenty miles' journey 
 through the rain for a back-load of meal, which he managed to 
 lose at midnight in the flooded river at his own door on his 
 return. These are little specimens of the " hungry days," which 
 I dare say could be easily multiplied from the memories of some 
 of my hearers. They have served to laugh over many a time 
 since, but they were hardly laughing matters then. 
 
 I may here introduce a little episode that belongs to the 
 same period of our history, and presents one of the phases of 
 early settler life. Three men went from Salem to Graham's 
 Town to look for work. It so happened that their wives wanted a 
 supply of meat while their husbands were away. One of the future 
 members of parliament was then the shepherd of the ration flock, 
 little dreaming of the distant honours in store for him. A sheep 
 was procured. But the good women had no one with them who 
 would undertake to slaughter it for them. What was to be 
 done ? They had no compunction about eating the sheep ; but 
 they all seemed to have qualms of conscience about reducing it to 
 a state in which it could be eaten. They managed to tie its feet 
 together, and then tried to " screw up " each other's " courage to the 
 sticking point." While they were in animated discussion, how- 
 ever, on a subject which threatened to require the drawing of 
 
AN ALBANY SETTLEe's REMINISCENCES. 13 
 
 lots, tte sheep whose bonds were by no means as indissoluble as 
 their own, suddenly started to its feet, and ran for its life, pursued 
 of course by all three ladies. The " situation " was by no means an 
 ordinary one, and a view of the chase must have been very interest- 
 ing. The result was, that the sheep was so hard pressed as to 
 be obliged to take to the water, and there was nothing left for 
 the amateur lady butchers but to take to the water after it. I 
 do not mean to say that they might have been seen swimming in 
 chase of the fugitive mutton, but I believe that a step or two 
 more would have set them floating, or sinking, as the case might 
 be. However, they gained possession of their prize once more ; 
 and this time they secv/red it. And then, with averted heads, the 
 fatal stroke, or rather succession of strokes, was struck. Poor 
 sheep ! had the good creatures been less tender-hearted it would 
 have suffered less. But now the sheep was dead, they were still 
 in the midst of their difficulties. They knew no more about 
 skinning than slaughtering ; and as little about cutting up 
 as skinning. But the indomitable "three" were not to be 
 beaten. The skin came off at last — I rather think by piecemeal 
 — the meat was carried home in most extraordinary joints, and 
 the ladies ate their dinner in triumph, with appetites sharpened, 
 no doubt, by the labour of procuring it. The skin became 
 literally the " crowning" trophy of the exploit, for it was cut up 
 into hats for the children. 
 
 To the material wants of the people the G-overnment were as 
 attentive and considerate as could have been expected; but the 
 supplies they had provided were not always easy to be got at. 
 The little flocks of ration sheep used to play sad pranks with 
 the inexperienced English drivers, and the wolves and wild dogs 
 used to play sad pranks with them. As one sample out of many, 
 take the following: — One of our old Queenstown Field-cornets, 
 in the days of his youth, took charge of the party's ration sheep 
 from Bathurst to Green Fountain. The sheep nimibered, pro- 
 bably, twelve or fifteen. Those who know that part of the 
 country know what an excellent field it is for a sheep chase ; and 
 
14 AN AlBANT SETTLEk's EEMINISCENOES. 
 
 tow a dozen of startled hamels, just separated from a large 
 flock, -would be likely to try a driver's legs, and liuigs too, in 
 crossing it. If the course of the journey could have been after- 
 wards traced on a chart, it would have looked like the working 
 out of some intricate geometrical problem. Such a succession 
 of zig-zags, angles, and arcs of circles, no ship, beating up 
 against contrary winds, ever described. To mend matters, after 
 miles of open plain had been traversed, there lay a tract of 
 "enchanted ground" in the shape of a belt of thick mimosa 
 woodland, right across the way home. By dint of unconquer- 
 able perseverance the sheep were brought thus far; and then! 
 one starting this way, two in that, three in the other ; a rent in 
 the coat in stopping these ; face scratched and eyes endangered 
 in turning those ; a shout to his two companions to ascertain 
 where the rest were ; an impenetrable barrier of bush stopping 
 all access to them. Before giving up all for lost, our friend 
 declared he had run the sheep so hard that, though they had 
 large tails at starting, they had melted away to half the size by 
 the time he had done with them! Driven to desperation, he at 
 length exclaimed, "Dead or alive I'll secure one of you at any 
 rate!" as a discharge from his fowling-piece stretched it on the 
 ground before him. But he was still miles away from home. 
 Of his two companions one couldn't and the other wouldn't take 
 his share in carrying the dead sheep. There was nothing left 
 for it but to shoulder it himself; and sturdy John Staples 
 shewed that if his own staple was not very long it was very good, 
 for he carried his load home. It was the only sheep of the lot 
 that reached its intended destination — the wild dogs, wolves, and 
 jackals got aU the rest. 
 
 A fate equally tragical, though different, overtook another 
 little flock. The drivers, when five miles on the road, had to 
 turn back for something they had forgotten. Eather than drive 
 the sheep back with them, they left them in charge of a little boy 
 of their company. They had taken certain precautions to pre- 
 vent their running away ; and so they left them at the edge of 
 
AN ALBANY settler's EEMINISCENCBS. 15 
 
 the Eowie bush, tying their legs together to keep them from 
 straying. It was not long, however, before the spectacle of the 
 disabled sheep attracted the notice of some keen-sighted ass-Togel 
 far up ia the sky. The vulture telegraph was at once put ia 
 motion, and, appearing on all sides, as they are wont to do, like 
 ghosts, from nobody can see where, a whole flight swooped down 
 on their helpless victims, terrified the little shepherd from his 
 charge, and devoured them all alive before his eyes. 
 
 Such were some of the difficulties in the way of getting the 
 government meat. Then, as to the bread. Twenty or thirty miles 
 was a long way to carry a sack of flour on one's shoulders ; 
 especially in the early state of the roads through Howison's and 
 Brookhuisen's poorts, and about Oadell's hill and Blauw Krantz. 
 The days of buck-waggons were still far off — even the block- 
 wheeled trucks without tiers or bushings, that wore out of the 
 circular and jolted limpingly along, taking fire as they rolled, 
 were to be seen only here and there. These were indeed a step 
 or two in advance of the sledges made of forked branches, that 
 used to stick fast in every mudhole and sanddrift. As to the 
 pack-oxen, they were stiff-necked in more senses than one, and 
 managed now and then to leave both riders and loads behind 
 them on their way home. I can testify, from the best of all 
 knowledge, that a seat on the loose back of a fresh young pack- 
 ox in full trot is neither easy nor safe, and it certainly puts a 
 load of crockery in great peril, as I imagine old Wm. Lee could 
 have testified when his ox shook of its burden on the Salem flats. 
 Mrs. Lee had been assisting her husband either by leading or 
 driving, I don't know which — ^wives can occasionally do hofh. He 
 now left her to look after the load, while he set off to look after 
 the ox that had left him. She in due time, feeling solitary, set 
 off to look after the husband who had left hev, and the load was 
 left, — to look after itself. 
 
 The early struggles and privations of the settlers appealed to 
 the heart of British hum.anity — never appealed to in vain. Con- 
 tributions generous and hearty came from east and west. India 
 
16 AN ALBANY SBTTLEb's EBMINISCENCBS. 
 
 joined the Mother country in subscriptions which amounted to 
 several thousand pounds. "Boards of Relief" sat, and many 
 cases of paiaful interest came before them, -which it would be 
 invidious to specify now, but which stand recorded in the " Re- 
 ports " and " Official Correspondence " of those days. Of course, 
 as is usual in such cases, there were heart-burnings caused by 
 the distribution, and some were accused of receiving most who 
 needed least. It is not, however, to be questioned, that to many 
 the aid was most seasonable. In some instances, like the raising 
 of the long- winged swallow to 
 
 " Tlie level of the daisy's head," 
 it proved the starting point in life to those who received it. 
 
 The testing time enabled the settlers to ascertain how far they 
 were fitted for the work of bringing the wilderness into cultiva- 
 tion ; and taught some of them that it was not their vocation to 
 till from year to year ground which refused to yield them the 
 bread they had been accustomed to eat in the old country. The 
 trades and professions of many had done little towards training 
 them for agricultural life. I heard of some who sowed carrot 
 seed at the bottom of trenches two spades deep, filling up the 
 trenches with soil as soon as it was done. The remark of one 
 who saw them was, " It wiU come up, most likely, in England 
 about the time it does here." In another case, a man wishing 
 to get some mealies for seed, applied to his neighbour who had 
 obtained a supply just before, but found he had planted the 
 whole without knocking it off the cobs ! A third person planted 
 out a lot of young onions, roots upwards. The results of these 
 blunders rather disgusted some of the " cockney gardners," as 
 the wags called them. And then they did not take kindly to 
 mealie bread and pumpkin fritters, even when fried in sheeps- 
 tail. The engraver and the copper-plate printer found little to 
 do "on the location." Cutting initials on the bark of the vrild 
 fig-tree might look sentimental, but it yielded a poor return, and 
 was hardly enough to keep the hand in. The coach-painter did 
 
AN ALBANY SETTLEr's EBMINISCBNCES. 17 
 
 not get much to do in the valley of the Kareiga, or on the borders 
 of the Kowie bush. Armorial bearings on the pannels of their 
 carriages were not required by the settlers in those days. Some 
 of them indeed had not yet found out the family crest. Even 
 the tailor was obliged to come down from the manufacture of 
 broadcloth swallowtails to that of leathern jactets with no tails 
 at all. The young bucks had to dress in sheepsMn. If, indeed, 
 they could afford to sport cuffs and facings of jackal's or tiger's 
 fur, so much the better, they might then calculate on making 
 quite a sensation among the fair sex ; especially if the Ziimin had 
 done its Saturday duty, and had given the proper bright yellow 
 to the " crackers." Velechoen usvirped the place of Wellingtons 
 itt many quarters, and the beaver gave way to the home-made 
 palmiet, or coffee straw, and the tiger- skin cap, flat-crowned 
 generally, though not of the Oxford university cut. So were the 
 hatter's and shoemaker's occupation either " gone " or greatly 
 modified. Take an illustrative incident on this point. A 
 " ladies' shoemaker," who had worn out his own shoes, wished to 
 take a walk from Wilson's party to G-raham's Town. A neighbour 
 suggested that it would be easy for him to supply himself by 
 maldng a pair of the material which the hides and skins of the 
 ration cattle provided. He did so, and remembering his ovm 
 neat style of workmanship in the " ladies' line,'' he seems to have 
 applied it in his own case. The shoes, put on damp and soft, 
 fitted "Uke a glove," and he started on his journey. But the 
 farther he walked the tighter the fit grew, and the harder the 
 green hide, now becoming dry very fast from the heat of the 
 dusty road. His plight soon became as bad as that of the poor 
 fellow who was sent for penance to Loretto with peas in his 
 shoes, and hadn't the wit to boil them before starting. In fact 
 our settler's case was the worse of the two, for when he wished to 
 relieve himself from torture by walking barefoot, he couldn't get 
 his shoes off again. He had to endure his misery as far as 
 CadeU's Hill, where a friend assisted him with his knife in the 
 eel-skinning process of getting rid of his close-fitting appendages, 
 
18 AN ALBANY SETTLEr's KEMINISCENCES. 
 
 and lent liim a pair of liis own for the rest of the journey. The 
 ladies' shoemaker never forgot his walk, and perhaps never 
 repeated it, for he took up his residence in Graham's Town. 
 Bricklayers and carpenters, and men of kindred trades, were very 
 soon attracted in the same direction. The infant metropolis 
 gave them more remunerative employment than the " location." 
 Indeed the tradesmen soon built a distinct " quarter " for them- 
 selves ui the embryo city, and thus " Settlers' HUl " and "Arti- 
 ficers' Square" received their inhabitants and their names. 
 
 But there were adventurous spirits among the settlers — men 
 with souls above shopboards, carpenters' benches, or plough- 
 tails. There was ivory iu the kloofs of the Kooms and the Fish 
 River, and a bold shot from a daring hunter might put hi-m in 
 possession of five hundred dollars worth at once, without any 
 labour but such as would give zest to the achievement ; — for 
 what are toil, and exposure, and even half- starvation to the man 
 who is bent on bringing home half a score of elephant's tusks as 
 his trophy? 
 
 And there was a more adventurous career still for such as 
 had courage to enter upon it. There was, among the Kaffers 
 " over the border," ivory ready collected, as well as cattle ready 
 reared. And for those who did not miad risking " the penalty 
 of death," which governmental unwisdom had attached to a 
 trade it had made contraband, there seemed to be the chance of 
 getting rich rapidly. 
 
 Then began the romantic period of the Frontier Settlers' 
 history, the formation of elephant-hunting parties, the wild life 
 in the woods, the cautious tracking of the noble game; the 
 daring venture among the monster herds, the sudden report 
 waking the echoes of the hiUs, the fall of the victim, the terrific 
 rush and ringing scream of the startled troop of giants, the 
 crash of the trodden down forest in all directions, the hair- 
 breadth escapes of the hunters, sometimes within a trunk's 
 length of their infuriated pursuers — ^the whole crowned by the 
 triumphant contemplation of success as the party of hunters 
 
AN ALBANY SETTLEE's EEMINISCENCES. 19 
 
 gathered around the prostrate game, and calculated the worth 
 of the tusks which had been the perilous attraction. Nor must 
 the other class of adventurers be forgotten — the stealthy cross- 
 ing of the border, the appointed meeting place beyond it, the 
 life-in-hand venture into the power of the Kafifers, the perilous 
 return when dark nights and difficult ways had to be selected, 
 and quick-sighted patrols of mounted riflemen dodged in the 
 bushpaths. 
 
 The Scotch party in the highland had their share of frontier 
 adventure life. They had not only the elephants as occasional 
 visitors, but also the lions as standing neighbours, and it was 
 not long before they came into contact with them. Pringle, in 
 his sketches, gives a graphic description of their first Hon hunt, 
 the spirit of which is well embodied in the poetic picture of it 
 by the same hand. 
 
 THE LION HUNT. 
 
 Mount — amount for the hunting — with musket and spear ! 
 Call our friends to the field — for the Lion is near ! 
 Call Arend and Ekhard and Groepe to the spoor ; 
 Call MuUer and Coetzer and Lucas Van Vurr. 
 
 Side up Eildon-Cleugh, and blow loudly the bugle : 
 Call SUnger and Allie and Dikkop and Dugal ; 
 And George with the Elephant-gun on his shoulder — 
 In a perilous pinch none is better or bolder. 
 
 In the gorge of the glen He the bones of my steed. 
 And the hoofs of a heifer of fatherland's breed : 
 But mount, my brave boys ! if our rifles prove true. 
 We'll soon make the spoiler his ravages rue. 
 
 Ho ! the Hottentot lads have discovered the track — 
 To his den in the desert we'll follow him back ; 
 But tighten your girths, and look well to your flints. 
 For heavy and fresh are the viQain's foot-prints. 
 
 Through the rough rocky kloof into grey Huntly-Glen, 
 Past the wild-oUve clump where the wolf has his den. 
 By the black-eagle's rock at the foot of the fell. 
 We have tracked him at length to the buffalo's well. 
 
 Now mark yonder brake where the blood-hounds are howUng ; 
 And hark that hoarse sound — like the deep thunder growling ; 
 
 o 2 
 
20 AN ALBANY SETTLEe's EEMINISCENCES. 
 
 ' Tis his lair — 'tis Ms voice ! — from yotu- saddles aJight j 
 He's at bay in the brushwood preparing for fight. 
 
 Leave the horses behind — and be still every man : 
 Let the Mullers and Bennies advance in the van : 
 Keep fast in your ranks ; — by the yeU of yon hound. 
 The savage, I guess, will be out — with a bound. 
 
 He comes ! the tail jungle before him loud crashing. 
 His mane bristled fiercely, his fiery eyes flashing ; 
 With a roar of disdain, he leaps forth in his wrath. 
 To challenge the foe that dare 'leaguer his path. 
 
 He couches — ay now we'll see mischief, I dread : 
 Quick — level your rifles — and aim at his head : 
 Thrust forward the spears, and unsheath every knife — 
 St. George ! he's upon us ! now, fire, lads, for life ! 
 
 He's wounded — ^but yet he'll draw blood ere he falls — 
 Ha ! under his paw see Bezuidenhout sprawls — 
 Now Diederik ! Christian ! right in the brain 
 Plant each man his bullet — Hurra ! he is slain ! 
 
 Bezuidenhout — ^up, man ! — 'tis only a scratch — 
 (Tou were always a scamp and have met with your match !) 
 What a glorious Hon ! — what sinews — what claws — 
 And seven-feet-ten from the rump to the jaws ! 
 
 His hide, with the paws and the bones of his skull. 
 With the spoils of the leopard and buffalo bull, 
 We'U send to Sir Walter. — ^Now, boys, let us dine. 
 And talk of our deeds over a flask of old wine. 
 
 What was begun from necessity was afterwards continued 
 from ctoice. Greorge Eennie seemed resolved to avenge on tlie 
 whole race the insult his brother received when the lion put his 
 paw upon him, looked round ia contemptuous majesty, and then 
 turned away as if he did not think him worth killing. Lion 
 hunting parties crossed the Winterberg range, and the plains 
 and valleys which the Queenstown grantees are now quietly 
 cultivatiag became the theatre of many a scene of adventure 
 which ought to have been chronicled for future generations. 
 
 Most of the leaders ia these exploits of byegone days have 
 passed away. Poor old Harry Stirraker, and the cool-headed 
 ^nd steady-handed William GradweU, and little John Thackwray, 
 
AN ALBAWY SETTLEb's EEMINISCENCES. 21 
 
 who engaged to write Ms own initials on the haunclies of an 
 elephant and shoot him afterwards, and who died the victim of 
 his own daring. • George Eennie, too, the lion hunter, — I saw 
 the white head and broad shoulders of the solitary old bachelor 
 not many years since. These are gone, but others remain. The 
 elder Cawood, William Hartley, and especially the old veteran 
 Edward Deiveb, should be induced to write the story of their 
 early adventures, or one of the most exciting chapters of 
 Frontier history will be lost. 
 
 I had another name on my list of survivors, and I little 
 expected to have to transfer it to the sadder one of those that 
 are gone. Of the romance of early settler life there was one 
 who could have told much ten days ago. The outspoken, open- 
 handed, generous-hearted Carey Hobson had his full share of 
 perilous adventure ia the early days, and stirring to the younger 
 spirits of the present would a recital of them from his own lips 
 
 have been, 
 
 "He was a man, take Mui for all in aJl, 
 I shall not look upon his Uke again." 
 
 Bold as a lion in spirit and bearing, he was full to overflowing of 
 the milk of human kindness. With an energy and perseverance 
 that never wearied, he created an oasis of civilization in what was 
 at once a physical and a moral desert. His untimely death, 
 while hastening to share in our festivities, has changed a time of 
 gladness into one of mourning to every member of his family, 
 and to all his friends has shorn the Jubilee joy of not a few of 
 its rays.* 
 
 Part II. 
 
 There was another class, less daring indeed, but of great 
 importance to the formation of the future character of the 
 province. The young men of mercantile tastes soon tired of 
 " the location," and soon found that money was to be made by 
 becoming commercial travellers on their own account; and so, 
 rising from shoulder bundle to horse-pack, from horse-pack to 
 * Pause for Music (see Appendix No. 3). 
 
22 AN ALBANT SETTLEr's REMINISCENCES. 
 
 cart-load, and from cart to waggon, did our incipient merchants 
 carry their wares througli the upper districts, and among the old 
 established Dutch farmers, their devoted young wives being, in 
 some instances, the companions and cheerers of their toilsome 
 journeyings. Then was found the benefit of a London or Man- 
 chester training, when powers of persuasion had to be employed 
 with oude Tanta Nieuwkerk, as she sat by the ever simmering 
 brass kettle, or with Oom Dederik, as he pufiied away his 
 summer evenings on the stoep. The qualities of the liriehayi 
 and the wolkombersen were elaborately discussed — the recom- 
 mendations of the material for onderbaaige oordentlyk voor 
 nacMmaal's tyd* cautiously listened to. As for Nechi Sanna, 
 she needed no persuasion to admire the mooi handschoen and 
 lialsdockenf ; while Neef Gert, when the nieuwe Engelsche zadel 
 was exhibited, was prompt with his "Ja! als voder maar ooJc ja 
 zegt, dan neem ih dot zoomaar."X 
 
 So were the hamels and kapaters gradually gathered together 
 for the return journey, sometimes (it has been waggishly 
 asserted) under the idea that they would make excellent 
 breeding stock! and occasionally a few of the hoarded rix- 
 daalders were added as kontante geldt, when the goods were 
 specially attractive. And so were laid the foundations of an 
 internal trade, which did very much towards breaking up the 
 phlegmatic stagnation of rural life among the Dutch Afrikanders 
 of the frontier, and introduced new currents of thought and 
 feeling which have carried the present generation to a social 
 condition greatly in advance of that of their fathers half a 
 century ago. 
 
 There was another opportunity afforded for the exercise of 
 the commercial talents of the new colonists. The Grovemment, 
 yielding at length to representations that were made to it on 
 the subject, permitted, under certain restrictions, the opening 
 
 * Waistcoats suitable for sacramental occasions. 
 
 + Pretty gloves and neckerckiefs. 
 
 JYes! if father will only say "Yes" too, then I'll take it at once. 
 
AN ALBANY SBTTLBb's REMINISCENCES. 23 
 
 of trade with the Kaffers. A periodical "fair"' was esta- 
 blished at Fort WUshire, where the colonial traders by- 
 scores, and the Kaffers by hundreds or thousands, met to 
 exchange wares. The old post, long ago deserted, was a place 
 of note in those days as the chief defence of the frontier. It 
 has been silent and desolate enough since. Many years have 
 elapsed since its stables were occupied by troop horses — since 
 its officers' quarters were scenes of jollity, or the reveille and 
 "tattoo" sounded in the square; but it was a place of some 
 animation, and that of a strange and wild character when 
 "fair-day" arrived. The traders were there with their beads, 
 buttons, and brass wire; and the Kaffers were there from 
 mountain range and seacoast lowland, from the Kieskamma 
 to the Kye. Long files of women, headed by their lords and 
 masters, and laden with ox-hides, horns, and gum, and here 
 and there the more precious merchandize of an elephant's 
 tusk among them, threaded the bush-paths in single file, or 
 converged down the hill sides towards the centre of attraction 
 under the guns of the Fort. The trees that fringed the banks 
 of the Kieskamma below the post gave shelter to hundreds of 
 swarthy groups of eager barbarians, wondering at the newly- 
 acquired value of articles they had formerly deemed worthless. 
 Kaffers have since gleefully told me what diligent search they 
 used to make for the horns that had long been thrown away ; 
 and how the troops of children swarmed among the thorn-tree 
 thickets, gathering gum for the new market. 
 
 There were no photographers in those days, nor had Mr. Ions 
 begun his Kaffer sketches, or we might have had some amusing 
 scenes from life fixed for us to contemplate. The grim old fort, 
 with its wild scenery around it, would have formed the centre of 
 a very characteristic picture. The motley throng of black, and 
 white, and brown, varied by the red, green, and blue uniforms of 
 "Line," Eifles and Artillery; the groups of women with their 
 crushing loads gladly laid upon the ground before them; the 
 men, seated on their heels, herrie in hand, jealously watching 
 
24 AN ALBANY SBTTLEn's EEMINISCENCES. 
 
 their property, or chaffering with the traders who were making 
 them rival offers for the coveted merchandise ; the greedy chiefs, 
 headed by G-aika himself, laying seignorial taxation on their own 
 people, or pestering the white man for brihes and brandy. 
 Strange Kaffer was spoken on these occasions; and strange 
 Dutch and English too. Interpreters were at a premium; and 
 sadly perplexed were the traders now and then by the changes in 
 the Kaffer fashions. Beads that were worth seventy dollars the 
 pound, and buttons that were in universal demand one month, 
 might be worth almost nothing the next. Speculators even in 
 the Fort Wilshire market sometimes burnt their fingers. There 
 was little to do ia brocades or artificial flowers, and as little in 
 thin steel; but the Kaffer men were as particular about their 
 necklaces, and the women about their turban covers and kaross 
 back-stripes, as the leaders of the oiiode ia London or Paris are 
 about their bonnets and. ball dresses. 
 
 The Fort Wilshire Fair gave a fresh impulse to the young 
 commerce of G-raham's Town, and ib formed the commencement 
 of an international trade with the Kaffer tribes that acquired 
 great importance in a short time ; and, but for the ruinous wars 
 which followed, the result of barbarian cupidity, stimulated by 
 civilized smugglers of guns and gunpowder, would have aided 
 more than it has done in promoting their civilization. 
 
 I have said that the Government was considerate and kind ia 
 reference to the early material wants of the people. But there 
 was a strong disposition to keep them under civil and political 
 disabilities, against which the freeborn British spirit soon began 
 to revolt. To have no "paper" to read but one, which a 
 jealous and despotic Governor had first revised, did not suit the 
 notions of men who had come from a land where every form and 
 phase of opinion received public expression. To be obliged to 
 procure a " pass," ia order to go merely from the location to 
 Graham's Town, without incurring the risk of getting a night's 
 lodging in the " tronk " on arriving there ; — and even when 
 applying for one, to be flouted by petty official insolence, which 
 
AN ALBANY SETTLER' S EEMINISCENCES. 25 
 
 had been fostered by the passiveness of slaves and Hottentots, 
 ■was a state of things that might accord with Russian serfdom, but 
 it chafed the miads of Englishmen iu a manner that soon gave a 
 pledge of the downfall of the system. The voice of the people 
 became too powerful to be silenced ; and in answer to reiterated 
 representations of abuse. Commissioners of Enquiry were 
 appoiuted, who arrived in Graham's Town during the year 1823. 
 I remember well, young as I was at the time, what enthusiasm 
 their arrival excited. The general illumination of the town was 
 not thought sufficient. The signal for an African welcome was 
 given by a volley fired from the house where I was living. It 
 was taken up at once, and the example spreading like wild fire, 
 the hills soon resounded on all sides with a noise that might 
 have been mistaken for the storming of the town, only that the 
 importers of Kaffer muskets had not yet supplied the frontier 
 tribes with firearms. As it was, however, this was a demon- 
 stration the authorities could not brook. The necessary orders 
 were given, and we soon heard the bugles of the garrison sound 
 the " assembly " at Scott's barracks, while the trumpets of the 
 Mounted Eifles at Fort England sent squadrons of horse thunder- 
 ing up Bathurst- street through the darkness, to assist in the 
 terrible emergency, caused by blank cartridges and joyous 
 hurrahs. Serjeants' parties of infantry patrolled the streets, 
 makiag prisoners in all directions, among whom was my old 
 master, — then young, and just married. The people, assembled 
 in Church-squire to see the illumination, were surrounded by 
 troops ; while the leading men among them, foreseeing the 
 triumphant issue to their own cause that would be the result of 
 such a style of repressing public opinion, bade them to be true to 
 their principles and fear nothing. Of course the prisoners were 
 set at liberty the next morning — the young bridegroom among 
 the rest, — and the Commissioners of Enquiry were furnished 
 with an additional and unforeseen item in the list of complaints. 
 Of the political reforms which resulted from the enquiries and 
 report of the Commissioners, I was too young to know much. I 
 
26 AN ALBANY SBTTLEe's EBMINISCENCES. 
 
 believe that tlie recognition of certain civil rights highly prized 
 by EngUshmen took place — trial by jury, and the modification 
 of magisterial powers being among the changes introduced. 
 Various recommendations were made to the Home G-ovemment 
 by the Commissioners of Enquiry. Some of them were adopted. 
 Some half adopted and thus spoiled, and others rejected to be 
 striven for again and agaia down to the present time. 
 
 While adverting to this subject it is but an act of bare justice 
 to remember the public labours of one who has grown grey in 
 the service of the Eastern frontier inhabitants ; and who, from 
 the first day of his appearance as a Journalist, has, with a 
 perseverance unwearied, though often single-handed, maintained 
 the rights, and urged redress for the wrongs of his fellow 
 settlers. This is not the place for a review of the editorial 
 career of my honoured friend, the truly " Honourable " Eobbet 
 GrODLONTON ; but eveu in " a glance, at the early history " of our 
 settlement it would be unpardonable to forget that the 
 Qraha/m's Town Jowmal, from the date of its first number, has 
 been the British Settler's Advocate ; and that the example of its 
 Editor has taught many a man the value of the old motto, 
 " Never despair!" I say this without any disparagement of the 
 labours of others in the same field, because the scope of my 
 lecture confines me chiefly to the period during which the 
 Qrahmn's Town Journal stood alone. 
 
 I hardly consider this a digression. If it be so, however, let 
 me return to my subject. The visit of His Majesty's Commis- 
 sioners seemed to have removed an incubus from many minds. 
 The dawn of a brighter day seemed approaching, and men took 
 heart. The settlement began to grow and prosper ia spite of its 
 drawbacks. If wheat could not be raised in Lower Albany, other 
 grain could. The mealies did not take the rust, and they made 
 very good porridge, and puddings too. If we had had in those 
 days a few "American notions " on the subject, they might have 
 been made more palatable stUl. And there were other things on 
 which the children throve and grew fat. Bradfield's Clumber 
 
AN ALBANY SETTLBr's EEMINISCENCES. 27 
 
 potatoes were renowned for their floury quality, and there was 
 plenty of stuff to make good bacon of. And then by ones, and 
 twos, and threes, the milch cows began to show themselves on 
 the locations, and the fat hamels came with them, brought down 
 by the young " Smouses " from the inner districts. Some of the 
 cows were, it is true, sad unmanageable creatures, and made 
 awkward work, not only with the milking pails and their 
 contents, but with those who carried them as well. Horns and 
 heels were often plied with perfect fury, and the astonished" milk- 
 man was chased round the kraal till he tumbled as he might 
 over the thorn hedge out of it. It was believed, and apparently 
 with some reason, that the Boers had purposely weeded their 
 milking kraals of the refuse, and palmed upon the ignorant 
 Englishmen the most vicious brutes they had. "Ach! Jiy's maa/r 
 een stomme SetlcM/r, gy ham hem zoomaar kulle, karl.* But per- 
 severance overcomes all difficulties. The cows were in due time 
 either conquered or better understood. Lower Albany was found 
 to be a noble pasture ground for cattle ; the little herds grew 
 larger every year, and Mrs. James' Green Fountain cheese became 
 far-famed. It was not long before a span of oxen, large enough 
 to plough with, could be made up by three or four uniting their 
 cattle, each taking his turn in the lands of his neighbour. And 
 it was not much longer before many a one had a little team of 
 his own, and began to think that after all it was more pleasant 
 to plough his own fields, with his own cattle, than to work as a 
 labourer on a Vaarm down along in Zommersetszhire. Home 
 comforts gradually grew around them. The October rains taught 
 the necessity for building more substantial houses, and the people 
 built them. The furniture was both scanty and rough, it is true. 
 Those were not the days of horse-hair chairs, brass bedsteads 
 and mirrored side-boards ; — still less of pianofortes and harmo- 
 niums. But the Fathers of the settlement, and the mothers too, 
 worked hard enough to enjoy their plain dinners and hearty 
 suppers, although served up in tin dishes on yellow wood 
 
 * O he's only a stupid Settler, you can gull him, mate, easily. 
 
28 AN ALBANY SETTLEb's EEMINISCENCES. 
 
 bencbes ; and were weary enougli at niglit to sleep soundly on 
 their reim-bottomed kaatles without either feather beds or 
 curtains. , 
 
 And then the children were growing up, acclimatised and 
 naturalised ; and it was soon found that the pure air, and the 
 out-door exercise of South Africa, were making them bigger if 
 they did not mate them better men than their fathers. Sires of 
 five feet six wondered to see sons of six feet fire rising around 
 them, and mothers had to look up to their daughters, even while 
 their daughters were still looking up to them. 
 
 If longevity affords any test of the salubrity of a country's 
 climate, we can bear the application of that test here. The 
 fathers of the settlement have, I think, reached an average of 
 nearly eighty years. The fathers of the Bowker, Biddulph, and 
 Wainwright fomilies were between eighty and ninety when they 
 died. The patriarch of Grlen Avon was not of the 1820 band, 
 having come with the army in pre-settler times. But his family 
 blended with the emigrant countrymen of their father, and when 
 the iron-framed EtOBBEt Haet sank into an honoured grave at 
 the age of ninety, he left more than two hundred descendants 
 behind him. Then there are the names of Norman, Kestel, 
 Warner, George Clayton, and others, averaging eighty-five. On 
 the tombstones in some of our cemeteries, and in retired fajnily 
 bmrial-places, are names more hoary stiU.. The venerable and 
 venerated Mrs. Dold died at the age of ninety-three. Overy, 
 Purdon, Foxcrofl, Cooper, are names that will occur to the 
 memory of many present. Father Purdon had served old King 
 Greorge the Third in the India wars of the last century, and had 
 nearly completed his centenary when he passed away. The 
 Foxcrofts, husband and vrife, were old people when they arrived ; 
 but the climate seemed to " renew their youth like the eagle's." 
 They lived through the troubles of three Kaffer wars, and were 
 both nearly, if not quite, an hundred years old when they sank 
 quietly to rest, leaving behind them their children's great grand- 
 children. Cooper of Bluekrantz walked Graham's Town streets. 
 
AN ALBANY SBTTLEE's EEMINISCENCES. 29 
 
 and planned a voyage to England at a hundred. And just now, 
 old Frank Allison, (" Old Frank " lie was called wten I was a 
 boy) and Forbes of tbe Irish, party have gone, the one in his 
 hundredth, the other in his hundred and first year. 
 
 The Jubilee year has proved the last to several who were 
 hoping to see its completion. My old jfriend Joseph Walker 
 among the number. Identified with the fortunes of the Settler's 
 city for the best portion of his life, energetic and active in many 
 a work conducive to the highest interests of his fellow townsmen, 
 he has left to a goodly array of young representatives a name 
 respected and honoured by men of all classes. 
 
 On the roll-call of names belonging to them that have departed 
 there is another which I would not willingly let die, although I 
 cannot place it on the centenarian list. It is something to be a 
 man whose character individualises him amidst the general 
 sameness of contemporaries. And dear little " Dr. Webb " was 
 such a man. I see his slight figure now, " as straight," though 
 not "as tall as a poplar tree," his short quick step, his prim 
 keen look. And who does not remember his talent for mimicry 
 and personification, his quaint humour, his power of acute 
 observation, and quiet sarcastic retort? — always good natiu-ed, 
 but sharp enough to cut nevertheless. There is many a charac- 
 teristic anecdote told of him which will keep him in remembrance. 
 Letmeput on record two, the genuineness of which I will vouch 
 for: 
 
 Working one day in his own line at a broken window, he saw 
 Dr. Atherstone, (the Dr. Atherstone of former days) coming by. 
 Dr. Webb — I am not sure that he then had his diploma — turned 
 round on his heel with his characteristic abruptness, and said, 
 "Doctor, do you know I think your profession and mine are 
 very much alike." "Indeed!" said the physician, eyeing the 
 putty and the paint pot, " I don't see the resemblance." "Well, 
 you know, it's your business to take out old pains ; and you see 
 I am doing the same." " Excellent !" said Dr. A., "I never saw 
 the similarity before." " But then," rejoined the other, " We 
 
30 AN ALBANY SBTTLEr's EEMINISCENCES. 
 
 always put new ones in their place you know." The replication 
 is not on record. 
 
 The other anecdote is of a different kind. A young couple 
 just married, had come to live in Bathurst-street, directly facing 
 his own house. It so happened that the position of the parlour 
 windows, the back one being opposite the front, made it easy to 
 see what was taking place inside. One day the bridegroom 
 received a note in the little Doctor's hand-writing, and read the 
 following lines : — 
 
 " Example is better than precept iu life ; 
 
 " The maxim I own very fine : 
 '' I Baw you kissing your own dear wife, 
 
 " I immediately ran and kdss'd mine." 
 
 # * * # * 
 
 But the old settlers are not all gone. There was a muster of 
 them on Monday ; feeble and tottering some of them were,* but 
 others seemed to have years of life in them yet. The number 
 might have been much greater, could we have brought together 
 those who are at a distance. I hope no pains will be spared to 
 complete the list of their names, not forgetting the wives and 
 widows ; and that a marble tablet bearing them all wiU stand 
 conspicuously in the grand hall of the Jubilee Memorial, to tell 
 succeeding generations who, among the fathers of the settlement, 
 lived to see the Jubilee of 1870. 
 
 But I must go back again to resume my narrative. Health, 
 long life, and growing prosperity make existence pleasant. But 
 growing prosperity brought growing peril. The little flocks and 
 herds of the settlers were at first tended by the sons and 
 daughters of their owners ; for Kafferland was not yet thrown 
 open, and the time for hiring native farm servants had scarcely 
 arrived. The rapidly increasing stock, grazing in sight of the 
 Kaffers over the border, soon began to tempt their cupidity ; 
 and depredators from the tribes of Eno, Botuman, Slambi and 
 Graika, began to make herding hazardous along the frontier. 
 
 * Several have died since the lecture was delivered. 
 
AN ALBANY SETTLEe's EEMINISCENCES. 31 
 
 Some of the children of the settlers were murdered while herding 
 their parents' cattle : — G-arbutt and Sloman for instance. Nor 
 did the fathers themselves escape the frontier risks of the times. 
 The " Forlorn Hope " at the clay pits had its victims in Stubbs, 
 and the Freemantles, father and son ; and the Irish party, with 
 the rest of the frontier line, shared in its perils and its sacrifices, 
 and added other names to the list of those who died for their 
 adopted country in the early days of its history. 
 
 But all this was training a race of young frontier warriors, 
 familiarizing the sons of the settlers with the dangers that a 
 frontier life necessarily involves, and teaching them to unite 
 African woodcraft with English courage. The men who were 
 learning to cut off pauws' heads with rifle buUets at two hundred 
 yards distance, "that the body feathers might not be soiled," 
 were likely to become dangerous to other heads as well, in a case 
 of emergency. And frequent practice was training young English 
 eyes to trace a spoor with the keen-sightedness of a Kaffer or 
 a Hottentot. The youth of the border were thus unconsciously 
 preparing themselves for the crisis that was approaching, when, — 
 
 " The war cry echoing wild and loud, 
 " The war of the savage, fierce and proud, 
 " Would burst like the storm from the thunder cloud, 
 "Over Afric's southern wilds." 
 
 It must not be forgotten, however, that the first essay of the 
 settlers in arms was not against the Kaffers, but in their defence. 
 In the year 1828, a savage and very formidable horde under the 
 chief Matinawa — an offshoot of the Zulu nation, entered the 
 Tembuki country from the north east, having skirted the 
 Kwahlamba mountains, and crossed the upper sources of the 
 TJmzimvubu. They struck terror throughout the frontier tribes ; 
 for their warfare was an exterminating one that spared neither 
 man, woman, nor child ; while the tiger-roar of their onslaught 
 with the short stabbing spear, and the horrible " Tah ! Tah!" 
 which accompanied their death-dealing strokes in their hand-to- 
 hand combats, were paralysing to the courage of men used only 
 
32 AN ALBANY SETTLEe's EEMINISCENCES. 
 
 to the light-sliafted and easily-evaded assegai of the frontier 
 tribes. 
 
 The alarm they inspired threatened to drive the frontier 
 Kaffers in upon the colony for refuge, or substitute for them, if 
 destroyed, a more savage set of neighbours in their stead. To 
 prevent general confasion, the Colonial Government deemed it 
 best to help the Eaffers to repel their enemies. A body of troops 
 was accordingly sent under the command of Major Somerset, to 
 prevent the nearer approach of the Fetcani, as they were called. 
 A comm.ando of Burghers was joined in the expedition with the 
 regular troops, and numbers of active young men from among 
 the English settlers eagerly came forward to swell their ranks, 
 and share for the first time the excitements of a Kaffer campaign. 
 The tribes of Hintsa and Vusani (the paramount chiefs of the 
 Amaxosa and Abatembu tribes) mustered in force, and the young 
 men of Albany obtained their first views of a Kaffer army, — ^in 
 those days armed only with assegais, and carrying great lumber- 
 ing shields of ox hide, five feet by three. I believe it was while 
 awaitiag the tardy gathering of these auxiliaries, that Major 
 Somerset performed the feat of riding from the heights of the 
 Umtata into Graham's Town in forty-eight hours. 
 
 The Fetcani army was met among the upper waters of the 
 Umtata, and the Matiwana mountains, (as they have been called 
 ever since) resounded for the first time with the musketry and 
 cannon of the white men. Of course the Fetcani, though very 
 numerous, were defeated. They had never seen fire-arms before. 
 The Kaffer auxiliaries did little but look on till the fight was 
 over ; but an impression of British prowess was made upon the 
 minds of the Tembukis, which the old men remember to this day. 
 
 Matiwana collected his scattered forces behind the mountains 
 after the battle, and gave them a comforting harangue. " When 
 we have fought with men," he said, "we have beaten them ; but 
 to-day we have had to battle with the thimder and lightning. 
 It is no disgrace to be conquered by them." 
 
 When the commander returned, as many of the pressed horses 
 
AN ALBANY SETTLEe's EEMINISCENCES. 33 
 
 as had survived the expedition were brought back to their 
 owners by the men to whom they had been supplied. My old 
 master, I remember, had contributed one, as he did not go him- 
 self. It was an ugly old mare, a " pas-ganger," that used to 
 waddle along in most ungainly fashion. There were many 
 handsome, high-fed horses on the commando, taken from the 
 Graham's Town stables; and many a youth "spogh'd" dashingly 
 enough upon them at starting. But long after their curvettings 
 had been exchanged for drooping ears and a footsore pace, and 
 the carcases of some of them had been left for the aasvogels, old 
 Bess waddled on as she had done at starting, and active Jerry 
 Goldswain* (there's life in the old boy yet, I see ! ) brought back 
 the old mare in triumph; and brought back this moral with her, 
 that beauty, though lovely to look upon, is not always associated 
 with strength of character, and that under a very plain exterior 
 may exist very sterling qualities. 
 
 In looking back over the past of the Eastern Province, I have 
 thus far confined myself to the Secular aspects of the subject. 
 But it would imply a very unthankful heart not to recollect the 
 means that were employed to keep ahve, in the minds of the 
 British Settlers, the Christianity of the Fatherland. The Sabbath 
 bells of Old England were heard no longer. No steeple, rising 
 from the midst of clustering elms, rocked to the joyous peal 
 which invited high and low, far and near, to assemble in the 
 sacred place where all meet on equal ground. There was much 
 of secularising influence in the circumstances of the people. A 
 new start in life in a wild country was likely to absorb the mind 
 in the cares and enterprises relating to the present state of being, 
 and there was danger of their forgetting " the life to come." 
 This danger was none the less from the fact that their lot was 
 cast in close contact with barbarism. The reports that some of 
 our own travellers bring us from the far North serve to prove 
 
 * Jerry, forty-two years after the occurrenoej started up in the audience 
 when his name was mentioned, exclaiming, amidst great cheering — "Here 
 he is still ! " 
 
 D 
 
34 AN ALBANY SETTLEe's EBMINISCENCES. 
 
 that tlie families of a civilized, race may go down fearfully in 
 social condition, where the elevatuig influences of Christianity 
 are superseded by those of Heathenism. 
 
 To counteract these dangers on owr frontier, one 'man organized 
 an extensive scheme of religious visitation, reaching throughout 
 nearly the whole Settlement. William Shaw had an eye and a 
 heart that embraced all Albany, and gladly combined and guided 
 the elements of usefulness wherever he could find them. The 
 "locations" of the various "parties" had Sabbath Services, 
 conducted by men who proved their own disinterested siucerity 
 and earnestness by the long journeys they took (often on foot), 
 without any remuneration but the satisiaction of knowing that 
 they were conserving the Christianity of their fellow colonists, 
 and enjoying a gladdeniug sense of the smile of God upon their 
 labours. The names of Aylifif, Shepstone, Walker, Pike, Miller, 
 Dukesbury, Grush, Gates, Roberts, Aldum, Sargeant, Booth, and 
 others, are not all connected with one section of the Church of 
 Christ; but they are all associated more or less with services 
 that began fifty years ago, and have never ceased. They fed 
 and fanned the flame of piety where it would have died out but 
 for them ; and they kindled it in many places where otherwise 
 its light might never have appeared. They are remembered, as 
 they ought to be, with gratitude ; but all, with one venerable 
 exception,* have passed away from this scene of things. 
 
 It was in a very primitive style that worship was first solem- 
 nized among the Albany Settlers. The shade of a spreading 
 tree, cleared of its underwood, formed in many instances the 
 first place of public devotion for the population of its neighbour- 
 hood. Very plain sermons were preached by very plain men; 
 but they were men who had the advantage of speaking from 
 experience. What they had felt themselves they could tell with 
 confidence to others. And what they Imd to tell related to those 
 foundation principles of religion on the faithful application of 
 
 which the christianizing efiect of all preaching depends. 
 
 ■ • 
 
 * The Eev. W. Shepstone. 
 
AN ALBANY SETTLEE's KEMINISCENCES. 35 
 
 As the circumstances of the people allowed, ttey began to 
 build more substantial places of worship, here and there, in 
 central situations. And so Green Fountain Chapel made its 
 appearance on its little mount behind the sand-hills in Smith's 
 party. And Eeed Fountain had its house of prayer on the slope 
 of one of its grassy hills. And Port Frances had one among the 
 darkwoods on the banks of the Kowie. And Clumber's little 
 knoll, that seemed as if raised by its Cbbatoe for the purpose in 
 the midst of its beautiful vale, was crowned with its rustic 
 temple for G-od, around which not a few of the fathers and 
 mothers of the settlement were to find their last earthly resting- 
 place. " James' Party " Chapel, conspicuous on its high ridge, 
 overlooked the woodlands of the upper Klein Monden. That of 
 Bathurst stood in one of Nature's parks, where the capital of the 
 settlement was to have been. It is needless to go on enumerating. 
 Later times have seen many others rise, to be means of blessing 
 to both parents and children, amidst the population around 
 them. And thus the origiaal Mother Chapel at Salem has had 
 a large and overgrowing family, that is still spreading on all 
 sides. 
 
 Let it not be supposed that in this enumeration I vsdsh to 
 ignore what has been done for the religious benefit of the Eastern 
 Province by other denominations than my own. Much has been 
 done by various branches of the Church Catholic, Eoman and 
 Anglican, Episcopalian and Nonconformist ; but their exertions, 
 and the results of those exertions, belong to a later period of 
 Colonial history than that on which I am chiefly dwelling. 
 Though a Wesleyan myself, only a spurious modesty could 
 induce me to hide the truth that for years the Wesleyans stood 
 virtually alone in the work of preaching the Gospel among the 
 rural population; while even in the towns and villages the 
 Church of England did not disdain to avail herself of the 
 proffered use of Wesleyan and Dissenting places of worship, 
 which had anticipated her own. Zealously and energetically has 
 that Church laboured since, to atone for the tardiness which 
 
 D 2 
 
36 AN ALBANY settler's BEMINISCBNCES. 
 
 some of her prelates and dignitaries have acknowledged and 
 lamented. But all this leaves the honour of priority where the 
 GrOD of Providence saw fit to place it. 
 
 The dedication and anniversaries of these primitive places of 
 worship were pleasant times. G-atherings of friends and neigh- 
 bours from far and near made them occasions of hearty greetings 
 and generous hospitality. Eeminiscences of the "Dear Old 
 Land" and its religious privileges were awakened in many a 
 breast ; and many a little group sat under the trees, talking of 
 days of old, and scenes beyond the wide waters — called up afresh 
 in the memory, though never to be visited again. All classes 
 joined heart and hand to welcome the guests, and contribute to 
 the general table, which was literally " spread in the Wilderness." 
 For those were not the days of spacious dining-haUs, and the 
 absence of pavilions was made up for by the shade of the 
 wildwoods in which the dedicatory feasts were held. No bois- 
 terous mirth was needed to heighten the enjoyment. Hearty 
 songs of praise, as befitted the occasions, ascended to G-od, both 
 in the newly raised houses of prayer, and around the general 
 board, which the green trees sheltered from the sun's rays. The 
 people were refreshed in heart and mind at once, by the reimion 
 of those occasions, and by the gladdening religious services which 
 hallowed them. From these days of more advanced, though 
 perhaps less natwal social condition, many of the present gene- 
 ration look back with deep interest and glowing gratitude to 
 those long gone by, in which the foundations of christian 
 character were laid in many a heart, and to which the colonial 
 Christianity of the present day is deeply and lastingly indebted. 
 
 The circumstances of the Albany Settlers, in relation to 
 Education, were very unfavourable during the early years of the 
 settlement. The children were almost entirely dependent on the 
 time, ability, and disposition of the parents to instruct them ; 
 and, situated as they were, "the pursuit of knowledge" was 
 emphatically " under difiiculties." Day schools were, as a rule, 
 out of the question. With the exception of the Eev. Mr. 
 
AN ALBANY SETTLEe's EEMINISCENCBS. 37 
 
 Boardman, who, I believe, took a few private pupils for a short 
 time before leaving Wilson's party, I do not remember to have 
 heard of any person who was engaged in the work of teaching in 
 any part of the Settlement between Salem and the month of the 
 Fish riV^er. Little Sunday Schools were begvui, as circumstances 
 admitted, in connection with the small congregations that 
 assembled in the country chapels ; and these, in many instances, 
 supplied the only means of instruction within the reach of the 
 children. The solitary Public School was at Salem, under the 
 care of Mr. WUliam Henry Matthews ; and in that precursor of 
 our later Academies, Seminaries, Institutes, and Colleges, not a 
 few of the men who have since filled important public situations 
 received their preparation for them. The teacher himself (the 
 Father of Albany Edtccation, as he deserves to be called) trans- 
 ferred his work in due time to other hands; but, a genuine 
 " Settler," remaiaed himself, rooted to the spot where he began 
 his labours. And after living to a venerable age, — the Magistrate, 
 Doctor, Adviser, Peacemaker, and Universal Beferee of all the 
 country round, — passed suddenly and painlessly away, not very 
 long since, leaving a name as fragrant with true honour as any 
 in the Colony besides. 
 
 Pause for Music (See Appendix No. 4). 
 
 Part III. 
 
 So the years rolled smilingly round. Despite of rust in the 
 wheat, and occasional devastations from locust armies, such as 
 we have seen again amongst us of late years, the people prospered. 
 Eural comfort and plenty were found in the country districts ; 
 commercial wealth was growing in the towns. The necessaries 
 of life cost but little. The butcher who slaughtered an ox that 
 weighed 1100 lbs., thought he had done a generous thing for his 
 Christmas customers when he ventured to give thirty dollars for 
 it. There seemed before the whole community a gradually but 
 constantly brightening prospect of growing prosperity. 
 
38 AN ALBANY SETTLEb's BEMINISCENCES. 
 
 Meanwhile, however, a dark thunder-cloud was gathering 
 among the Amatole mountains. rrom a course of reprisals, 
 rendered necessary by incessant depredations" along the border, 
 had arisen a state of feeling among the frontier Kafifer tribes 
 which needed but a spark to kindle it into a war-flame ; especially 
 as the acquisition of fire-arms had greatly raised their notions of 
 their own prowess. That spark was struck in the wounding of 
 a chief by a military patrol when recapturing stolen cattle ; and 
 the tribes of Eno, Botumane, Dushani, and Gaika, rushed over 
 the frontier in a line of flame, — ^like one of our Queenstown 
 grass-fires before an August wind — burning and blackening as 
 they went. 
 
 The Christmas day of 1834 was a day never to be forgotten in 
 the annals of Albany. Hundreds of families were preparing to 
 spend it in the usual festive style, and were anticipating a 
 brighter day of social gladness than in previous years, as their 
 growing prosperity had raised them higher in the scale of comfort 
 than they had ever been before. Friends were assembling for 
 the brotherly-kindnesses of the season. Heads of families were 
 calling in their scattered members for a Christmas gathering, 
 that the dear old customs of the dear old Fatherland might not 
 be forgotten in their African homes. If they had not the 
 bracing frost and snow of an English Christmas to exhilarate 
 them, — if the holly with its bright berries was not there to deck 
 the walls, — ^if the heat of an African December made the yule 
 log needless; — there was at least the beef to roast, and no stint 
 of it either, for they could roast the sirloins of their own fat 
 oxen, and there were plenty of materials for the plum-pudding, 
 for there were plenty of Graaf-Eeinet raisins in the land. 
 
 Ah! only the grey-headed ones of the present time, looking 
 back over the interval of six and thirty years, can reraember their 
 terrific revulsion of feeling, when a burst of barbarians, without 
 an hour's warning, wrapped the whole frontier line in the fire 
 and smoke of their own homesteads, and brought the imknown 
 realities of savage war, with lightning suddenness, into the midst 
 
AN ALBANY SETTLBe's EEMINISCENCES. 39 
 
 of their astonished family groups, met together for so different a 
 purpose. Husbands, fathers, and brothers fell, while mothers, 
 •wives, and sisters looted helplessly and phrenziedly on. The 
 frontier, utterly unprepared, was utterly defenceless. The 
 families of the Settlers fled, as they could, to temporary rallying 
 points, which had to he abandoned in succession for stronger 
 places of refuge. Some three or four hundred men formed the 
 military garrison of the frontier ; and before any plan of resist- 
 ance could be organized, or the Burgher force of the inner 
 districts brought up, the plains of Albany had become a solitude. 
 " The cattle upon a thousand hills" had disappeared. The 
 inhabitants first concentrated at Bathurst, moved in a body to 
 Graham's Town as the only place of safety, and the smoked 
 walls of the abandoned dwellings stood desolate. A sudden 
 plunge from affluence into the depths of poverty was the lot of 
 numbers of families, and some of them never rose again. 
 
 The aspect of G-raham's Town, when made the central refuge, 
 was such as it has never, in the same degree, presented since. 
 Every tenement of every class was thronged with families of 
 white, brown, or black, who had pressed in from every side for 
 protection. The portions of the flocks and herds that had been 
 saved from the Kaffers, crowded the vacant spaces in yards and 
 gardens at nights, and covered the slopes of the hills around the 
 town by day, exhausting very speedily the pasturage of the 
 neighbourhood. Sad confusion and paralyzing depression 
 prevailed at first, and strange scenes, combining the pathetic 
 and the ludicrous in about equal proportions, were presented, 
 especially when St. George's Church, the present Cathedral, was 
 occujiied at night as the place of greatest safety by the women 
 and children. 
 
 At length, however, the fire-eatiag Sir Harry (then Colonel) 
 Smith made his sudden appearance, having galloped overland 
 from Cape Town in either five or six days. Breathing something 
 of his own resolution into the desponding spirits around him, he 
 speedily changed the face of things. He had come armed with 
 
41* AN ALBANY SETTLEE S EEMINISCENCBS. 
 
 plenary power from Sir Benjamin D'Urban, the new Grovernor, 
 and instantly set about measures for arousing the people from 
 their dejection. The change of feeliiig, when the attention of 
 the people was diverted from themselves was, I heard, 
 quite electric. Order soon sprang from confusion under the 
 wave of Sir Harry's magic wand. Organizing right and left, 
 with the energy of will, and the unforgotten energy of language 
 for which he was distinguished, the adult population soon 
 became a warlike-looking garrison. Grentlena.en who had never 
 dreamt of such honours before were placed in command of 
 companies or battalions, and Major Wood, Captain Godlonton, 
 Captain Wright, Captain Thompson, and Captains I know not 
 who besides, marshalled their men and gave the word of 
 command with newly inspired vigour ; while old Serjeants of 
 jjre-settler days — the Eaffertys, Prices, Lucases, McDonalds, 
 Peatherstones — became prized acquisitions, and rose into 
 quarter-masters and adjutants at a bound. Barricades were 
 buUt across the streets, cannon planted in commanding positions ; 
 for the people remembered that in 1819, the same hordes who 
 were now devastating the frontier, had boldly marched in 
 thousands from the sugar-loaf hiU, across what are now the 
 cricket grounds and cemeteries, to attack the infant town, while 
 the war prophet Makanna stood invoking the promised thunder 
 and lightning, that would not " come when they were called." A 
 repetition of the old attempt on a more formidable scale was 
 apprehended. In a short time, however. Sir Harry, ridiculing 
 the idea of being " afraid of a lot of black fellows, armed with 
 nothing but a knife stuck on the end of a long stick," had 
 placed the town in a state of defence, which he said made it 
 proof against the assault of seven thousand Frenchmen. 
 
 It soon became needful to clear the town of the refugee flocks 
 and herds that were endangering the health of the crowded 
 population. The open country at the head of the Meule river 
 was selected as the safest place for them, and a cattle guard 
 was formed of the men least qualified for active operations. 
 
AN ALBANY SETTLBk's EEMINISCENCES. 41 
 
 This was no.t deemed the most honourable branch of the service, 
 for Colonel Smith was planning a grand combined attack on the 
 fastness of the Fish Eiver, and the Settlers, whose blood was now 
 thoroughly up, were eager to turn the tables upon their enemies. 
 The attact proved a great success, and it was noted that some 
 of the quiet Methodists, who because they did not curse and 
 swear had been thought to have but little courage ia them, 
 could, when the war was pro aris et foeis, (as Sir Benjamin said) 
 bear themselves in action quite as coolly, and yet fight " for 
 hearths and altars " quite as warmly, as their more blustering 
 comrades. 
 
 I was not in the Colony, but in Kafferland, when the war of 
 '35 broke out. All our first tidings were from KajQfers. The 
 plundering of the traders' stations was, to us, the first intimation 
 of what was going forwards. The arrival at the Mount Coke 
 Mission of such of the traders themselves as could effect their 
 escape confirmed our worst fears. Some of them had barely 
 saved their lives, and scarcely knew how they had done it. One 
 of them (as he told me himself) had, while the Kaffers were 
 discussing the subject of putting him to death, given some of 
 them lessons in shooting, that they might Irill him with as 
 little pain as possible. The climax of triumph seemed to have 
 been reached when the news was spread far and near that Fort 
 Wilshire (the impregnable, as the Kaffers had deemed it) was 
 abandoned by the English garrison, and had fallen into the 
 possession of Tyali and Macoma. And then return parties of 
 warriors, laden with the spoUs of the Settlers' dwellings, passed 
 through the station, taunting us with our helpless condition, 
 and telling us they could afford to let us alone for awhile, as 
 they intended to finish us at leisure. The suspense, arising 
 from the cutting off of aU intelligence from the colony, was 
 horrible. The burning homesteads of Lower Albany lighted up 
 the horizon night after night, and imagination was left to paint 
 its most fearful pictures. Where the end was to be we knew 
 not. Days seemed to grow into weeks; and week after week 
 
42 AN ALBANY SETTLBr's EEMINISCENCES. 
 
 elapsed -without any sign of aggressive movement from the 
 Colony; till old Zetu, the chief who was protecting us, im- 
 patiently exclaimed, " Akuseko 'm Iwngu ! inJcomande ingavelinje, 
 bwpelile honhe!" * 
 
 The first gleam of relief appeared in an extraordinary 
 commotion that surprised us one morning. Herds of cattle 
 suddenly made their appearance, driven in eager haste past the 
 station, and towards the Kye, followed by troops of women and 
 children, carrying loads of pots, mats, and baskets, and keeping 
 company with the old pack-oxen that brought up the rear, 
 laden with heavy imlk sacks. A party of us at once moimted 
 on horseback, and proceeded towards Wesleyville to find out 
 the cause of the movement. We saw that a sudden panic had 
 seized the tribes which occupied the country between us and the 
 Fish River. The whole upper basin of the Chalunma seemed 
 alive with cattle, streaming down every bush-path from the 
 ridges beyond, and all urged on in one direction — Eastward ho ! 
 A night attack (as we learned afterwards) , planned and carried 
 out successfully under the command of the rosy-faced veteran, 
 Major Cox, had surprised and destroyed the " Grreat Place" of 
 the notorious old chief Eno, who himself narrowly and ignobly 
 escaped disguised in the kaross of one of his wives. The 
 frontier Kaffers, who were securely revelling in the plunder of 
 the colony, were confounded by the unlooked-for exploit. My 
 escort, armed, and looking like a cavalry patrol, might have 
 captured the flying cattle by hundreds ; for the few men in 
 charge of them, mistaking us for a part of the invading force, 
 abandoned them, and took shelter in the bush as we crossed the 
 path of their flight. If that attack had been at once followed 
 up, it would have confirmed on the side of peace the coast tribes 
 who were then wavering, and it would have shortened the war. 
 
 I have no intention, on this occasion, of bringing down my 
 " Settler's Eeminiscences " any farther than to this point. 
 
 * " There axe no wliite men left ! No commando makes its appeax- 
 ance, — they must be aH finished up ! " 
 
AN ALBANY SETTLEe's BEMINISCENCES. 43 
 
 Those who were old enough to slioulder their rifles in the wars 
 of '46 and '51, have their own remembrancers, and do not need 
 mine. Such as were not, can ask their fathers and mothers to 
 tell them of the struggles of those times, as their fathers told 
 tJiem of the struggles of the times before them. 
 
 But I have a word or two to say, before concluding, on 
 the wondrous self-recovering elasticity displayed again and again 
 by this Eastern Province of ours. The tide of war was rolled 
 back, the homesteads were re-occupied, the houses rebuUt, and 
 the fields cultivated anew. The old Anglo-Saxon energy had 
 been stirred after a new style, and was not going to sleep again. 
 The men had found that though, like the Guards at Waterloo, 
 it was the first time they had " seen service," there was stuff in 
 them of the right sort ; and the women had developed powers 
 of endurance and fortitude unknown to themselves. They 
 conquered prosperity a second time ; and in a very few years 
 most of the traces of war had disappeared. Struck by the 
 energy they displayed, a keen observer said of them, " Why 
 the Albany Settlers can afford to be ruined every ten years." 
 
 A more desperate conflict awaited them in '46, when both 
 parties were stronger, and neither was taken by surprise. The 
 inhabitants of the frontier districts, instead of abandoning them 
 again to the enemy, formed themselves into camps, and defended 
 their positions, often against fearful odds, in many an open day 
 fight. Not a few of the settlers' sons made in those camps their 
 first essay in arms, shoulder to shoulder with their fathers. 
 
 Had ten years, instead of three, intervened between that and 
 the war of '51, it would have been seen that the self-recovering 
 power of the Settlement had raised it from its second struggle to 
 a firmer position than before. But the people had scarcely 
 recovered breath when, for the third time, war without, aggravated 
 now by rebellion within, tasked their energies to the utmost. It 
 was hard to be hit again before they were fairly on their feet ; 
 but they stood the blow, and hit harder than ever back again. 
 The storming of Port Armstrong, the defeat of Hermanns, the 
 
44 AN ALBANY SETTLBb's EEMINISCENCES. 
 
 battle of tlie Imvane, and, better than any of tbem, the hero- 
 stand at Whittlesea, isolated, beleagured, and assaulted week 
 after week, till they had reached their last charge of powder, 
 and were preparing to stake the last issue on the strength of 
 their home-made battle-axes, when the welcome apparition of the 
 " Cradock Bricks," suddenly dashing in to their aid, replenished 
 their powder flasks, and turned despondency into triumph. 
 These were the tests which determined into what kind of men the 
 little boys of '35 had grown. 
 
 I do not forget that in these successive war struggles the 
 Colonists had the aid of British troops ; or that, without their 
 aid, the issue might have been — probably would ui those days 
 have been — different from what it was. But it is only just to 
 remember, that in many of the fiercest local conflicts there was 
 not a single soldier present. Aud now that the troops are 
 taking leave of us with the tune of " Paddle your own Canoe," 
 it is not out of place to remind my young auditors that what 
 their fathers did before them may be done again by themselves, 
 if they are not degenerate scions of the old stock. 
 
 What have been the results of the '51 war ? One result has 
 been, that eighteen years have elapsed, and the Kaffers have not 
 ventured to make war again, although the previous eighteen 
 years saw three of them. Another result has been, that the seeds 
 of a civilizing community have been sown broadcast over British 
 KafEraria. And a third result is, the formation of the Queens- 
 town Division (formed, I have heard, by Holden Bowker), and 
 its settlement by men of youthful fire or middle age energy. 
 The feeble and the old are the very rare exceptions — the few 
 venerable fathers and mothers whom the stalwart sons have 
 brought with them to cherish in their old age. The staple of 
 the community consists of men with strength for the present 
 day, and the prospect of life for coming years in which to 
 develope the resources of the inheritance they have won. They 
 occupy the post of honour. They are the advanced guard of the 
 Colony. Grod make them worthy of their position ! 
 
AN ALBANY SETTLEk's REMINISCENCES. 45 
 
 These results scarcely look like retrogression. And yet there 
 are some who take gloomy views, and utter dark prophecies. 
 They bid us think of our commercial depression, — as if there 
 were no sucli thing as commercial depression at times even in 
 wealthy England ; — and forgetting how often in the history of 
 a country the failure of superficial resources has led to the 
 developement of others, whose springs lie deeper indeed, and 
 therefore require digging for, but which rise from permanent 
 and exhaustless reservoirs. They point to misgovernment as 
 an incubus on our progress ; — not remembering that with 
 Englishmen misgovernment is an evil that has always wrought 
 its own cure, and resulted in the establishment of rights fully 
 proportioned to the wrongs they have overturned, though the 
 process by which they have been established may not always have 
 been a rapid one. They tell us again of cbrougM, and locusts ; of 
 rust in the com, and murrain among the cattle. But locust 
 clouds darkened the sMes of Albany before the war of '36, and 
 yet the people prospered. And corn has been " rusted " ever 
 since '21, but there are districts nevertheless, without going into 
 the West, that might be made to supply a whole province with 
 wheaten bread. The elevated regions of the North-East know 
 little or nothing of rust. Tell me not of dn-ougMs. They are 
 the rod which the Grod of Providence sends to punish our reck- 
 less destruction of the wood we cut down without replacement, 
 and our wilful waste of water ; — and to teach us to take care of 
 the water when it comes, — for come it does, (this season for 
 instance) in quantities which might silver the surface of our 
 landscapes with a thousand lakes, fringe their borders with 
 groves of evergreen, and modify the climate of the whole land. 
 The first grand thunderstorm of the Queenstown district last 
 season would have given us half-a-dozen square miles of water, 
 if we had had a reservoir large enough to have received it. 
 There are individual farmers in the inner districts, who have 
 made dams which render droughts a matter of comparative 
 indifference to their crops, and have given them artificial lakes 
 
46 AN ALBANY SBTTLEe's EEMINISCENCES. 
 
 large enough for African college boat races. Why should not 
 reservoirs such as those of Kidger Tucker, Carey Hobson, the 
 Parkes', and others in the Albert and Colesberg districts, be 
 multiplied a hundredfold, instead of allowing the water to run 
 idly to the sea, sweeping with it the richest of our soils ? Or 
 why (to come nearer home *) should we not see from the 
 summit of Mount Tylden fifty sheets of water sparkling in 
 the sun, fertilizing the fields below them, fostering the growth 
 of wild fowl, and providing future sport for our duck shooters, 
 like that which our energetic fellow-townsman, Mr. Ella, has 
 spread before our eyes at Ashby Manor ? I know but of one 
 reason why, and that is the want of fifty Ellas to resolve that 
 the work shall be done. 
 
 " But there are Kafier depredations." So there are, though 
 fewer than of old ; but have those who tell us so forgotten " The 
 Blue Bonnets over the border " of the Old Country ? Has Cum- 
 berland no tales to tell of Donald Beans, and Moss troopers, and 
 black mail ? Are the frontiers of our Indian empire free from 
 depredators ? Is the Indian border of the United States never 
 disturbed by the Eed Man ? And yet British India flourishes, 
 and the Great Eepublic grows greater and grander every year. 
 
 Give all the weight you wiU to the obstacles, the trials, the 
 disadvantages of our position. It will only place in bolder 
 relief the progress that has been made despite those obstacles, 
 and the energy and perseverance that have achieved it. We 
 look back to 1820. Where then were the towns of Port Eliza- 
 beth, Colesberg, Somerset, Burghersdorp, Port Beaufort, Aliwal, 
 Hopetown, Murraysburg, Eichmond, Middleburg, Bedford, 
 Alice, Adelaide, Queenstown, King William's Town, Bathurst, 
 Port Alfred, East London ? Must I go on to ask the same 
 question in reference to Humansdorp, Alexandria, Pearston, 
 Aberdeen, Hanover, Whittlesea, Dordrecht, Peddie, Seymour, 
 Tarkastadt? There were none of them in existence. Even 
 
 * Tlie rest of the paragrapt was a local appUcation to Queenstown, at 
 whioli place also tlie lecture was delivered. 
 
AN ALBANY SETTLEE's REMINISCENCES. 47 
 
 G-raham's Town was not bom — it was only in embryo. Some of 
 us remember tbe transparency of it wliicb. we had at the half 
 jubilee, some eighteen small thatched cottages ! 
 
 I say nothing about the increase of towns and Tillages in the 
 Western Province ; though British immigration has had much to 
 do with that. And I say nothing of the towns that are rising 
 beyond the Orange river, though their commercial life owes 
 itself to the presence of British energy, and the residence of not 
 a few of the sons and daughters of the old settlers. Does any 
 one ask for the rate of increase in these sons and daughters ? 
 Take a couple of specimens. It is not very long since old 
 Joseph Trollip died. There live among us to-day of his lineal 
 descendants two hundred and seventy. The Cawoods came, a 
 famUy of nine. The present number of the united generations 
 liviag is three hundred and fifty-six. I wish I had the number 
 belonging to the Hartley, Usher, Hart, and Bowker families. 
 They would supply figures quite as expressive, although the 
 father of the Bowkers did not marry till he was forty, and said 
 iu after life that he had even then committed a juvenile indis- 
 cretion in doing so ; for his sons increased till he had to name 
 them by Roman numerals. Does any one ask again, what sort 
 of social positions are occupied by the old settlers' sons ? They 
 occupy magistracies and mayoralties; they fiU seats in our 
 Legislative Council and House of Assembly. There are settlers' 
 sons members of the Government at Natal. A settler's son fills 
 the second position ia the government of the Cape. A settler's 
 son ranks with the generals of the British army. The son of a 
 British settler, knighted for his gallant deeds by our gracious 
 Queen (G-od bless her!) has for years headed a force which 
 might weU bear the motto "Ubique" on its banners, xor its 
 detachments are seen everywhere; and if Sir Walter Currie's 
 career has prematurely ended, it has been in his adopted 
 country's service that he has wrecked his strength. Honour, 
 aU honour to the Brave ! May they never lack successors worthy 
 of themselves ! 
 
48 AN ALBANY SETTLBe's EEMINISCBNCES. 
 
 But to return to tte question of difficulties and discourage- 
 ments. The fact is, tiiat, in our impatience of personal evils, 
 we are apt to forget the inevitable conditions of a residence on 
 the frontiers of barbarism, ignoring all past history ; and in our 
 estimate of progress, we are too prone to limit our view to the 
 times we live in ourselves ; forgetting that in all national pros- 
 perity, the safety, wealth and happiness of one generation, have 
 been the fruit of the labours and struggles of the generations 
 before it. , 
 
 There was a little city in ancient Italy. It possessed a few 
 square miles of territory — a territory, by the way, compared 
 with which the Cradock, Colesberg, or Queenstown Division 
 would be a Jcingdom. Its inhabitants, however, embodied the 
 spirit of progress. But they were hemmed in by enemies on 
 every side. Tear after year, decade after decade, they battled 
 for existence — now winning a few miles more — then driven back 
 to their city gates. At length in the vicissitudes of the strife, 
 the city itself was taken and ravaged — the citadel alone remaiaing 
 uncaptured. Tes, and even that was saved by the cackling of a 
 few geese ! And yet that band of indomitable spirits held their 
 own, beat back their foes, wrested city after city from them, won 
 their way from strength to strength through the struggles of 
 five hundred years, till Europe, Asia, and Africa crouched at 
 their feet, and Home, Imperial Rome, gave laws to the world ! 
 
 But there is another lesson of later date. There was a time 
 when Anglo-Saxon England was struggHng for life with foreign 
 foes ; when the black ships of the Northmen brought their 
 warrior swarms, that carried the Eaven banner in desolating 
 triumph over the land. And there was one Man who resolved 
 that England should not be conquered. He wrestled with ad- 
 verse fortune agaia and again, till, driven a solitary refugee to 
 the shelter of his own wildwoods, the cause of his country seemed 
 lost for ever. And what became of him ? Every schoolboy 
 knows ; and every schoolboy can tell that the lad who let the 
 woodman's cake bum, and got his ears boxed for it; and the 
 
AN ALBANY SETTLEe's EBMINISCBNCES. 49 
 
 harper that wandered through the Danish camp, noting all its 
 ■weak points ; and the young King who rallied the scattered 
 strength of England, and crushed the Danish power at Ethan- 
 dune, were one, and that one the Eoyal Aipeed, whose courage, 
 wisdom, and piety combined, laid the foundations of England's 
 constitutional liberty, and of England's naval greatness. 
 
 Are the lessons of the past to be lost upon us ? Are the trials 
 of a single generation to darken all the future to our view ? A 
 generation is but a step in the history of a people. And the 
 history of advance. Every storm has left the English oak that 
 has been transplanted to this Southern clime more deeply rooted. 
 As necessity forces our sluggish attention to fresh resources, 
 they open up to our view. Mohair, Cotton, Silk, Coffee, Sugar, 
 Coal, Iron, Copper, Ostrich farming, are offering themselves in 
 succession for our acceptance, and asking only enterprise and 
 perseverance. Look at our Jubilee Exhibition ! Planned and 
 carried out by men whose words are actions, — ^whose "silence" 
 is eloquent. See what the Colony can do — is doing ! If, with 
 such a display before our eyes of Colonial products, incipient 
 Colonial manu&ctures, and Colonial artistic taste and skill, my 
 young feUow-colonists do not go home with hopes brightened, 
 energies new strung, and a fixed purpose to make the Jubilee a 
 fresh starting point in an onward career, I shall only have to 
 say that I have mistaken the character of the sons of the British 
 Settlers. 
 
 The spirit of observation is at last shewing signs of waking up, 
 and is finding treasures in the vegetable and the mineral worlds 
 before unthought of " New fibres " are challenging attention 
 one after another ; and now the diamonds that have so long been 
 reproaching the eyes which have been blind to their brilliancy, 
 and the feet that have trodden heedlessly over them for so many 
 years, are beginning a social revolution which will reach to the 
 heart of the African continent. Nor do we know what is yet 
 behind. When the work of research begins in thorough earnest, 
 it opens many a hidden spring. I have long believed that the 
 
50 AN ALBANY SETTLEe's EEMINISCENCES. 
 
 old "back-bone" of Soutb Africa — the Stomberg and Quablamba 
 range — contains a spinal marrow wMcb mU yet send a new 
 nerve-force bounding through our social and commercial life- 
 system. 
 
 An old party war-cry in the world of politics was, "Agitate ! 
 Agitate! Agitate!" A better watch- word for us would be, 
 " Organize ! Organize ! Organize ! " Organize for self-defence, 
 and preserve peace by a readiness for war. Organize in the field 
 of industry, and bring combined power to develope the resources 
 of the country. Organize to increase our commercial facilities, 
 and open safe harbours. Organize for the settlement of the 
 wide fertile regions that would sustain in comfort the starving 
 thousands of the Fatherland, and increase the wealth and 
 strength of the colony at the same time. We have plenty of 
 room for them. Our territory increases whether we will or no. 
 Every war has added to it. The exceptions have been but the 
 short waves of the flowing tide. Long ones rolled in when 
 Queenstown and British Kaffraria were settled. And the 
 destiny of Japhet is still " Enlargement." The Eastern slopes 
 of the Quablamba will not always be a mere huntiog ground. 
 Waving corn-fields vfill yet be seen among the uplands where the 
 Eland roams, and the head waters of the Umzim.vubu will yet 
 turn miUs to grind their harvests. A "New England" is 
 rising on the Eastern borders of the Aliwal district. An 
 " Alfredia " is haUiag it from the colony of Natal. A belt of 
 civilization is fast encircling the tribes of KafEraria. They may 
 benefit by it, and rise in the social scale ; or they may resist its 
 influences and take the consequence. The might of civilization 
 mud absorb or annihilate all that comes into hostile contact with 
 it. A solemn responsibility rests upon civilized nations as to 
 how the process of annexation or absorption is carried forwards ; 
 but the destiny itself is providential and inevitable. Away then 
 with the feebleness of despondency ! And away with the short- 
 sighted seMshness that narrows the horizon and fixes the eye on 
 the present only. What was the song of our fathers ? 
 
AN ALBANY SETTLBb's BEMINISCENCBS. 51 
 
 " Never Despair ! tho' the Harvests fail ; 
 Tho' the hosts of a savage foe assail. 
 Never despair ! We shall conquer yet ! 
 ABd the toils of our earlier years forget. 
 In hope's bright glory our sun shall set, 
 'Midst Afric's Southern Wilds." 
 
 Such, vras our Father's song, and what is Ours ? — 
 
 " Our toilwom fathers have sunk io their rest. 
 But their sons shall inherit their hope's bequest. 
 VaUies are smiling in harvest pride; 
 There are fleecy flocks on the mountain side ; 
 Cities are rising to stud the plains ; 
 The life-blood of commerce is coursing the veins 
 Of a new-born EmpirEj that growSj and reigns 
 O'er Afric's Southern Wilds." 
 
Appen dix. 
 
 'God save the Queen!" let aJl tlie people sing. 
 Loyally, ioyfully, hearty homage bring. 
 Long may she reign, a nation's heart her throne. 
 Late may she rise to higher bliss unkaown! 
 Fam'd in story, pure in glory, 
 Heav'n aJl her griefs redressing. 
 Children her counsels blessing ; 
 People loving, God approving, — 
 Gilding with Heav'n' s own brightness 
 Her pathway to the sMes. 
 Thus ever, thus ever, may our Victoria reign ! 
 
 II. 
 
 ..^ Reminiscence at 1820. 
 
 In the lone wilderness behold them stand. 
 Gazing with new strange feelings on the scenes 
 Now spread around them in a foreign clime. 
 Fax from the sea-girt home that gave them birth. 
 
 They had been landed on a cheerless shore. 
 Dreary and solitary; and the hope 
 That erst had brighten'd all their visions, when. 
 O'er the blue waters looming from afar. 
 They had seen Afric's mountains rise to view. 
 Had nigh been quench'd again. But they had left 
 The barren strand, and over hill and dale 
 Had slowly toU'd to reach a, place of rest. 
 And give their children once again a, home. 
 
 Men roughly kind, of speech and manners strange. 
 Had guided them; and bidding them farewell. 
 Had left them ho\iseless in the wilderness. 
 Pitying and wondering what their fate might be. 
 Fathers and mothers, with their children round them. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 Stand on the green sward, wliile the sunny skies, 
 PlecVd with bright clouds, bend o'er them from above. 
 And thoughts are far away o'er the wide waters. 
 The parting scene comes back to memory's view, — 
 The last embrace of lov'd ones left behind. 
 The fears, and hopes, and prayers of that sad hour. 
 
 And now the little ones in thoughtless glee 
 Chase the bright butterflies of this strange land, — 
 Their new and untried home. Ah! 'twas for them 
 The fathers brav'd the storm-toss' d waters, and 
 The mothers hush'd their own alarms to peace. 
 When the loud tempest howl'd around the bark 
 That bore them onwards o'er the surging waves. 
 These gave the spring to their great enterprise. 
 And broke the bonds that else had held them still 
 In th' old home circle of the Fatherland. 
 
 Dark days had been in England. Darker stOl 
 Seem'd coming fast, and o'er the crowded throngs 
 Of Britain's cities, stern Adversity 
 "Was frowning. Then the cry arose, 
 "What of our children? What awaits them here? 
 "Must we look on, and see their budding life, 
 "Before it blossoms, wither in our sight? 
 "Are there not other lands where pining want 
 "Shall cease to mock at honest industry, 
 "That asks but leave to labour? Will no star 
 "Of hope arise to point to happier climes 
 "Where skies are not aXl dark? Be it to rend 
 "The ties of kindred, we must venture forth 
 "Over the unknown seas, and seek a home 
 "On foreign shores, where there is room to live, 
 "And light to see a Future for our children 
 "Happy and bright when we have sunk to rest." 
 
 And this is now their home. 
 
 'Tis lone and wild; 
 But there is beauty in its wildness. See! 
 Yonder are mountains; in their deep ravines 
 Dark woods are waving, whence in noisy flight 
 While parrots issue forth, while loories hide 
 Amidst their deep recesses. Water springs 
 Send Hmpid streamlets down the mountain side, 
 Fring'd with bright evergreens, and brighter flowers. 
 
 Issuing from yonder dark and craggy gorge. 
 Where lurks the stealthy leopaa-d, and where shouts 
 
HI. APPENDIX. 
 
 With loudly echoing voice the bold baboon, 
 Kareiga winds its devious course along 
 Between its willow'd banks; while here and there 
 The dark leav'd yeUow wood lifts its proud head 
 
 In stately dignity. Along the vale 
 The wildwood's sheltering covert stretches, where 
 The bushbok barks; the duiker, sudden, springs; 
 The timid bluebok through the moonlight glides; 
 And monkey mimics chatter saucily. 
 
 And there are feather'd songsters in the groves; 
 Not with the thrush's or the blackbird's notes. 
 That flood Old England's woods with melody; 
 But short, and sharp, and ringing in their tones. 
 Responsive to each other from afar, 
 "While telling of a life of light and joy. 
 
 In the green pastures on the sunny slopes. 
 Where the mimosa's golden blossoms shed 
 Gales of perfume around; and fertile soils 
 Promise the husbandman a rich return 
 To cheer him in his toil. 
 
 "This is our Home! 
 "A spot on earth we now call our own; 
 "A starting point for a new life's career. 
 "Wake all our energies afresh! A brighter day 
 "Has dawn'd at last upon us. Let us raise 
 "A song of gratitude to Heaven, 
 "And gird us for our duties." 
 
 III. 
 
 " ^^roapjct anti Retrospect." 
 
 A Glee for the Sons of the Settlers. 
 
 Hail to the day that's dawning 
 In gladness o'er the land ! 
 
 The clouds that dimn'd the morning 
 Break off on every hand ; 
 But with bright suns shining o'er us. 
 And with happy days before us, — 
 With our children round us srmling. 
 And the hours with love beguiling : 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 Let us think on ttose who passed away 
 
 Ere the low'ring clouds had parted ; 
 
 Who toils and dangers braved for ua, 
 
 Tho' sad and weary-hearted. 
 
 Our fathers bore the heat and the burden of the day : 
 
 O never from our hearts shall their memory fade away. 
 
 We had heard from afar of a Sunny Land, 
 Of its greenwoods waving, its mountains grand ; 
 Its bright starry skies, and its moonlit dales. 
 Its balmy air and its verdant vales ; 
 
 And we long'd for the Sunny Land. 
 
 And we came o'er the waters wide and deep. 
 Where the storm waves roU, and the storm winds sweep. 
 To the land of our fathers we bade farewell ; 
 And for weal or for woe we have come to dwell 
 In the vales of the Sunny Land. 
 
 There were toils to be borne, there were foes to fight. 
 But with hearts of hope, and with arms of might. 
 And the blessing of heaven we have won our way ; 
 And our sons with the triumph of victory survey 
 Their homes in the Sunny Land. 
 
 IV. 
 
 " W\t 'Mt&x (DID :M£anti." 
 
 A OLOEiOTjs land is the " Dear Old Land," 
 
 Our father's island home ; 
 Tho' its moorlands are cold when the snow lies deep. 
 And the mists round the sides of its mountains creep. 
 And the waves are white, when the March winds sweep. 
 
 As they dash on its cKfEs in foam. 
 A story of fame has the " Dear Old Land," 
 
 And it dates from the days gone by ; 
 When Eight with Might the strife began. 
 And Freedom's voice with the Fire-cross ran. 
 And the waken'd serf rose up, — A Man, 
 
 To conquer his rights or die ! 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 And tell me tlie realms o'er the earth's broad face. 
 
 Where her " Braves" have not been found ; 
 Wherever the sea's ■wild waves have curl'd. 
 Her fleets proudly sail with flag unfurl'd 
 And her evening drum through the wide, wide world. 
 
 Is rolling its ceaseless round. 
 Then hail ! all hail ; thou " Dear Old Land," 
 
 Where our Fathers' ashes lie; 
 There are sunbeams bright on this far off shore. 
 There are starlit sides when the day is o'er — 
 And we never shall tread thy greensward more ; 
 
 But we'll love thee, — till we DrE. 
 
 " JuUhe ©be." 
 
 Sound ye the trumpet and raise the glad song ; 
 Let Afric's wild mountains the echo prolong. 
 Albania's daughters raise high their glad voices ; 
 Her sons join the chorus and swell the loud strain : 
 With JtiBiLEE joy every spirit rejoices. 
 And the welMn is ringing again and again. 
 Sound ye the trumpet, sound loudly and long ; 
 Let hearts join with voices, and burst into song. 
 Praise we Jehovah ! our Portress and Tower ; 
 His Hand guides our footsteps, our shield is His Power, 
 Prom Albion, light beaming Star of the nations. 
 Bright rays chase the darkness where savage feet trod ; 
 And the wilderness smiles with our glad habitations. 
 Our children's new homes, and our temples for God. 
 Praise we the God of our fathers ! 'twas He, 
 Jehovah, who brought us, O Afric ! to thee. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
 Printed by Kicharda, WMte & Co.> 4, Brown's Buildings, St. Mary Axe, London, E.C.