Part 37 (1/2)
”Nae doot Glen Lynden has come off better than ither places, for we've managed to haud oor ain no' that ill, but wae's me for the puir folk o'
the low country! An' I'll be bound the Imperial Treasury'll smart for't. [See Note 1.] But it's an ill wind that blaws nae gude. We've taken a gude slice o' land frae the thievin' craters, for it's said Sir Benjamin D'Urban has annexed all the country between the Kei and the Keiskamma to the colony. A most needfu' addition, for the jungles o'
the Great Fish River or the Buffalo were jist fortresses where the Kawfirs played hide-an'-seek wi' the settlers, an' it's as plain as the nose on my face that peace wi' them is not possible till they're driven across the Kei--that bein' a defensible boundary.”
”So, they say that peace is proclaimed,” said Stephen Orpin to a pretty young woman who had recently put it out of his power to talk of his ”bachelor home at Salem.” Jessie McTavish had taken pity on him at last!
”Indeed!” replied Jessie, with a half-disappointed look; ”then I suppose you'll be going off again on your long journeys into the interior, and leaving me to pine here in solitude?”
”That depends,” returned Orpin, ”on how you treat me! Perhaps I may manage to find my work nearer home than I did in days gone by. At all events I'll not go into Kafirland just now, for it's likely to remain in an unsettled state for many a day. It has been a sad and useless war, and has cost us a heavy price. Think, Jessie, of the lives lost-- forty-four of our people murdered during the invasion, and eighty-four killed and thirty wounded during the war. People will say that is nothing to speak of, compared with losses in other wars; but I don't care for comparisons, I think only of the numbers of our people, and of the hundreds of wretched Kafirs, who have been cut off in their prime and sent to meet their Judge. But there has been one trophy of the war at which I look with rejoicing; 15,000 Fingoes rescued from slavery is something to be thankful for. G.o.d can bring good out of evil. It may be that He will give me employment in that direction ere long.”
These various remarks, good reader, were uttered some months after the events recorded in the last chapter, for the death of the great chief of Kafirland did not immediately terminate the war. On the contrary, the treaty of peace entered into with Kreli, Hintza's son and successor, was scouted by the confederate chiefs, Tyali, Macomo, etcetera, who remained still unsubdued in the annexed territory, and both there, and within the old frontier, continued to commit murders and wide-spread depredations.
It was not until the Kafirs had been hunted by our troops into the most impregnable of their woody fortresses, and fairly brought to bay, that the chiefs sent messengers to solicit peace. It was granted. A treaty of peace was entered into, by which the Kafirs gave up all right to the country conquered, and consented to hold their lands under tenure from the British Sovereign. It was signed at Fort Wils.h.i.+re in September.
Thereafter Sir Benjamin D'Urban laid down with great wisdom and ability plans for the occupation and defence of the annexed territory, so as to form a real obstruction to future raids by the lawless natives--plans which, if carried out, would no doubt have prevented future wars, and on _the strength of which_ the farmers began to return to their desolated farms, and commence re-building and re-stocking with indomitable resolution. Others accepted offers of land in the new territory, and a few of the Dutch farmers, hoping for better times, and still trusting to British wisdom for protection, were prevailed on to remain in the colony at a time when many of their kindred were moving off in despair of being either protected, understood, or fairly represented.
Among these still trusting ones was Conrad Marais. Strongly urged by Hans and Considine, he consented to begin life anew in the old home, and went vigorously to work with his stout sons.
But he had barely begun to get the place into something like order when a sh.e.l.l was sent into the colony, which created almost as much dismay as if it had been the precursor of another Kafir invasion.
Conrad was seated in a friend's house in Somerset when the said sh.e.l.l exploded. It came in the form of a newspaper paragraph. He looked surprised on reading the first line or two; then a dark frown settled on his face, which, as he read on, became pale, while his compressed lips twitched with suppressed pa.s.sion.
Finis.h.i.+ng the paragraph, he crushed the newspaper up in his hand, and, thrusting it into his pocket, hastened to the stable, where he saddled his horse. Leaping on its back as if he had been a youth of twenty, he drove the spur into its flanks and galloped away at full speed--away over the dusty road leading from Somerset to the hills: away over the ridge that separates it from the level country beyond; and away over the brown karroo, until at last, covered with dust and flecked with foam, he drew up at his own door and burst in upon the family. They were concluding their evening meal.
”Read that!” he cried, flinging down the paper, throwing himself into a chair, and bringing his fist down on the table with a crash that set cups and gla.s.ses dancing.
”There!” he added, pointing to the paragraph, as Hans took up the paper--”that despatch from Lord Glenelg--the British Colonial Secretary--at the top of the column. Read it aloud, boy.”
Hans read as follows:--
”`In the conduct which was pursued towards the Kafir nation by the colonists and the public authorities of the colony, through a long series of years, the Kafirs had ample justification of the late war; they had to resent, and endeavour justly, though impotently, to avenge a series of encroachments; they had a perfect right to hazard the experiment, however hopeless, of extorting by force that redress which they could not expect otherwise to obtain, and the claim of sovereignty over the new province must be renounced. It rests upon a conquest resulting from a war in which, as far as I am at present enabled to judge, the original justice is on the side of the conquered, not of the victorious party.'”
”Mark that!” cried Conrad, starting to his feet when Hans had finished, and speaking loud, as if he were addressing the a.s.sembled colony instead of the amazed members of his own family,--”mark that: `_the claim of sovereignty over the new province must be renounced_.' So it seems that the Kafirs are not only to be patted on the back for having acted the part of cattle-lifters for years, but are to be invited back to their old haunts to begin the work over again and necessitate another war.”
He stopped abruptly, as if to check words that ought not to be uttered.
There was a momentary silence in the group as they looked at each other.
It was broken by Conrad saying to his youngest son, in a voice of forced calmness--
”Go, lad, get me a fresh horse. I will rouse the Dutch-African farmers all over the colony. The land is too hot to hold us. We cannot hope to find rest under the Union Jack!”
We can sympathise strongly with the violent indignation of the honest Dutchman, for, in good truth, not only he and his kindred, but all the people of the colony, were most unjustly blamed and unfairly treated by the Government of that day. Nevertheless Conrad was wrong about the Union Jack. The wisest of plans are open to the insidious entrance of error. The fairest flag may be stained, by unworthy bearers, with occasional prost.i.tution. A Secretary of State is not the British nation, nor is he even, at all times, a true representative of British feeling. Many a deed of folly, and sometimes of darkness, has unhappily been perpetrated under the protection of the Union Jack, but that does not alter the great historical fact, that truth, justice, fair-play, and freedom have flourished longer and better under its ample folds than under any other flag that flies on the face of the whole earth.
But Conrad Marais was not in a position to consider this just then. The boy who is writhing under the lash of a temporarily insane father, is not in a position to reflect that, in the main, his father is, or means to be, just, kind, loving, and true. Conrad bolted a hasty supper, mounted the fresh steed, and galloped away to rouse his kindred. And he proved nearly as good as his word. He roused many of them to join him in his intended expatriation, and many more did not need rousing. Some had brooded over their wrongs until they began to smoulder, and when they were told that the _unprovoked_ raid of the Kafir thieves was deemed justifiable by the Government which _ought_ to have protected their frontier, but had left them to _protect themselves_, the fire burst into a flame, and the great exodus began in earnest. Thus, a second time, did Conrad and his family, with many others, take to the wilderness. On this occasion the party included Hans and Charlie Considine, with their families.
There was still wanting, however, that last straw which renders a burden intolerable. It was laid on at the time when slavery was abolished.
The Abolition Act was carried into effect on the 1st December 1834, at which time the accursed system of slavery was virtually brought to an end in the colony, though the slaves were not finally freed from all control till 1838. But the glory of this n.o.ble work was sullied not a little by the unjust manner in which, during these four years, the details relative to the payment of compensation to slave-owners were carried out. We cannot afford s.p.a.ce here to go into these details.
Suffice it to say that, as one of the consequences, many families in the colony were ruined, and a powerful impulse was given to the exodus, which had already begun. The leading Dutch-African families in Oliphant's Hock, Gamtoos River, along the Fish River, and Somerset, sold their farms--in many cases at heavy loss, or for merely nominal sums-- crossed the border, and bade a final adieu to the land of their fathers.