Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 64, No.394, August, 1848

Excepting that they all more or less refer to the British possessions at the Cape of Good Hope, it were difficult to find three books more distinct from each other in character than those whose titles we have assembled at the foot of last page. An ex-settler, an accomplished lady, and a shrewd sailor, have selected the same moment for the publication of their African experiences. As in gallantry bound, we give the precedence to the lady. Mrs Harriet Ward, wife of a captain of the 91st regiment of foot, is a keen-witted, high-spirited person; and, like most of her sex when they espouse a cause, a warm partisan of the feelings and opinions of those she loves and admires. She is an uncompromising assailant of the system pursued at the Cape, especially as regards our treaties with the Kaffirs, whom she very justly denounces as perfidious, bloody, and unclean savages, untameable, she fully believes, and with whom Whig officials and negotiators have been ridiculously lenient and confiding. Although some of her views are rather sweeping and severe, she is certainly right in the main. And we honour her for her heartiness in denouncing the nauseous humbug of the pseudo-philanthropists, whose manœuvres have had a most prejudicial effect upon our South African possessions, and have given to persons in this country notions completely erroneous concerning the rights and wrongs of the Kaffir question. But whilst blaming the administration of the colony, she finds the country itself fair and excellent and of great resource. Herein she differs from her contemporary, Mr George Nicholson, junior. This gentleman, lately a settler at the Cape, cannot be too highly lauded for the volume with which he has favoured the public. We are not quite sure, however, that the public will think as highly of it as we do. Our admiration is founded on the consistency of its tone; upon the steady, well-sustained grumble kept up throughout. The preface at once prepossessed us in favour of what was to follow. Intended, doubtless, as a dram of bitters to assist in the digestion of the subsequent sour repast, it consists of general depreciation of other works regarding the Cape, and especially of one by "a Mr Chase" – of sneers at "stay-at-home wiseacres" and hollow theorists – and of a vague accusation brought against certain colonial residents of "fomenting the warlike propensities of the neighbouring barbarians, to secure their own ends," grievously to the detriment and prejudice of their fellow-colonists. "The peculiar bent," says Mr Nicholson, "of each author's mind has, in general, been so far allowed to predominate as to exclude the hope of forming a correct estimate of the capabilities of the soil, climate, and other interesting features of this extensive country, by a perusal of their works." Could the author of "The Cape and its Colonists" read his book with somebody else's eyes, he would discover that his own "peculiar bent has been allowed to predominate," and that the consequences have been of the most gloomy description. Mr Nicholson is evidently a disappointed, man. Either by his fault or misfortune, by the force of circumstances or his own bad management, his attempt to establish himself thrivingly at the Cape resulted unsatisfactorily; and this sufficiently accounts for the general tint of blue so conspicuous in his retrospective sketch of the scene of his mishaps. The particular spot where these occurred was a considerable tract of land (called a farm) in the district of Graaf Reinet, to arrive at which he steamed from Cape Town, where he had landed from England, to Port Elizabeth in Algoa Bay. The dismal aspect of this bay painfully affected him. He "had read some of the glowing descriptions given of this part of the country, by persons whose interest it is to entice over settlers by any means, even the most dishonest, in order to have the benefit of plucking them afterwards. It is true that I had not believed the El Dorado stories so current of this and other colonies, but my expectations had been raised sufficiently high to make the disappointment at the really desolate appearance of the place, perfect." The apparent desolation is accompanied by substantial disadvantages, which Mr Nicholson complacently enumerates. Water is scarce and brackish; there are no vegetables or fruit within twenty miles; hardly forage for a team of oxen; the town is built on sand, of which unceasing clouds are hurled by prevalent strong winds in the face of all comers. No wonder that the new settler, evidently indisposed to be easily pleased, made his escape as quickly as possible from so dreary a neighbourhood. Shipping himself, family, and chattels in an ox-waggon, he joyfully quitted Port Elizabeth on a splendid morning of the African autumn – that is to say, about the end of March or beginning of April, and set out for his property, over a road which he describes as a fair sample of Cape causeways, "nothing more than a series of parallel tracks made by the passage of waggons, from time to time, through the sand and jungle." Finding little to notice on his way, he takes the opportunity of having a fling at the missionaries, whom he describes as doing much harm, although actuated, as he is willing to believe, by the best of intentions. The stations serve as the headquarters of the idlest and most vagabond portion of the coloured population, who have only to affect a Christian disposition to find ready acceptance and refuge. "No sooner is a Hottentot, or other coloured servant, discontented or hopelessly lazy, than off he flies to the nearest station, where he can indulge in the greatest luxury he knows of – that of sleeping either in the sun or shade as his inclination may lead him, with the occasional variation of participating in the singing and praying exercises of the regular inhabitants of the place." If the zealous propagators of Christianity, who thus encourage the natural idleness of the natives, were successful in their attempts at conversion, it might be accepted as some compensation for the temporal evils and inconvenience they aid to inflict on a colony where servants are scarce and bad. But this is far from being the case. Mr Nicholson assures us (and we readily believe him) that it is very rare to find an individual whose moral conduct has been improved by a residence at a missionary station, and that for his part he prefers the downright heathen to the imperfect convert. Few of these coloured Christians have any distinct idea of the creed they profess; when able, which is seldom, to answer questions concerning its first principles, their replies are parrot-like and unintelligent. Against the general character of the missionaries nothing can be said; but they are throwing away time, and their employers are wasting money which might be employed to far greater advantage in England, or in other countries whose inhabitants, equally in want of religious instruction, are more capable of receiving and comprehending it than are the stolid aborigines of the Cape of Good Hope. Mr Nicholson does not dwell upon the subject of missionary labours in Africa, but compresses at the close of a chapter his opinions, which are sound and to the purpose. Mrs Ward says nothing on the matter, and we ourselves are not disposed to dilate upon it, having already often taken occasion to expose the folly of the system that sends preachers and biblemongers to the remotest corners of the earth when such scope for their labours exists at home. Let us return to George Nicholson, his trials and tribulations.

These were manifold; and he makes the most of them. No encouraging signs or omens cheered his progress through the land, bidding his heart beat high with hope. At two days' journey from Port Elizabeth he halted for the night at a farm belonging to an Englishman of independent property, who received him hospitably, but assured him that sheep-breeding was a hopeless speculation, owing to the bad pasturage, to the bushy tangled nature of the country, and to the hyenas, there called wolves, who are most destructive. As he proceeded, pasturage improved, but other plagues were apparent. In some places water was as scarce as in an Arabian desert, and as much prized – collected in pits and husbanded with the utmost care. "The maps of the colony indicate rivers of the most encouraging description in this part of the country. But the district itself presents only a series of dry water-courses, leaving evident traces of their capability of containing water for some hours after storms." These sandy and deceitful gullies intersect "a frightful country, which can only be described as a succession of low undulations, covered with large shingles, between which the most debauched-looking stunted tufts of the poisonous and prickly euphorbia, with here and there a magnificent scarlet-headed aloe, forced their way." We are at a loss to know what the ex-colonist here means by the epithet "debauched-looking," unless he intends some obscure allusion to the thirsty and disreputable aspect of the brambles, remote as they were from the vicinity of any water except one spring of "Harrowgate, which, to judge from the nasty effluvium it produced, must have been possessed of rare healing qualities." The severe droughts are the destruction of the settlers, entailing terrible losses and often total ruin, and their pernicious effects are aggravated by flights of locusts. These the farmers do what they can to keep off by smoky fires and other means, sometimes with success; but even when the insect cloud pass over a field without ravaging it, they leave a memento of their transit in the shape of innumerable eggs. In due time the young generation come forth, and being wingless cannot be driven away, but hop about and ravage every thing till their wings grow, and a gale of wind takes them off to fresh pasturage. Mrs Ward's description of a flight of locusts is remarkably striking, and given with a vigour of phrase not often found in the productions of a female pen.

"The first two years of our sojourn here, the locusts devastated the land. The prophet Joel describes this dreadful visitation as 'like the noise of chariots on the tops of mountains,' 'like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the stubble,' as 'a strong people set in battle array;' and any one who has ridden through a cloud of locusts must admit the description to be as true as it is sublime. On one occasion, at Fort Peddie, the cloud, flickering between us and the missionary station, half a mile distant, dazzled our eyes, and veiled the buildings from our sight; at last it rose, presenting its effects in some acres of barren stubble, which the sun had lit up in all the beauty of bright green a few hours before. Verily, the heavens seemed to tremble, and the sky was darkened by this 'great army,' which passed on, 'every one on his way,' neither 'breaking their ranks nor thrusting one another.' So they swept on, occupying a certain space between the heavens and the earth, and neither swerving from the path, extending the mighty phalanx, nor pausing in the course: the noise of their wings realising the idea of a 'flaming blast,' and their whole appearance typifying God's terrible threat of a 'besom of destruction.'

"'They shall walk every one in his path!' Nothing turns them from it. And if the traveller endeavours to force his way through them with unwonted rapidity, he is sure to suffer. I have ridden for miles at a sharp gallop through their legions, endeavouring to beat them of with my whip, but all to no purpose! Nothing turns them aside, and the poor horses bend down their heads as against an advancing storm, and make their way as best they can, snorting and writhing under the infliction of sharp blows on the face and eyes, which their riders endeavour to evade with as little success. You draw a long breath after escaping from a charge of locusts; and looking around you, you exclaim with the prophet, 'The land is as the Garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them!'"9

Mr Nicholson's location included a tolerable house with mud floors and reed ceilings, and thirty-five thousand acres of mountain and plain, having the reputation of one of the best farms in the district. The cost of this was about £2000; and the property was calculated to maintain five or six thousand sheep, four hundred oxen, besides horses. There were four small springs, allowing the cultivation of about sixteen acres of good soil. Mr Nicholson, not wishing to overburden the land, bought only three thousand sheep, with cattle in proportion, and began the life (described by him as most discouraging and unprofitable) of a Cape of Good Hope sheep-farmer. Melancholy indeed is the account he gives of the profits and losses of that occupation. In the first place, high wages and good keep are scarcely sufficient inducement to the lazy Hottentots to take service; and when they are prevailed upon, they are scarce worth having. They are sent to the hills with the flocks, which they have to protect from beasts of prey, always on the look-out for a bit of straggling mutton. They themselves, however, are conspicuous for their rapacity, and by no means remarkable for honesty; and doubtless many a stray sheep is debited to the hyenas, of whose disappearance the Hottentots could give a very good account. The wild animals, however – panthers, jackals, hyenas, and, in some districts, lions – are amongst the settler's worst foes. These prowling carnivora preclude the possibility of leaving sheep out of doors after dark; and, even when penned, the fleecy family can hardly be considered safe. "In stormy weather," saith Nicholson, "my walled pens, although well bushed at top, and above six feet high, did not sufficiently protect me from great losses by the hyenas, which, on such occasions, would often jump over and kill sheep, and often carry one off in their mouths." This latter feat is rather astounding; but no matter, let us pass on to the next grievances of the unfortunate settler and sheep-farmer, grievances not peculiar to himself, but shared by all whose evil star guides them to the land of locusts and hyena. The diseases of sheep are numerous and fatal – scab, consumptive wasting, inflammation of the lungs, violent inflammatory epidemics, poisonous bushes and hailstones, drought and thunderbolts. "I recollect one of my neighbours losing upwards of three hundred valuable sheep in a few minutes from the effects of a hailstorm. Another farmer, living at no great distance from me, lost fifteen hundred sheep in one season from drought; and on my own farm, shortly before I became possessed of it, four hundred sheep were destroyed by lightning in a moment." Doubtless such mishaps as these do occur, but there is something particularly painful in Mr Nicholson's lugubrious style of piling them up, without intermixture of the smallest crumb of comfort for any unhappy individuals planning emigration to the Cape. Did he but vaunt the tender haunches and juicy saddles, the fine and profitable wool yielded by the remnant of these afflicted flocks! But touching the mutton he is mute; and as regards the produce of the fleeces, he pledges himself that, under the most favourable circumstances, they never yield more than four per cent on the value of the flock – a small enough remuneration, as it appears to us, unlearned, we confess, in ways of woollen. But we have not yet got to the worst of the story. Supposing a farmer fortunate, and that his flocks escape the multifarious evils above enumerated – that they are spared by the lightning's blast, the big hailstones, the inflammatory epidemic, and all the rest of it. Not upon that account may he rub his hands in jubilation, and reckon upon a good clip and high prices. He gets up one morning and finds his sheep converted into goats, or something little better. "Woolled sheep have a natural tendency to deterioration in this climate; and in a few generations, notwithstanding the greatest care, the wool begins to show a tendency to assimilate itself to the hairy nature of the coat, which, is the natural covering of the indigenous animal." So that, upon the whole, Mr Nicholson inclines to prefer goats to sheep, as stock, if properly attended to, and the utmost possible numbers kept. The profit is made out of the skin, fat, and flesh, and "those carcasses not required for food, might be boiled down for tallow." He perhaps overlooks, in this calculation, "the scarcity and bad quality of the fuel, composed of the dung dug out of the sheep pens, and stacked for the purpose." The present system, however, evidently does not answer, judging from his statement that there is not "one sheep-farmer in the Eastern Province (depending on the profits of his farm) who is either contented with the results of his farming, or is not grievously indebted to his storekeeper, except among the old-established and primitive Dutch families, who spend no money in manufactures, and have but little to spend, had they the habit." Is it unfair to argue, from this paragraph, the absence, on the part of the English colonists, of that frugal simplicity of living essential in a new country? A man settling in a country like the Cape, should be prepared to resign not only luxuries, but many things which in Europe are deemed positive necessaries of life, but which, in the forest and prairie, may well be dispensed with. We infer, from certain passages in Mr Nicholson's book, that he and his fellow-colonists were rather above their position, too addicted to the comforts of England to submit to the privations of Africa, and that they augmented their expenses by procuring alleviations which their primitive Dutch neighbours cheerfully dispensed with. The Dutchmen, Mr Nicholson tells us, spend no money in manufactures. Then the English settlers' wives were evidently quite out of their element in the bush, or as occupants of houses mud-floored and roofed with reeds. "I have never," says Mr Nicholson, "seen an English woman in the colony, at all raised above the very poorest, who did not complain bitterly of the inconvenience she endured when living on a farm; and I really know nothing more affecting than the sight of the often elegant-minded and well-educated sheep-farmer's wife struggling with the drudgery of her situation, and repining fruitlessly at the deceptive accounts which had induced her husband to seek his fortune in South Africa." Here we, perhaps, have a clue to one cause of the jaundiced view the ex-settler takes of things at the Cape. The impossibility of obtaining the requisite domestic servants drove Mrs Nicholson from the sheep-farm in Graaf Reinet to the more agreeable residence of Cape Town, at a distance of eight hundred miles; and thenceforward her husband divided his time, as best he could, between domestic and farming duties. This seems an uncomfortable state of things. The want of the master's eye must have been sadly felt at the farm during his visits to Cape Town, and he must have lost much time and some patience in weary eight-hundred-mile journeys, performed, for the most part, on horseback.

The Kaffir war is, of course, a prominent subject in the three books before us. We find least of it in that of Lieutenant Barnard, whose narrative is chiefly of things at sea, and most in Mrs Ward's volumes, which consist principally of details of that unsatisfactory contest. Mrs Ward and Mr Nicholson concur in attributing to Whig mal-administration, and to the unwise treaties of Sir Andries Stockenstrom, the numerous disasters that of late years have afflicted the Cape, and the bloody and inglorious struggle that has cost this country upwards of three millions sterling. Here, again, is to be traced the hand and mischief-making tongue of the pseudo-philanthropists. By those tender-hearted gentry was the original impulse given to the series of changes which have done so much towards the ruin of a prosperous colony. First came a scream about the ill-treated Hottentots. These were certainly often ill-used by their Dutch masters, but that was surely no reason for emancipating them, by one summary ordinance, from every species of restraint. This, however, was the course adopted; and forthwith the Hottentot, by nature one of the most indolent of animals, spurned work, and took to idleness and dram-drinking. Since that fatal day, the race has degenerated and dwindled, and no doubt it will ultimately become extinct. Having thus, greatly to the detriment and inconvenience of the colonists, procured the Hottentots liberty, or rather license, the sympathisers extended their charitable exertions to Kaffirland. What pretext existed for this new crusade does not exactly appear, but its result was even more mischievous than their interference with the Hottentots. The Kaffirs were told of grievances they previously never had dreamed of, they were rendered unsettled and dissatisfied, (greedy and rapacious they already were,) and at last they poured into the colony, sweeping off the flocks and herds, murdering the peaceable settler, and setting the flaming brand to his roof-tree. This incursion, the ruin of thousands, at an end, the colonists set to work to repair damages, hoping for peace and a return of prosperity, when a new calamity came upon them. Mrs Ward shall describe it.

"Suddenly there was a voice, which went through all the countries of the known earth, crying aloud, 'Let the slave be free!' Societies sent forth their ragged regiments, with banners on which the negro was depicted as an interesting child of nature, chained and emaciated, whilst a ruffian beside him held the lash over his head. 'The people' really imagined that the sugar plantations were worked by lanky negroes, handcuffed one to another. Elderly ladies, who abused their neighbours over their bohea, rejoiced in the prospect of 'emancipation and cheap sugar,' and the people, the dear 'people,' expected to get it for nothing. The Dutch were quite ready to listen to the voice that cried 'shame' at the idea of seizing our fellow-creatures, packing them like herrings in slave-ships, and bartering them in the market. But how to set about the remedy should have been considered. The chain was broken, and the people of England hurraed to their hearts' content. Meanwhile, what became of the slave? If he was young and vicious, away he went – he was his own master. He was free – he had the world before him where to choose. Whether true or false, he was persuaded he had been ill used. So, whilst his portrait, with a broken chain, sleek limbs, eyes uplifted to heaven, and hands clasped in speechless gratitude, was carried about the streets of our manufacturing towns in England, (where there was more starvation in one street than among the whole of the South African slave population,) the original of the picture was squatted beside the Kaffir's fire, thinking his meal of parched corn but poor stuff after the palatable dishes he had been permitted to cook for himself in the boer's or tradesman's kitchen."10

And the frugal, hard-working Dutchmen, an excellent ingredient in the population of a young country, finding themselves deprived of their slaves, insufficiently compensated, and in fifty ways prejudiced and inconvenienced by the clumsy and injudicious manner in which the emancipation had been carried out, brooded over the injustice done them, and began to migrate across various branches of Orange river towards the north-east corner of the colony, and finally beyond its boundary, preferring constant warfare with the Kaffirs, entailed upon them by the change, to submission to the new and vexatious ordinances, and to the enactments of the Stockenstrom treaties. These were in the highest degree absurd, although their framer was rewarded by a pension and title, as if he had done the state some service, instead of having actually been the main cause of the last Kaffir war. A ridiculous report got abroad, credited largely by stay-at-home philanthropists, and heartily laughed at by all who had any real knowledge of the subject, that the Kaffirs were a mild, peaceable, and ill-used people – in Exeter-Hall phrase, "a pastoral and patriarchal race." "It was imagined," says Mr Nicholson, "that they possessed a strong sense of honour and probity, and only desired to be guaranteed from the tyranny of the colonists, (poor lambs!); and a determination was accordingly come to, to make treaties with the chiefs, the performance of which could only be secured by their honourable observance of what was detrimental to the interests of themselves and their people, as they understood it." Now the truth of the matter is, that a more vicious and treacherous race than the Kaffirs would be sought in vain upon the face of the inhabited earth. They unite every evil quality. "The stalwart Kaffir," says Mrs Ward, "with his powerful form and air of calm dignity, beneath which are concealed the deepest cunning and the meanest principles. Some call the Kaffir brave. He is a thief, a liar, and a beggar, ready only to fight in ambush; and although, to use the common expression, he 'dies game,' his calmness is the result of sullenness." Cunning is the most prominent characteristic of this pleasing savage. "It makes them," says Lieutenant Barnard, "fully aware of the humanity of the English character, which prevents us from killing an unarmed man; so, when they find themselves taken unawares, they throw their arms into the bush, pretend to be friendly Kaffirs, and, in all probability, fire on our troops when they get to a convenient distance." It also taught them, during the former war, that they had no chance against Europeans unless they could procure firearms; to have time to get these, they joyfully concluded a treaty, and would have done so on far less favourable terms, never intending to abide by them. But those made were not sufficiently stringent to keep even civilised borderers in check. Some were laughed at, others evaded, whilst a third class defeated their own object. Here is the twenty-fourth article, as a sample of the last-named sort: – "If any person being in pursuit of criminals or depredators, or property stolen by them, shall not overtake or recover the same before he shall reach the said line, (colonial boundary;) and provided he can make oath that he traced the said criminals, &c., across a particular spot on said line; that the property, when stolen, was properly guarded by an armed herdsman; that the pursuit was commenced immediately after such property was stolen; that, if the robbery was committed in the night, the property had been (when stolen) properly secured in kraals, (folds,) stables, or the like; and that the pursuit, in such case, was commenced (at latest) early next morning, such person shall be at liberty to proceed direct to the pakati, (Kaffir police!") and (we abridge the verbiage) to make his affidavit and continue his pursuit, "provided he do not go armed, or accompanied by armed British subjects." Was there ever any thing more absurd than the formalities here prescribed for the recovery of property from a set of cattle-lifters, in comparison with whom a Scottish borderer of the olden time was a man of truth and conscience, and a respecter of neighbours' rights? It explains, if it does not quite justify, the fierce personal attack made by Nicholson the sheep-farmer upon the negotiator of such foolish treaties, whom he designates pretty plainly, without positively naming him. Mrs Ward, too lady-like and well-bred to descend to personalities – save in the case of Kaffirs, whom at times she does most lustily vituperate – contents herself with blaming acts without attacking individuals. The wily Kaffirs, with whom theft is a virtue, were not slow to discover the facilities afforded them, and stole cattle to a greater extent than ever. Persuaded, moreover, that such regulations could be prompted only by the weakness of the framers, they looked forward with glee to overrunning the entire colony at their leisure. They only waited till they should have sufficient muskets and cartridges. These they easily obtained; there was no lack of unpatriotic white traders ready and willing to supply them. This done, the warwhoop was raised, and hostilities recommenced, – the Kaffirs confident of victory. There had been so much parleying and lawyers'-work with them, threats had so often been uttered and so seldom carried out, that the savages had formed an immense idea of their own consequence and power. Whilst the hollow peace lasted, their constant and imperious cry was "Bassila!" Give! – when the mask of friendship was thrown aside, they burst into the colony, desolating in their progress as a swarm of locusts; and if assailed by the scanty forces that could at first be brought against them, they plunged into the tangled bush, and, with levelled gun and assegai, shouted "Izapa!" Come on! From the evidence of Mrs Ward's own pages, we think she hardly does them justice in classing them with poltroons. They appear to have made good fight on many occasions. And if the white feather be so conspicuous an ornament in their savage head-dress, on what ground can she claim such great credit for the troops that overcame them, and talk of the war as one "not so noble in its details as those of the days of Napoleon, but far more glorious in its results." Here she evidently writes from the heat and impulse of the moment, as she does in some other parts of her book. To this we do not object, but rather prefer it to the cautious and circumspect manner in which most writers, especially male ones, would have extolled the deeds of the South African army, whose sole opportunities of distinction were in petty skirmishes with undisciplined and naked barbarians. Not that the Kaffirs could be considered as foes of the most contemptible class. With a monkey-like faculty of imitation, they caught up smatterings of European tactics. "Day by day," we quote Mr Barnard, "they get more expert in the use of fire-arms, and are observant of our least movements, that I have heard officers describe their throwing out skirmishers as quite equal to our own manœuvres." They also attempt stratagems, often with success. It is a common trick with them to ensnare small parties of the enemy by leaving a few cattle grazing at the edge of a thicket, in which they conceal themselves, and when their opponents approach, issue forth and assail them. In this manner were entrapped Captain Gibson and Dr Howell, of the Rifles, and the Honourable Mr Chetwynd, who, as new-comers to the colony, were not up to the hackneyed decoy. The Kaffirs, on the other hand, are too cunning to be often taken unawares, although we read of a few successful surprises in Mrs Ward's chronicle of the campaign. Colonel Somerset, the gallant commander of the Cape mounted Rifles, is the hero of one of these, upon which Mrs Ward dwells with peculiar complacency. A small division of troops had halted to bivouac, when an officer's horse ran away, and carried him over a hill, past a "clump of Kaffirs" six hundred strong. Reining in with great difficulty, he dashed back and made his report. What ensued is described in appropriate style by our martial and dashing authoress.