522 FACTORS IN NATIVE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT. 



No matter where one looks, the essential feature is ever the 

 wheel. Sledges might have had, and did have, amongst the 

 early settlers, as they do have amongst the Natives to-day, a 

 limited use. Heavy loads could not be transported long distances 

 hy sledge without great wear and tear upon the oxen, and in any 

 case the relatively small load was a great disadvantage. When 

 the pioneers took to building wagons, then the explorations and 

 the expansions became {possible, and small communities could 

 settle at some distance from the sea, for supplies could be trans- 

 ported to them. Then also it became worth while for the burgher 

 to plough and plant on a large scale, for he could transport his 

 supplies to market, and reap the benefit of his toil, and so land 

 near hand was in demand, and men had to search for farms 

 further afield. With increasing distances from seaports, the 

 farmer could not spare the time, or the strength of the oxen, 

 upon a lengthy pilgrimage in search of supplies, and so shops 

 were opened by men who were prepared to do nothing else than 

 secure supplies to meet the needs of the farming community. 

 The first development of the kind was not the shop in the modern 

 sense, but a travelling wagon or wagons journeying through the 

 countryside, and then later the dejDOt. 



"If the mountain will not come to Mohammed, then Moham- 

 med will go to the mountain," and wherever the lumbering 

 wagons went drifts were put into repair and the roads made up 

 as necessity arose. A case in point is found at the time when 

 the native trade was opening out and developing by leaps and 

 bounds from Grahamstown in the year 1831. Some traders had 

 gone as far north as lat. 26° or 27° ; and on the East Coast, some 

 had got as far as Port Natal, by the coast route. Previously a 

 wide detour had been necessary, so as to avoid the precipitous 

 banks of the Umzimvubu, but one trading party had called rha 

 natives to their assistance, and constructed a suitable road, so 

 considerably shortening the communications between Natal ynd 

 the Cape. 



Then, again, there is the great event in South African history 

 which has so profoundly influenced the whole race relationships 

 of the sub-continent, on the one hand ; and made so immense a 

 contribution to the opening up and settlement of the country and 

 tl.te development of its vast resources of agriculture and industry, 

 on the other hand. The Great Trek, which began in 1833, and 

 lead to the establishment and development of the Free State, the 

 Transvaal, and Natal, and, nnich later, Rhodesia, was only 

 possible because of the wagon and the ox. And once more we 

 think of that remarkable period of our history preceding the 

 development of the railways, the age of the transport driver.* and 

 remember almost with reverence what the wagon hath wrought — 

 all the conflicting elements of advantage, and disadvantage, and 

 danger, the various provocations to strife, the armies supplied 

 in the field, and so enabled to conduct long campaigns and secure 

 decisive victories, or perhaps that most sacred use of all when, 



* The history of which has yet to be written as a great chapter in 

 the economic development of the sub-continent. 



