396 Hkpoht S.A.A. Advancement of Science. 



Holland, " where everything was taxed except the aii*," as one sai<], 

 were counterbalanceil at the Cape by the t'aet that everything was 

 ■obliged to he bought from the Company, which did not lose the 

 opportunity of making a considerable profit on the transaction. 80 

 the taxes were paid in another form ; and for the rest, the freeburghers 

 iind free fai-mers were at liberty to manage their affairs, as long as 

 these did not clash with the interests of the Company. 



The Commanders and Governors at the Cape were very careful in 

 regard to the releasing of servants. < )nly those of good behaviour, 

 who had served at outposts, and knew the difficulties of agriculture 

 here, were set free, and as a guarantee for good conduct they had to 

 leave six months' salary in the hands of the Company for two years. 

 This I'egulation was instituted as a check to the men who applied for 

 release, only witli the intention of spending the salary due to them and 

 then to return to service. Still many professed love for agriculture 

 with no other aim than to live on the frontier, where barter and 

 smuggling with the Hottentots were easy. 



Married men were preferred to single servants, as it was likely 

 that they would stay longei' and do their utmost for their families. 

 The lazy, debauched and criminal freeburghers were severely punished 

 and banished ; the principle of the survival of the fittest is to be seen 

 at work in the white population at the Cape. 



The Company took a keen interest in the welfare of the free- 

 burgliers, and in order to exhibit its patriarchal care, it ordered wliat 

 was to be done or to be left undone. Instructions wei-e given not to 

 .start wine-pressing before permission hati been given by commissioners, 

 who decided whether the grapes were ripe enough. Two processes of 

 wine-making wei-e prescribed after 1685: first, treading the grapes, 

 afterwards pressing them ; the two sorts of wine were to be kept sepa- 

 rate. Corn was to be threshed by the trampling of oxen instead of by 

 fiails ; the plan of building farms as we still find them in the Stellen- 

 bosch and Paarl districts, a large farm-yjird in front of the liouse, 

 enclosed by strong white walls, was a suggestion of one of the high 

 connnissioners, H. A. van Hheede, in 1685. 



Weights and measures were under control ; the colonist^ were not 

 allowed to keep Hottentot sheep along with their fiocks, in order to 

 prevent them from bartering with the Hottentots; sheep with clipped 

 ears were forbidden ; the fiock of the Company was marked with the 

 Company's initials on the ears ; so it was made impossible for the 

 burgliers to keep sheep stolen from the Compan3^ Horses under three 

 years of age might not be used. The prices at which bread, meat and 

 wine, ifec, were to be sold were fixed. The baking of cake was for- 

 bidden in time of scarcity of corn. The clean water from the mountain, 

 so valuable to the ships, )night not be soiled l)y wasliing clothes, the 

 bathing of slaves oi- otherwise. Ill-treatment of slaves was strictly 

 forbidden ; so was barter or trade with Hottentots, which might spoil 

 the profits of the Company. For the same i-eason tiie cultivation of 

 tobacco, used as payment with the natives instead of mojiey, was 

 afterwards forbidden too. 



