l8o HISTORICAL RESEARCH IN SOUTH AFRICA. 



and Magisterial correspondence, various instructions and com- 

 missions, are all documents of use. After 1806 there are Letters 

 Patent, Commissions, Royal Warrants and Instructions, 

 Treaties with Natives, Conventions, and maps and charts. All 

 these are an aid to the investigator. As a subsidiary aid, there 

 are Blue Books, Imperial Books on South xA.frican affairs, and 

 the Cape Parliamentary Blue Books, some of which are invalu- 

 able. The writings and impressions of travellers and sojourners 

 at the Cape will give us an idea of the observer's point of view, 

 while innumerable pamphlets on all subjects and phases of life 

 that are of any historical interest to any section of South 

 Africans will be found in abundance in that magnificent collec- 

 tion of South African books in the Public Library at Cape 

 Town. These must be compared with the official records as far 

 as possible in order to verify their accuracy. Happily for the 

 present generation, nearly half a century ago, the Colonial 

 Government saw the value of the very early records, and took 

 steps to preserve them for the people and for those who have 

 to make researches. Until 181 1 they had found a home in the 

 Castle of Good Hope, when they were removed to the Public 

 Offices, then being opened in the old Slave Lodge, which had 

 been partly converted into offices. With one or two more re- 

 movals, they were rescued from one of the Judge's Chambers 

 in the Supreme Court Buildings (formerly the old Slave Lodge). 

 From time to time important additions from the other Govern- 

 ment records have been made. The preservation of a country's 

 records is of the utmost importance, and this should be the first 

 step towards obtaining material from which the historical student 

 is to construct a just and unbiassed account of his country. 



But there is yet another source of material which should 

 not escape our attention. I refer to the papers to be found in 

 private hands. In South Africa there are no muniment rooms 

 in old family residences, such as are to be found in England. 

 There are no well-known private collections of papers of a 

 purely personal type. Yet there are families and individuals 

 who possess some old diary, cash ledger, or collection of letters, 

 or maybe some similar class of record which would. prove in- 

 valuable to the enquirer in finding out something of the inner 

 life of the people. Amongst the records of the Orphan Chamber, 

 in the Cape Archives, are to be found most interesting and price- 

 less papers which once belonged to private persons. Here is a 

 bundle of receipts for money expended on clothes, food, luxuries 

 and daily necessities ; there is a ledger kept by a merchant in- 

 forming us what his stock was and recording his daily sales. 

 Here is a letter written by this merchant ordering his wares 

 from Holland or the East Indies, and there is a Day Book kept 

 by a farmer showing in detail his income and expenditure. A 

 diary of a voyage to the Cape in 1798 tells us of life on an East 

 Indiaman, and bills sent in by the doctor, the undertaker, and 

 the dealer who supplied the provender for the burial feast, give 



