406 KLOOF AND KARROO. 



state of their marriage law at the end of the last 

 century. At that time the settlers, even of the 

 remotest parts of the Colony, were compelled to 

 present themselves at Cape Town, in order to be 

 examined whether there were any hindrance of 

 relationship, blood-kindred, or the like, and to pass 

 certain other forms. Whether considered from the 

 point of view of decency, of expense, or of 

 convenience, no more monstrous or barbarous law 

 could have been devised. Two young settlers of 

 the frontier districts, such as Graaff Reinet, wishing 

 to be united in matrimony, had then to undertake 

 together a waggon journey of five or six hundred 

 miles, occupying a space of two or three months, 

 over parched and devious deserts, and encompassed 

 by dangers from wild men and wild animals. And 

 this notwithstanding that pastors and landdrosts 

 (magistrates), who might readily have performed 

 the office of marriage, were to be found within 

 their own provinces. 



For further observations upon this oppressive 

 and degrading law, and its frequent consequences 

 for the woman, the reader may be referred to p. 152 

 of Barrow's " Travels into the Interior of Africa," 

 published in 1801. It is hardly necessary to 

 mention that this enactment was speedily repealed 

 by the British upon their entry into the Cape. But 

 this was only one out of a multitude of antiquated 

 and absurd restrictions that still obtained in the 

 Dutch South African possessions at the close of the 

 Batavian rule. Thus, in 1780, at the very moment 

 that a British fleet menaced the Cape, the following 

 grant of citizenship was made to one Gous, a tailor, 

 who had formerly been a soldier : " He is graciously 



