408 KLOOF AND KARROO. 



here, whether by farming or otherwise 



When we contemplate the number of children 

 growing up, we frequently ask ourselves, not only 

 how they could find other means of subsistence, 

 but also what it is to end in at last, and what they 

 can lay hands on to procure their bread." 



Such was the freezing polity, such were the 

 numbing fetters by which the Batavian authorities 

 sought to restrain the vigorous existence of the 

 infant Colony ! 



It may be gathered from the few facts I have 

 quoted that the Boers, although they have been 

 frequent and persistent grumblers against British 

 dominion and influence, had in reality little to thank 

 their own Government for ; and the very fact of their 

 insurrection indicates that they would not long have 

 peaceably endured such a state of affairs as existed 

 in 1795. Worried and harassed as they had been 

 by the petty and exasperating legislation of their 

 Governors, it is astonishing indeed that they had 

 tamely endured it so long. But the evils that men 

 (and Governments) do live after them. Some of the 

 earliest enactments of the old Dutch Legislature 

 will indicate the spirit in which they afterwards 

 governed, and the principles they instilled into the 

 early settlers principles that even now obtain far 

 too much amongst the Boers. Thus lands were 

 granted on yearly leases at the small fixed rent- 

 charge of twenty-four rix-dollars (thirty-six shillings 

 sterling) in any part of the country. It was also 

 enacted that the nearest distance from house to 

 house was to be three miles, so that each farm 

 consisted of nearly 6,000 acres. Concerning this 

 policy, Barrow, then secretary to Earl Macartney, 



