344 EXPEDITION INTO [Chap. XXXIX. 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 



SKETCH OF THE EMIGRATION OF THE BORDER 

 COLONISTS. 



The abandonment of the Cape Colony by the old 

 Dutch inhabitants, to which I have so frequently had 

 occasion to allude, and which has in fact become 

 completely interwoven with the thread of my narra- 

 tive, has no parallel in the history of British colonial 

 possessions. Partial emigrations are by no means 

 uncommon, as the existence of the colony itself 

 sufficiently proves, but here is an instance of a body 

 of between five and six thousand souls, who have 

 with one accord abandoned the land of their nativity, 

 and the homes of their forefathers — endeared to 

 them by every interesting association — and have 

 recklessly plunged into the pathless wilds of the 

 interior ; braving the perils and hardships of the 

 wilderness, and, many of them already in the vale 

 of years, seeking out for themselves another dwell- 

 ing-place in a strange and inhospitable soil. 



The first question that presents itself must na- 

 turally be, what has led to so extraordinary an 

 expatriation ? The losses to which they have been 

 subjected by the emancipation of their slaves ; the 

 absence of laws for their protection from the evils of 

 imcontrolled vagrancy, and from the depredations 



