36 Recollections of Adventures 



many a pleasant evening have I spent at Nixon's on 

 the Bushman's River, (now Estcourt,) where there 

 were many intelligent English gentlemen farming 

 in the district; a cherry, fine lot of men. Old 

 Dodd's at Sandspruit, under the Berg, was another 

 kindly halting place. I first met Harry Escombe, 

 who afterwards became a prominent politician and a 

 most useful and respected citizen, in a little wayside 

 place near Wilge River which he and Herman 

 Solomons had together. 



There were then numbers of young Englishmen 

 farming all about Natal, but of late years they have 

 decreased instead of increasing in numbers. With 

 the increase of the native population, the invasion 

 of Asiatics, the want of unity between the two 

 white races, the expectations of the early, hopeful 

 days, of the Colony have not been fulfilled ; and 

 Natal bids fair to become a Native reserve, with all 

 the retail trade in the hands of the Indians, and 

 Durban a forwarding station for the interior 

 commerce. This should be an object lesson for the 

 rest of South Africa, and unless this insidious 

 invasion of Asiatics into the Transvaal is stopped, it 

 will soon be no country for the white man. 



