176 Recollections of Adventures 



Natal and Transvaal and the Boer Civil War of 

 1864. The consequent issue of paper money, the 

 ruin of commercial houses, the total absence of 

 credit, the stoppage of all progress or development, 

 the hopeless state of insolvency in the Transvaal 

 and the discontent of the burghers with their own 

 Republican administration was the cause of the 

 annexation of the Transvaal by Sir T. Shepstone in 

 1877. Since these wars, free institutions have been 

 granted to the whole of South Africa, including the 

 conquered Republics. 



The Union of South Africa has been established 

 and a Dutch Afrikander Ministry rules the land. 

 It now remains to be seen whether the Government 

 will prove capable of welding the several national- 

 ities and communities into a real and not a sham 

 Union, or whether the back-veld Boer will be 

 exploited by unscrupulous or fanatical agitators, to 

 obstruct the Government, and block all progress of 

 useful development. 



In 1875 a second large party of Boers trekked 

 to Damaraland, the first lot having gone in 1874. 

 They were mostly Doppers and left the Transvaal 

 because they did not trust their own Government, 

 and objected to the laws passed, and to the state of 

 general unrest and poverty due to mis-government. 



These Trek-Boers (after terrible privations), 

 eventually settled in the Province of Angola at 

 Mossamedes. The curious feature of this exodus was 

 that they left the Transvaal Republic ostensibly on 

 account af the Church not being orthodox (that is 

 Calvinistic), and the selection of Thomas Burgers, a 

 Dutch -Reformed minister of Hanover, Cape Colony, 

 as President (Mr. Burgers had started a controversy 

 on certain passages in the Bible) ; yet they placed 



