?86 EXPEDITION INTO 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 



SKETCH OF THE EMIGRATION OF THE BORDER COLO- 

 NISTS. 



The abandonment of the Cape Colony by the old Dutch 

 inhabitants, to which I have so fi'equently had occasion to 

 allude, and which has in fact become completely interwoven 

 with the thread of my narrative, has no parallel in the his- 

 tory 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 be- 

 tweeujive 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* associa- 

 tion — and have recklessly plung-ed into the pathless wilds of 

 the interior ; braving- the perils and hardships of the wilder- 

 ness, and many of them already in the vale of years, seeking* 

 out for themselves another dwelling'-place in a strange and 

 inhospitable soil. 



The first question that presents itself must naturally be, 

 what has led to so extraordinary an expatriation ? The losses 

 to which they have been subjected by the emancipation of 

 their slaves j the absence of laws for their protection from 

 the evils of uncontrolled vag-ranc}^, and from the depradations 

 of the swarm ol' vagabonds by which the colony is infested ', 

 but, above all, the insecure state of the eastern frontier, and 

 the inadequate protection afforded by the English Govern- 

 ment against the aggressions of their ^^■ily and restless Kafir 

 neighbours, by whose repeated predatory hicursions the fair- 



