A CAPE CART JOURNEY. 17 



and insect new and strange to us, though this ancient 

 land had produced their counterparts ages upon ages 

 back. 



All this ground that we were traversing is 

 classical. Barrow — that most accurate and trust- 

 worthy of the old Cape travellers — passed through in 

 1796 ; others have preceded and followed him, and 

 yet, though long years have intervened since Barrow's 

 day, the country is in most respects unchanged. 

 It is true that the Eastern province since that time 

 has been often devastated by Kaffir wars, and has 

 witnessed a large influx of British colonisation 

 — I mean that wonderfully successful State-aided 

 Emigration Scheme of 1820. The Algoa Bay settlers 

 have in these sixty odd years spread themselves over 

 the country, and carved out for themselves fair homes 

 and farms and good fortunes ; and the fierce Kaffirs 

 have been finally rolled back into their own peculiar 

 territory beyond the Kei. Port Elizabeth, Grahams- 

 town, and other towns have risen and prospered ; 

 but the land is so vast and still so sparsely populated 

 that you may yet travel, often for a whole day — aye, 

 even for days — without meeting a human being. 

 There are in the Cape Colony thousands upon 

 thousands of acres of rich land lying untouched that 

 might, with irrigation and cultivation, support a good 

 portion of that overcrowded population of which we 

 hear so much in England at the present day. In 

 particular, I would instance certain localities upon 

 the Sunday River in the Eastern, and upon the 

 Oliphant, Fish, and Zak Rivers in the Western 

 province, which are naturally irrigated, and produce 

 in this favoured climate astounding results in the way 

 of corn growing — crops returning a hundred-fold and 



