Another Adverse Influence With Which The Mission Had To Contend
Was The Vicinity Of The Boers Of The Cashan Mountains,
Otherwise Named "Magaliesberg".
These are not to be counfounded
with the Cape colonists, who sometimes pass by the name.
The word Boer simply
Means "farmer", and is not synonymous with our word boor.
Indeed, to the Boers generally the latter term would be quite inappropriate,
for they are a sober, industrious, and most hospitable body of peasantry.
Those, however, who have fled from English law on various pretexts,
and have been joined by English deserters and every other variety
of bad character in their distant localities, are unfortunately
of a very different stamp. The great objection many of the Boers had,
and still have, to English law, is that it makes no distinction
between black men and white. They felt aggrieved by their supposed losses
in the emancipation of their Hottentot slaves, and determined
to erect themselves into a republic, in which they might pursue,
without molestation, the "proper treatment of the blacks".
It is almost needless to add that the "proper treatment"
has always contained in it the essential element of slavery,
namely, compulsory unpaid labor.
One section of this body, under the late Mr. Hendrick Potgeiter,
penetrated the interior as far as the Cashan Mountains,
whence a Zulu or Caffre chief, named Mosilikatze, had been expelled
by the well-known Caffre Dingaan; and a glad welcome was given them
by the Bechuana tribes, who had just escaped the hard sway of that
cruel chieftain.
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