Africa now unpeopled
solely on account of the want of surface water. We may be allowed
to speculate a little at least on the fact of much greater vegetation,
which, from whatever source it comes, presents for South Africa
prospects of future greatness which we can not hope for
in Central Australia. As the interior districts of the Cape Colony
are daily becoming of higher value, offering to honest industry
a fair remuneration for capital, and having a climate unequaled
in salubrity for consumptive patients, I should unhesitatingly
recommend any farmer at all afraid of that complaint in his family
to try this colony. With the means of education already possessed,
and the onward and upward movement of the Cape population,
he need entertain no apprehensions of his family sinking into barbarism.
The route we at this time followed ran along the middle,
or skirted the western zone before alluded to, until we reached
the latitude of Lake Ngami, where a totally different country begins.
While in the colony, we passed through districts inhabited by
the descendants of Dutch and French refugees who had fled
from religious persecution. Those living near the capital differ but little
from the middle classes in English counties, and are distinguished
by public spirit and general intelligence; while those situated
far from the centres of civilization are less informed,
but are a body of frugal, industrious, and hospitable peasantry.
A most efficient system of public instruction was established
in the time of Governor Sir George Napier, on a plan drawn up
in a great measure by that accomplished philosopher, Sir John Herschel.
The system had to contend with less sectarian rancor than elsewhere;
indeed, until quite recently, that spirit, except in a mild form, was unknown.
The population here described ought not to be confounded with some Boers
who fled from British rule on account of the emancipation of
their Hottentot slaves, and perhaps never would have been so
had not every now and then some Rip Van Winkle started forth at the Cape
to justify in the public prints the deeds of blood and slave-hunting
in the far interior. It is therefore not to be wondered at if the whole race
is confounded and held in low estimation by those who do not know
the real composition of the Cape community.
Population among the Boers increases rapidly; they marry soon,
are seldom sterile, and continue to have children late.
I once met a worthy matron whose husband thought it right to imitate
the conduct of Abraham while Sarah was barren; she evidently agreed
in the propriety of the measure, for she was pleased to hear the children
by a mother of what has been thought an inferior race address her
as their mother.
