South Africa and the Transvaal War (Vol. 1-8). Louis Creswicke
liable to cause them equal indignation. According to Livingstone, the ignorant followers of Potgieter—who were posted at Magaliesberg, a thousand miles from the Cape—were moved to wrath merely by the arrival of Herschel's great telescope at the Cape Observatory! What right, said they, had the Government to erect that huge instrument at the Cape for the purpose of seeing what they were doing behind the Kashan mountains?
But of just grievances they had several, and these Pretorius, as spokesman of his people, wished to lay before the Governor at the Cape. Sir Henry Pottinger, who occupied that post in 1847, unfortunately declined the interview; consequently affairs went from bad to worse. In the end of the year Sir Henry Smith arrived as Governor of the colony, and great things were expected of him. He knew the native races, he knew the Boers, and they both knew him. Pretorius, who was arranging a final emigration from Natal, was summoned to confer with the new Governor. Sir Henry wished to gauge the feelings of the farmers prior to issuing a proclamation (dated February 3, 1848), declaring the Queen's sovereignty over the whole country between the Orange and Vaal Rivers to eastward of the Quathlamba Mountains. According to Pretorius, the conference was an unsatisfactory one. He assured the Governor that his people would never consent to it. Sir Henry Smith nevertheless considered himself justified in taking the step, and the Home Government, whose policy it had been to consolidate the peaceful native States along the border, eventually coincided with his view.
No sooner was the proclamation generally known than the horde of Pretorius' followers flew to arms. They swept southward, driving every British official beyond the Orange River. Major Warden, the Resident at Bloemfontein, where a British fort and garrison had been placed some two years before, was forced to capitulate.
Sir Harry Smith, on becoming acquainted with the news, at once offered a thousand pounds for the arrest of Pretorius. He also began a march to the front. The Governor thought that he had but to come, see, and conquer; but he was mistaken. He had tough work before him. The Boers, about a thousand strong, had entrenched themselves in a formidable position. They were superior in point of numbers, horses, and guns to Sir Harry's forces; but he pursued his way, nothing daunted. He stormed the position, and, after a hard fight, scattered the enemy. They fled from Boomplaats, where the engagement had taken place, and hastened back across the Vaal to their native haunts. The date of the battle was the 29th of August 1848, and the father of President Kruger is said to have been the first man to fire a shot at the British on that occasion!
After this period various dissensions arose in the Boer camp between Pretorius, who styled himself "Chief of the whole united emigrant force," and Potgieter, who looked upon himself somewhat in the light of a rival. While these worthies fell out Sir Harry Smith saw the annexation carried through, and the territory of the modern Free State was united to Cape Colony, under the title of the Orange River Sovereignty. The contumacious Boers took themselves off with their leader across the Vaal, and fresh European settlers came in and established themselves in the fertile plains that were deserted. For some time after this things prospered, and Sir Harry saw before him the prospect of a new self-governing Dutch colony, which would resemble and equal those of Natal and the Cape. But he reckoned without his host, and all that he had taken the trouble to do was ultimately undone. In 1852 the Government at home declared its policy to be the ultimate abandonment of the Orange River Sovereignty. For this pusillanimous policy there were several reasons, the greatest being a fear of a Basuto rising and the trouble it would entail. The British Government therefore decided to maintain its rights over the Transvaal no further, and by the Sand River Convention, signed on the 17th of January 1852, the emigrant farmers beyond the Vaal River were given the right to manage their own affairs, subject only to the condition that they should neither permit nor encourage slavery.
About this time commenced the threatened rise of the Basutos in the neighbourhood of the Orange River territory. The Basutos are a branch of the Bechuana race, who had been formed by their chiefs Motlume and Moshesh into a powerful nation, which could hold its own against Boer or Zulu. With this race the Home Government desired to have nothing to do, and the Colonial Office, viewing the political game as not worth the candle, definitely withdrew from the Orange River Sovereignty, leaving the Free State to come into being, and devise its own plans for overawing its enemies on the other side of the border. Accordingly, in 1854, Sir Harry Smith's programme of annexation was entirely wiped out, British sovereignty renounced, and the Orange Free State left to become a Republic and take care of itself!
CHAPTER I
THE GROWTH OF THE TRANSVAAL
Fifty years ago there was no Transvaal. To-day its area is rather larger than Great Britain. It extends over some 75,000,000 acres.
Originally, at the time of the great Trek, a small portion of land was seized from natives who fled before the pioneers, and settled in what is now known as Matabeleland. Other Boers soon joined their comrades, and, by applying the steady policy of "grab and hold" (a policy that, unfortunately, has not been imitated by ourselves), they gained strip on strip and acre on acre of land till the Transvaal became the vast province it now is. It expanded first into a portion of Zululand; later on, lapped over into Swaziland. By degrees it encroached on the British boundaries, and most probably would have gone on encroaching had not active steps been taken to save the north from the invaders.
The original Voertrekkers, or pioneers, came in three detachments. British-born subjects, but discontented with British civilisation, they moved on from Natal, whence they were chased by the Union Jack, and settled themselves first in land captured from King Umziligatze, secondly in Lydenburg and Dekaap, and thirdly in the Zulu country. The history of this Zululand expansion remains to be told. At present it is interesting to follow the geographical growth of the state which has become so troublesome, and whose self-assertion has increased according to its size.
Originally each Boer was entitled to a farm with a minimum of 6000 acres of the "Transvaal," and this custom of apportioning 6000-acre farms lasted as long as the Kaffir lands lasted. The Boers, always working on the principle that "God helps those who help themselves," helped themselves freely, sometimes with bloodshed and sometimes without, until they became owners of vast tracts of country, whose boundaries had never been discussed, far less fixed.
Land was apparently cheap at that time, for trustworthy authorities declare that it was purchasable at from a farthing to a penny per acre.
The area of the Transvaal before the Boers began to migrate there has been eloquently described as the hunter's Arcadia. Mr. Gordon Cumming gives a graphic account of the scene:—
"It was truly a fair and boundless prospect. Beautifully wooded plains and mountains stretched away on every side to an amazing distance, until the vision was lost among the faint blue outlines of the distant mountain ranges. Throughout all this country, and vast tracts beyond, I had the satisfaction to reflect that a never-ending succession of herds of every species of noble game which the hunter need desire pastured there in undisturbed security; and as I gazed I felt that it was all my own, and that I at length possessed the undisputed sway over a forest, in comparison with which the tame and herded narrow bounds of the wealthiest European sportsman sink into utter insignificance."
The number of elephants and lesser game bagged by Mr. Gordon Cumming after this touching meditation fully bore out his hopes.
But the most interesting account of the Transvaal, before the invasion of white men, is to be found in Captain William Cornwallis Harris's account of his expedition into the interior of South Africa in the years 1836 and 1837. He paints the new country in colours lively and alluring:—
"Instead of the dreary waste over which we had lately passed, we might now imagine ourselves in an extensive park. A lawn, level as a billiard-table, was everywhere spread with a soft carpet of luxuriant green grass, spangled with flowers, and shaded by spreading mokaalas—a large species of acacia which forms