- even in Capetown itself,—he feels himself to be among a
Dutch people. He knows as a fact that the Dutch in South Africa are more numerous than the English. But in Natal he is on English soil, among English people,—with no more savour of Holland than he has in London when he chances to meet a Dutchman there. And yet over the whole South African continent there is no portion of the land for which the Dutchman has fought and bled and dared and suffered as he has done for Natal. As one reads the story one is tempted to wish that he had been allowed to found his Natalia, down by the sea shore, in pleasant lands, where he would not have been severed by distance and difficulties of carriage from the comforts of life,—from timber for instance with which to floor his rooms, and wood to burn his bricks, and iron with which to make his ploughs.
But the Dutch who went did not go at once, nor did the English who came come at once. It is impossible not to confess that what with the Home Government in Downing Street and what with the Governors who succeeded each other at the Cape there was shilly-shallying as to adopting the new Colony. The province was taken up in the manner described in 1843, but no Governor was appointed till 1845. Major Smith, who as Captain Smith had suffered so much with his little army, was the military commander during the interval, and the Dutch Volksraad continued to sit. Questions as to the tenure of land naturally occupied the minds of all who remained. If a Boer chose to stay would he or would he not be allowed to occupy permanently the farm, probably of 6,000 acres which he had assumed to him-
