The Sun.
London, England, 1842-10-26 00:00:00

THE BOERS AT THE CAPE.
The recent disastrous conflicts between the British
troops at the Cape and the Dutch boers, afford a
favourable opportunity for some account of these re-
mote settlements, of which little appears generally
known, except to emigrants and traders.
Port Natal, from which the news is dispatched, is
situated in Eastern Africa, in 29 deg. 53 min. S. lat.,
30 deg. 32 min. E. lon. It has a narrow entrance
with a bar across, but with a depth of water sufficient
to admit ships of from two to three hundred tons
burthen. It spreads in the interior, into a fine sheet
of water, surrounded with rising ground covered with
wood, and having an island in the midst. Taking the
river Umzimcoolu as the southern boundary, forty
miles to the south-west of the port, and the Arnata-
koola, seventy miles to the north-east of it, there
appears to be one hundred and ten miles
for the extent of the sea-coast of the
Zoolu territory. On the whole, it may be
assumed, measuring by the Quathlamba moun-
tains, which run parallel with the sea coast, that
the Zoolu country, in which Port Natal is situated,
forms a square of about one hundred miles on each
side. From the range of the Quathlamba mountains,
a number of rivers intersect the plain in their way to
the sea, the largest of which, frequently unfordable,
appear to be the Umzimcoolu and the Tugala.
As regards climate, no place can be deemed more
preferable as a place of residence than the Cape, and
the countries included generally in that term. Situated
in a temperature equally removed from oppressive
heat or shivering cold, where the fig-tree, the vine,
and the orange luxuriate in the open air, requiring
but little aid at the hand of man, it cannot but be
other than a delightful seat. Emigrants acknowledge
this fact universally; but there are certain draw-
backs which, not existing in the natural features of
the place, are found among the inhabitants there lo-
cated. Close to the frontiers of the Caffre country,
such proximity has caused between the Dutch and
other settlers a mutual pilfering of cattle, a kind of
black-mail business, which has led to a constant col-
lision of interests. Other casualties, such as that
'which has just taken place, have on various occasions
tended to distract these regions.
The change produced by a few Europeans at Natal
Bay, may be regarded as a picture of what English
labour and industry has effected, wherever it has
planted its foot, or actively engaged its hand. Shortly
after the emigrants had settled there, says Isaacs, the
whole landscape around Natal became changed
from
one of a wild and savage description to a busy and in-
dustrious scene of natives engaged in that to which
they before devoted but little of their time—zthe la-
bouring of the soil. Natal from this time seemed as
if everything was changed from the savage aspect of
its more primitive days. Its plains, its savannahs, its
eminences, and its undulations, had all an harmonious
appearance. Hamlets, with numerous inhabitants,
pursuing their avocations of guarding their herds and
cultivating their patches of land for corn and roots,
could be discerned from every quarter.
With regard to the general character of the boers,
a correct idea may be formed of the nature of persons
the British, either in a military or commercial point
of view, have to deal with, from a representation which
we shall endeavour to draw up, from traits given by
travellers of these Dutchmen. A Dutch boer may
be said to have not the smallest idea of what an
English farmer means by the word comfort. Placed
in a country where not only the necessaries, but
almost every luxury of life might by industry be pro-
cured, he cares for the enjoyment of none of them.
Though he has cattle in abundance, he males very

little use of milk or butter. He drinks no wine, in the
midst of a soil and climate most favourable to vine-
culture. He makes use of few or no vegetables or
roots. Three times a-day his table is loaded with
masses of mutton, swimming in the grease of the
sheep. His house is open to the roof, or covered only
with rough poles and turf ; the earthy floors are
covered with dust and dirt, swarming with insects
and the disagreeable termer. His apartments are
almost destitute of furniture; a great chest contains
all his moveables, and two other smaller ones fitted
to his waggon. The bottoms of his chairs con-
sist of thongs cut from a bullock's hide. But

the boer, notwithstanding, has his enjoyments. He
is absolute master of a domain of several miles in
extent, and he lords it over a few miserable slaves or

Hottentots without control. Unwilling to work, and
unable to think, he indulges to excess in the gratifica-
tion of every sensual appetite. The African boer thus
grows to an unwieldy size, and is carried off the stage
by the first inflammatory disease that attacks him.
The cruelties exercised upon the Hottentots by
these boors or graziers in remoter parts of the colony,
are nowhere exceeded. The boer has been hitherto
almost constantly above the law, and, relying on his
gun as the magistrate alike of his house and his dis-
trict, resists, often with impunity, the payment of his
rent, or any other demand which justice or social
claims might tend to make upon him.