El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1899-10-18

of the country of their birth for the
freedom OF this favored land, where
there was food enough for all. the
peoples of the earth and
| apparently no ignoble black
men to interfere with their enjoyment
of it. Still the promised land lay fur
Their to the north; SO on they must go
Soon they sntered country of differ
ept character. Low ranges of broken
hills, alternating with confused and
irregular valleys, took the place of the
undulating plains: the grass gave way
to thick and fOwer-spapgled bush; the
Temperature perceptibly rose; the
black wildebeestes. blesbuck and
springbuc disappeared, and in their
elephants, lofty. long-necked girsffes,
savage buffalOes. striped blue wilde
beestes, glorious black and white har-
risbucks, huge roam antelopes and i'm
palas. Was this the promised land?
And this river running to the north is
surely the Nile? Mushroom it shall be
for all time!
But the discovery of the Promised
Land did not complete tn cir work.
They must make themselves acquaint-
ed with it's extent and find out all Its
choice localities. So they continued
their way to the north. Soon they fell
in with natives of race hitherto un-
known to them. but did not appear to
have any difficulties with them
Travelling was now much harder work,
Tor the road had to be cut through the
dense bush, and the hills we're rugged
and the valleys heavy with sand. Then
they twisted about among enormous
masses of archaic rocks hundred feet
in height. whose bare surfaces were
rounded and polished by the rains and
suns of countless aeons of time, and
which lay scattered in beir thousands
like the playthings of Thor and Odin.
And at last, in May. 1886, they were
confronted by towering wall OF rock,
at the foot of which lay glistening
pan of salt. Zoutpansberg was reach
ed. Then the weary pilgrims outspan-
ned their WORKOUT oxen and made q
camp for a long rest.
Trichard and his party rested few
months until the summer set in with
it's inevitable fevers, and then, with
the fatality of ignorance, bethought
him that he would take little trip to
the east and find out how he WAS situat-
ed with regard to Delagoa Bey. So in
their turn his party inspanned their
fifteen wagons and tracked to their
doom. They crossed the psrk-like do
min, where in after years Albasinf es-
tablished that secluded paradise known
to go few, and then followed the Par
furi River. descended the first slope of
the Berg. Lower down they came
upon the larger and more dangerous
ELEPHANTS River. and with much diff
fculty got their wagons across. There
they were attacked by an impi, which
has always been considered to have
been Msnakusi, but which, as they
were on the south side of the Limpopo.
is just ss likely to have been Swat or
Bapedi. Owing to their possession of
firearms they had no difficulty in beat
ing off these marauders. 1t is not be-
lieved that they met with any casual
ties in this affair, beyond the loss of
two children, with the Kaffir nurse
who had charge of them, and who
thirty years afterwsrd were delivered
lp to the Trwnsvasl authorities by
sitonga, the then chief of the Swezies,
Who had kept them in hiding.
THE PIONEERR'S WRETCHED PLIGHT.
In sorry plight, therefore, were these
lapless pilgrims-rheir cattle melting
way like denizens of an eastern city |
before the breath of the pestilence;
sick, weak, racked with |
pain rambling in their minds, scarcely |
Lble to help each other; treacherous |
native probably watching them from
he bushes around; rhinoceroses charg-
ng in to tn cir midst, ond herds of ele-
chants crossing their line of march,
ions. hyneas and leOpards providing In /
cores around them at night, and their
wives unequal to cooking food for them
theirs was a truly pitiable state.
This the Promised Land! This the
delivery from bondage! Verify the
,ond service of the EEglishmen were
And thus the stricken
and, burdened with adversely, passed
rom the Promised Land to the Valley
# tb e Shadow of Death.
And by the timesthe porte through
he Bonn hos was passed the last OK was
cad, the last wagon left melancholy
7reck by the side of a reed-fringed
agoon, and the miserable remnant of
he party, assisted by few local KAT
re. hired as porters, tramped through
his reeking hotbed of rotting vegeta-
ION and tottered more dead than alive
a among the mud huts and the moral
of Luerenzo MARQUEE.
When. year or two later, the survi-
ors were taken by sea to Natal, where
Their voertrekkers were now settled,
hey comprised three women, three ,
Ids and nineteen young children. A
Dung man, Trichard's eldest son, had
one to Mozambique in Portuguese
essel, and he, too, afterwards returned
, Natal. Thus, of the original nine
Height voertrekkers only twenty-eight
lrvived. All the adult men, all their
ives but three, and forty of the chill
rem had persisted. They had found
lie Promised Land, but it was not the
ne they had sought for.
Deeds Filed.