The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1899-11-09
The PROMISED LAND.
AN ACCOUNT OF THE GREAT
BOER TREK IN 1885.

The Story Of the Beginning and
the End Of the Unfortunate
Journey.
1--WE are ruined by being robbed OIL
our slaves. They roam about the coun-
try as Migrants and steal our cat
The missionaries, who are the aovis1is
Of the Government, say tnat d oioeN
man is as good as a white, ana oe''ci-
We will not submit to it. we are
Gods chosen people, and we Will iease
this benighted country, this hotpeo VI
injustice, and seek the PROMISED Aano'
We will trek to the north anu pieen
our tents upon the banks OF the ME.
So said the Beers of the Cape Colony III
the year of grace 1885. And they dlo
so: only the Nile they found ran into
the Limpopo. instead of into the Medl-
terranean Sea. Louis Trichard was the
first. He was a man of violent tempera-
ment whose animosity against the
English was so great and undisguised
that he was believed to have melted
the Kaffirs in the war of 1S34-35. A
-
fed. His party of forty-nine, Of whom
seven were women and thlrty-four
children. contained the familiar names
of Pretorius, Botha, Strydom, Scneep-
ers and Albrecht. Before he reached
the Orange River he was joined by an
other party Of forty-nine (nine women
and thirty children) under Johannes
Rensberg, and including Vil5oens,
Bronkhursts. De Vets, Van Wyks'
krankamps and Prinses.
And so the great trek began De-
prived of their slaves, the Saints woulo
seek them in other and better LANDS.
They issued high-sounding proclama-
tions, in which they made it abundant
ly clear that in them alone were repos-
tied the virtues and the wisdom OF the
ages. and that they alone UNDERSTOOD
the true principles of government by
the logic of manifesto the English au-
thorities were demonstrated to be pilno
leaders of the blind, which, having
been in the days when the poiltical
economists, the Little Englanders ana
the early Exeter Hallists ruled the
roost, was probably not without us
germ of truth. But whatever their
same as those of the English settlers
and the latter did not find their posi-
lions more irksome than to warrant
little of that divine discomfort Whicn
is the incentive to all progress. The
English grumbled and worked Tor re-
forms the Dutch despaired and fed by
their fruits We shall know them Inc
Beers wished to leap into Paraulse
~,
without any labor of their own; Tue
English put their shoulders to the Wheei
and essayed to work their way lnto
it. Such are the distinct1ves OF the
races, for it was a race movement, ana
none of the sophistries of the historians
can alter the fact.
Therefore these eighteen mulish and
overrighteous men led their wives ana
sixty-four young and innocent children
to their doom. They crossed the Or-
ange River and entered the desert
bowling and drear," as Pringle hath H.
1t is not a desert, and 1t does not howl,
nor can it be called drear; but If the
poets had to confine themselves TO
facts alone they would be drear indeed.
But if it was not drear it would have
been to any refined natures lugubrlous
enough, though it may well be doubted
if these sainted voetrekkers were al
fected by any such sensations. For
every ridge, every grassy slope, every
smiling hollow where the deep water
holes glistened in their setting OF
rustling reeds, every thorn specked de-
clivity that shelved down to the willow
lined streams. was strewn with lines
and piles and mazes of rocks and stones
80 On
built into huts and kraals which Shell
tered untold thousands of prosperous
aborigines. and multitudinous herds of
domestic animals. Now they were
mere tumbled ruins, among which the
lion roamed and the hyena and ]ackai
prowled, shifting at the un-pieacheo
skeletons, and among which the STEIN
buck and the spring haas leaped ana
the adder and cobra summed themselves.
Had an epidemic carried off the vast
population that had peopled these
grassy downs and plains? Yes, an
epidemic of blood, lust and murderous
ferocity. The pitiless fiends of Tchaka,
the Terrible, and Umziligazi, the De-
stroyer. had been let loose over the
land. Those they had been unable to
destroy they swept before them in great
bordes of homeless wanderers, whom
their misfortunes transformed from
peaceful pastoralists and agriculturists
into incendiaries and barbarians as saw
age and monstrous as their despoilers,
and who in their turn fell upon every
pacific community they came across.
The numbers who lost their lives in
these holocausts have to be reckoned in
the millions.
But these voiceless soiltudes were
very far from being lifeless. They pos
itivelv reeked with life. Countless thou
sands-aye. millions-of ferocious-iook-
ing, but harmless wildeoeestes' OF
painted springbuck, of gaudy zepras' OF
glossy bIesbuck, made the plains LOOK
like the environment of disturbed ant
bean They tumbled over each other,