Page:George McCall Theal, History of South Africa since September 1795, Volume 1 (1908).pdf/320

288 of the empire where the condition of things was different, where there was land without people, or work to be done and no one to do it. This was the state of the Cape Colony, with its genial climate, its sparsely inhabited territory, and its undeveloped resources.

On the 28th of July 1817 the subject of emigration to South Africa on a large scale was first mooted in a despatch from Earl Bathurst, in which Lord Charles Somerset was called upon for an expression of opinion. The governor replied on the 18th of December, enthusiastically favouring the scheme. He described the territory between the Sunday and Fish rivers, known as the Zuurveld or Albany, in glowing terms, and certainly, judging from its appearance in favourable seasons, he was justified in doing so. It has always been the case in South Africa that any advantages possessed by a locality are recognised at first sight, and its faults only become known by experience. Thus the governor knew no other bane than Kaffir marauders, for which a dense population behind his frontier defensive line would be an effectual remedy. He described the climate as delicious, and the soil as fertile. Wool, corn, tobacco, and cotton, he affirmed, could be produced for exportation. It was a land where, in his opinion, steady and industrious mechanics and labourers would be certain to succeed.

The plan he recommended was that parties of working people should be sent out, each under a competent head who should receive a grant of land proportionate in size to the number of his retainers. Apart from such a system being one which he as a member of an aristocratic family would naturally favour there was a special reason, in his opinion, for its adoption in the eastern part of the Cape Colony. It would provide in the best manner for defence against the Kaffirs, as a number of men would be always ready on every estate to repel marauders. It was indeed the common system of the colony, for instances were very rare of the owner of a plot of ground cultivating it with his own hands. In the west the proprietors of the cornfields and vineyards