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tended over the country, diversified only by the changes of soil and vegetable productions. The broken state of the roads, washed away in many places by the heavy rains, and crossed by deep gullies and dangerous torrents, formed now our chief obstacle; for as soon as we had emerged from the desert, I found no difficulty in hiring fresh oxen from the farmers to help us forward.

On the 17th of September, after a piercingly cold night, spent on the summit of the mountains which divide the Karroo from the warm valleys towards the south-west, we reached, by a long and steep descent, the romantic-looking glen of HexRivier (Witch's River). Here, instead of the squalid and slovenly cabins of the poor cattle-boors around the desert, we found elegant and capacious dwellings, skirted by orange-groves, vineyards, and corn-fields, and by extensive orchards, with the peach and almond trees covered with blossoms. The inhabitants, with more general intelligence and acquired politeness than the back-country boors, evinced, at the same time, that the hospitality for which they have long been celebrated was still a characteristic feature. Many positively refused any remuneration for the lodging and entertainment which they readily afforded, and for the welcome supplies of dried fruit which they spontaneously pressed upon us. Except being detained some days by the overflowing of the Hex and Breede rivers, we had no further adventures to encounter; and the fertile vales of Wavern and Wagon-maker's Valley, through which we passed, having been described by almost every traveller who has landed at Table Bay, I shall merely add that I reached Cape Town on the 25th of September, with my female companions-much less exhausted than might have been expected by our tedious and trying journey.

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CHAPTER X.

Residence in Cape Town-Favourable Prospects-Professions and Character of the Government-Permission to publish a Journal refused-Commissioners of Inquiry-Mr. Fairbairn-Establishment of a private Academy-A Magazine and Newspaper commenced-Jealousy of the Government -The Cape Reign of Terror'-Suppression of the Newspaper-Discontinuance of the South African Journal -Persecution of the Editors-Suppression of the Literary Society-Conduct of the Government Press-Deplorable state of Society-Ruin of the Author's Prospects.

6

My residence in Cape Town continued from September, 1822, to February, 1825, with the interval only of one short excursion to which I shall afterwards advert. This period was by far the busiest, and, to me, the most eventful portion of the six years which I spent in South Africa. But as it would be impossible, even were it desirable, to comprise in this volume a detailed account of all the transactions in which I was then engaged, I shall confine myself chiefly to such characteristic occurrences as, while they serve to illustrate my own case, may convey to English readers some idea of the state of the colony at that period.

For some time after my first arrival in Cape Town things appeared to wear a very favourable aspect. The Governor had declared himself a friend to the mitigation of slavery, and had just issued a proclamation containing some beneficial and many plausible enactments; and, for the first time in the history of the colony, a white man was capitally punished for the murder of a slave. Great anxiety was professed for the establishment of English schools, and the encouragement of the English language and literature in South Africa. The public library, now under my personal charge, appeared to be warmly patronised by the Governor, and by all the chief functionaries. There

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was some talk also of offering me the superintendence of the Government Gazette, and of rendering that journal subservient to the diffusion of useful information throughout the colony. This was an object quite to my liking, and in which I only wanted the countenance of government to engage my most devoted services.

While matters exhibited this encouraging aspect, and while I saw opening around me, as I thought, fields of public usefulness far beyond my own humble powers adequately to occupy, I wrote home to invite Mr. Fairbairn, an early and intimate friend, to join me at Cape Town, in order to share with me in the toils, and (as I then hoped) the honours, of the career I had too sanguinely sketched out for our conjoint activity. My friend, with an ardour equal to my own, and with acquirements far surpassing mine, came at my call-to share my toils-and with me to suffer treatment to which I shall leave the reader to apply the fitting epithet when he has read this chapter *.

*The following extract from a letter which I received from Mr. Fairbairn on his accepting my invitation, will at least show how different were the views and sentiments he brought with him from those of which he was afterwards so malignantly accused :

March 2, 1823.

"It gives me unspeakable pleasure to find you once more among 'Books and men.' Your late acquaintance, the lions and quaggas, having lost their ancient veneration for the muses, you had good authority for turning to the more docile Batavi-Africani. I have no doubt from what you tell me, and from the accounts I read of the Cape, that your views in Cape Town are well founded, and cannot, without some unforeseen mischief, fail to be realised to a very satisfactory extent. I will join you (D. V.) about six weeks after you receive this epistle. My resolution was finally taken upon reading your last letter, and all my friends here approve of it.

* * *

"Your hint about Magazines and Newspapers pleases me exceedingly. What should hinder us from becoming the Franklins of the Kaap? The history of the settlement requires to be brought down by rational men on the spot for a good number of years. Little or nothing has been done in the natural history of South Africa since Sparrman and Vaillant; and it is a rich region in that respect. There are still unknown kingdoms, or at least provinces, for us to explore.

"I have a number of literary schemes in my head, some of which may furnish us with matter for communion. I suppose you have no such thing as public lectures among you on any subject. Yet surely popular lectures on Chemistry, Geology, Botany, and other departments of science, might be rendered both acceptable and useful to your new countrymen. Turn your thonghts to this topic till we meet.

Long before Mr. Fairbairn had joined me, however, I had acquired a more intimate acquaintance with the character of the colonial administration, and formed a truer estimate of their views. I soon saw that their professed anxiety to encourage education and the diffusion of knowledge, was a piece of political hypocrisy, assumed to cloak the real character of the government from the prying eyes of his Majesty's Commissioners of Inquiry, whose arrival in the colony was then daily expected. Of Colonel Bird's inclination to promote my views, and to encourage a more liberal use of the press than had formerly been permitted, I could have no doubt; but that officer no longer possessed any influence. An irreconcilable quarrel had taken place between him and Lord Charles Somerset; and his Excellency's counsels were now chiefly directed by a man who once pretty accurately described his own character by saying, that he was 'a Whig in principle and a Tory in practice.' His avowed principles were generally sound and liberal; but he was not long in proving himself to be the unscrupulous promoter of measures utterly subversive of all enlightened policy and good government. He might be termed the Metternich of our petty political theatre; and he seemed to suit the times and the place, for the Governor, under the flimsy veil of lateassumed liberality, was by education, habit, and character, as determined a foe to free discussion, and as intolerant of any the slightest opposition to his own arbitrary will and narrow views, as if he had been bred up at the feet of the Holy Alliance.

"In Europe, and especially in Britain, so many great poets are looking on the same objects that we see, and describing them with so much force and beanty, that one feels oneself fairly overcowed,' and dare not even aspire to be heard. Who can think of aught but listening when Byron, Wordsworth, Scott, Coleridge, and Campbell, are sending their strong sweet voices through every winding vale of this delightful land? The character of African scenery is, I suppose, different from ours. The manners of the singular tribes surrounding you-your own destination at the extremity of the dry nurse of lions' -in every circumstance I can think of, there is much to excite deepen, and fully employ the strongest imagination. What should hinder us, my dear friend, from giving to song' the unknown streams and nameless mountains of the Kaap ?"

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From such a government I saw there was little to hope; but, as great reforms were anticipated from the investigations of the Commissioners of Inquiry, I resolved to keep myself as independent of government patronage as I could, and look forward to better times. Meanwhile, it was necessary to secure a competent income for my family; for my appointment in the library was not only inadequate in emolument, but also (as I was speedily made to feel) most precarious in tenure-being, in fact, like almost every other appointment in the colony, entirely dependent on the pleasure of the Governor. I therefore made arrangements for receiving under my charge a few youths for private tuition, and had soon as many from the principal families of the place as I could conveniently attend to.

In renouncing all idea of connection with the Government Gazette, however, I did not abandon my views of rendering the press subservient to the grand object of public instruction, but determined to establish, if possible, an independent periodical in Cape Town. I was encouraged to prosecute this purpose by the most enlightened inhabitants of the colony, both English and Dutch; and I soon found a zealous coadjutor in the Rev. Mr. Faure, one of the Dutch clergymen of Cape Town, who entertained similar views for the instruction of his countrymen.

As we made no secret of our scheme, some rumour of it soon reached the ears of the Governor; and while we were engaged in preparing a prospectus for public circulation, and a memorial to his Excellency, soliciting permission to publish our projected journals (without which we knew we could not proceed a single step), I received a visit from a gentleman previously unknown to me, a confidential retainer at that time of our Colonial Court. He strove earnestly to persuade me that the prosecution of the enterprise I had in view, would be detrimental to my personal interests in the colony; but finding me deaf to his representations on that score, he at length plainly told me that Lord Charles Somerset had expressed to him his opinion in regard to our projected undertaking, and that his Excellency's opinion was decidedly averse to it.