The last example of what may be called the Martyrdom of Inconvenience which the Sex have shewn, is to be found in a form of bonnet adapted for summer wear, in which the front comes only to about an inch behind the forehead, so as to leave the face fully exposed to the attacks of the sun (when there is one) and the unmitigated gaze of the beaux. There is something very remarkable in this fashion, for a great number of ladies find it absolutely indispensable to add to this abbreviation of a bonnet a sort of supplement of silk called an ugly, wherewith to screen the face from becoming an absolute photograph. A couple of inches added to the bonnet itself would serve the end; but this would give a regular and not inelegant protection. It would, therefore, entirely prevent inconvenience, and so thwart the Sex in their martyrial propensities. Such a thing is not to be thought of. On the contrary, either to suffer from sunlight without an ugly, or to suffer from clumsiness with one, enables the unfortunate Sex to indulge in its favourite passion to the fullest extent possible in such cases. Admirable portion of creation! what merits are yours, what praise is called for fully to requite you! But, indeed, it must be quite impossible ever to make sufficient acknowledgment of that wonderful power of endurance for its own sake which you shew in the most trivial, as in the most important phases of life!
I therefore quit the subject with a humiliating sense of my utter incompetency to do it entire justice. I weep and wonder—my very soul thrills with the pathos of woman's martyr position on the earth and her volunteer sufferings above all. But I would vainly attempt to utter all I feel. I must leave it to each bearded fellow-creature, as he walks through the wilderness of this world, to behold with a sympathising eye and spirit an endurance so affecting, and endeavour to compensate it, to the individual sufferers within his reach, by every consolation and every reward he may have it in his power to bestow.
THE YOUNGEST BRITISH COLONY
Which is the youngest British colony? Simple as the question seems, it may be doubted, considering the remarkable increase of late years in the number of John Bull's colonial progeny, whether the most experienced red-tapist of Downing Street could answer it without some hesitation. At least a dozen infant communities occur at once to the recollection. There is Port Philip, lately rechristened by the royal name of Victoria, and now seemingly in a fair way to be smothered in its cradle by a deluge of gold-dust. There is the Hudson's Bay Company's little Cinderella of Vancouver's Island, with its neglected coal-mines, and other mineral riches. Then we have the precocious 'Canterbury' pet, the 'young Virginia' of New Zealand. Nor must we forget the storm-vexed colony of Labuan, ushered into existence amid typhoons and parliamentary debates—nor the small castaways, growing up in secluded islets and corners—in the Falkland Islands, the Auckland Islands, on the Mosquito Shore, and in the far Eastern Seas. It is in one of these directions that most persons would probably be inclined to cast an inquiring glance before attempting to answer the question with which these remarks are prefaced. It is not likely that many would at once be able to recall to mind the fact, that an important British colony, dating its official existence from the 22d of March 1851, has suddenly sprung up in the interior of Africa—a colony already possessing an efficient legislature, a handsome revenue, and several flourishing towns, with churches, schools, a respectable press, and other adjuncts, of civilisation. A brief description of this remarkable colony may serve to awaken for it an interest which its future progress, if at all corresponding with the past, will probably keep alive.
There is some difficulty in describing the 'Orange River Sovereignty'—for such is the long and rather awkward name by which this settlement is now known—so as to convey a correct idea of its situation without the aid of a map. That the Cape Colony occupies the southern coast of the African continent, and that the colony of Natal is on the south-eastern coast, are facts of which few readers will need to be reminded. Will it, then, be sufficient to say, that the 'sovereignty' in question is situated in the interior, between these two colonies, having the Cape on the south, and Natal on the east? It will be necessary to refer briefly to the manner in which it acquired its rank as a colony, and its peculiar name. Just two hundred years ago, in the year 1652, the Cape Colony was founded by the Dutch; and about fifty years ago, it came into the possession of our own government. During these two centuries, the colony has been constantly extending itself towards the east and north, just as the British settlements in North America, which were founded about the same time, have been ever since extending their borders towards the west and south, or as the settlements of Eastern Australia have been spreading to the west, south, and north. It is a natural movement of colonisation, and there seems to be no means of checking it, even if any advantage were to be gained by doing so.
As the American backwoodsmen, in their progress westward, reached at last the boundary-streams—as they were once considered—of the Mississippi and the Ohio, so the South-African colonists gradually found their way to the great Orange River, which, flowing nearly across the continent, from east to west, formed a sort of natural limit to the old colony. But beyond this boundary, extensive plains and undulating downs, covered with nutritious herbage like the American prairies, spread out invitingly towards the distant northern horizon. The exterminating wars among the native tribes had left these grassy plains almost wholly unoccupied. You might travel over them for days without meeting a human being, or any traces of human possession, except here and there the decaying huts and bleaching skeletons of the former inhabitants. The feeble remnants of these tribes had sought refuge in the recesses of the neighbouring mountains, where some of them, in their dire extremity, sustained a horrid existence by cannibalism, which revolting custom still further diminished their numbers, and has only recently been suppressed. The Cape 'boers,' or farmers, rich as the patriarchs of old in cattle and sheep, and straitened like them for pasture, gradually found their way over the river into these fruitful and vacant plains. At first, they crossed only in small numbers, and with no intention of remaining permanently. But the abolition of slavery, the mismanaged Caffre wars, and some unpopular measures of the Cape government, suddenly gave a great impulse to the emigration.
About fifteen years ago, some thousands of Dutch colonists sold their farms, packed their household gear in their huge capacious wagons, and with their wives and children—in all, at least 10,000 souls—accompanied by myriads of cattle, sheep, and horses, crossed the Orange River, and plunged into the vast wilderness beyond. Some spread themselves over the rich pastures in the country lying immediately north of that river, and now forming the infant colony which is presently to be described. Others penetrated far to the north, forded the Vaal or Yellow River, and planted corn-fields and vineyards on the fertile slopes of the Kashan Mountains, where they still maintain themselves as a self-governed and thriving community. One small band of bold adventurers found their way to the verdant but fever-haunted plains about Delagoa Bay, whence the few survivors were presently driven by the destructive ravages of the pestilence. But the main column of the emigrants, turning to the right, crossed the lofty chain of the Drakenberg—the 'Rocky Mountains' of Africa—and descended into the well-watered valleys and woody lowlands of Natal. The romantic but melancholy story of the sufferings, the labours, the triumphs, and the reverses which filled up the subsequent years—how some of the emigrants were surprised and massacred by the jealous tribes of the interior, and others were treacherously slaughtered by their professed ally, the blood-thirsty chief of the Zulus—and how the exasperated survivors turned upon their assailants, broke their power, and scattered them; how they planted towns, formed a regular government, and set up an independent republic; all these, and many similar events, must be left for the future historians of South Africa to record. Neither is it necessary to refer here to the policy which led our government afterwards to extend its authority over the lands thus conquered and settled by the emigrants, or to the manner in which this authority, at first resisted, was finally established. Natal was thus made a British province in 1842. Many of the boors, naturally enough disliking the new government thus forced upon them, retraced their course over the Drakenberg, back into the upland plains of the interior. Here they were left pretty much to themselves, until the year 1848, when Sir Harry Smith proclaimed the extension of the Queen's supremacy over the whole of the territory situated between the Orange and Vaal Rivers; but, as has been already said, it was not until March of last year that this acquisition was finally sanctioned, and the new colony established by an act of the imperial government.