That evening was pleasantly passed at the waggons. Hans informed his friends of all the adventures he had gone through, and of the strange scenes he had encountered, and his account was listened to with great interest. “And now, Victor, tell me the news.”
“All the Mensch are well,” replied Victor, “and Katrine is getting well now she knows you are alive. When she heard from us that you were lost, and were probably dead, we thought at first that it would have killed her, and she was like a body with no life in it. When your letters came, we thought you would soon come too, but then we heard you might stop in Cape Town some time.”
“Did you know who had taken me?” inquired Hans.
“No; we could not find any spoor after the first day, because of the rain that had fallen; but having stopped a week near where your elephant lay, and having gone out each day in various directions firing our guns, we were compelled to believe that you must have been carried right away. We were very sad, Hans, when we were obliged to return without you; but when a month passed, and we heard nothing of you, we felt sure you must be dead. All you possess is safe, though; it has been kept for you, and it is as you left it.”
“And has there been peace in the land?”
“Yes, all has been peace. Panda has kept faith with us, and will do so, I believe. We have thus been able to sow corn, and the English soldiers have left us in possession of our country; and so we shall have peace in the district, and can govern ourselves as we wish to do.”
“That is good news, indeed,” said Hans; “and now I am only anxious to get to the Natal district and settle down.”
We must here close the history of our hero, though he afterwards passed through many adventures, and encountered dangers of various kinds. Natal was not yielded to the Dutch Boers, but was claimed by the British Government, and is even now any thing but a region of entire peace.
That portion of the history of the Dutch emigrants which we have here referred to is probably one of the most extraordinary on record, and it needs neither exaggeration nor high colouring to endow it with interest to those who study the great movements which sometimes influence society, or the singular legislation which may convert friends into foes.
The fruitful and prosperous district of Natal had for years remained unnoticed, until the Dutch emigrants rendered it famous by their battles with the Zulus. Thus England has eventually derived an advantage from those proceedings which drove away above two thousand of her colonists; and now the emigrant who desires a crop with but little trouble, a lovely climate free from disease, and a country well watered and fertile, may find these near where Hans Sterk selected his farm, and where Katrine became his bride.