IV.
Chronicles of Two Leaders of the Great Emigration, Louis Triegard and Pieter Uys.
SKETCH IV.
I.
Chronicles of Two Leaders of the Great Emigration, Louis Triegard and Pieter Uys.
No history has yet been written that cannot be improved upon. In the opinion of most students the greatest work of this kind in the English language is The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, but if Gibbon were now alive he could certainly improve that masterpiece by means of discoveries that have been made since he last revised it. If this can be said of volumes prepared by a man of means, who was able to devote his whole time and thought to his work, it is infinitely more true of such a book as my History of South Africa, which has been produced under difficulties little short of being insurmountable.
Half a century has passed away since I commenced to gather materials for my history, but during all that time I have had to toil for my bread, and whenever I have gained a point of advantage I have found myself speedily hurled from it. In a country like South Africa, where racial prejudice has always been passionate, one who would try, as I have done, to write impartially must expect to meet with opposition from the extreme wings of both sections of the community, and unfortunately for me that opposition, or more properly speaking animosity, has frequently been sufficient to deprive me for a time of the power of making researches or continuing my work.
And so great is the quantity of material to be examined for the preparation of a history of South Africa, so scattered is it, and so disordered is the manuscript portion, that fifty years, even if devoted entirely to the work, would not be too long to master it all. Many languages have to be learned, and libraries and archive departments visited and worked in half over Europe as well as in South Africa. I am speaking now only of the period since the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope by the Portuguese, if one wants to go further back a knowledge of Arabic and prolonged visits to many eastern towns would be indispensable. This I was prevented from even attempting. In Indian literature also much important information may possibly—even probably—be found, for beyond a doubt there was intercourse between Hindostan and Eastern Africa in ancient times. No man could grapple with all this single-handed, and if any one were to try to do it, at the end of fifty years he would find a very great deal still to be done.
Historical Sketches.
Owing to this cause—the vast amount of research that was needed and the many interruptions I met with—my history, though correct, is defective, that is there is nothing untruthful or misleading in it, but there are sections that could be enlarged to advantage. Among such sections are the deeds of Louis Triegard and Pieter Uys. I commenced my study of the great emigration by getting accounts of it from numerous men and women who had taken part in it. I soon found—as every one else has done who has attempted to collect such materials—that the various relations did not agree, and that something more reliable was needed to base a description upon. I then read whatever was to be found in printed books and the newspapers of the period, and as soon as I had an opportunity of doing so I examined all the manuscripts that I could find in the Cape archives bearing on the subject.