“1834,” repeated George. “That was the year, was not it, when they put down slavery in the West Indies?”
“Yes, and it lowered the value of the property there as well as here. I don’t say the English Government oughtn’t to have done it. Slavery is wrong, beginning, middle, and end, in my eyes. But it might have been done gradually, instead of all at once. Any way, the Dutch wouldn’t have it, and they resolved to leave the country rather than submit. Great numbers emigrated: some northwards, into what is now the Orange Free State, and the Transvaal, but more into Natal. Cornelius was one of those who removed to Natal, and my father went there too. He didn’t want to go, but my mother had been always so attached to Cornelius, that he saw it would break her heart if they were parted. So, like a good husband, he went too.”
“Wasn’t it rather rash, sir?” suggested George. “Why, to say nothing of the loss of money, Natal must be a good seven hundred miles from Stellenbosch, and it was at that time quite a new country.”
“It is more than eight hundred, I believe, for the matter of that, and there were very few whites in it; but the state of things wasn’t so bad as you suppose. In the first place, my father took his time in selling his land. As he wasn’t a Dutchman, people knew that he wasn’t one of those who were mad to go, and would take anything that was offered for it. He got a very good price for it. Then, again, he knew a great deal about Natal. Lieutenant Farewell, who had obtained a large grant of land from King Chaka, came to Stellenbosch, and made large offers to the farmers there. My father closed with him, and got a large farm, and very good land, where my son is now living, for very little money.”
“Who was Lieutenant Farewell?” asked Margetts.
“I believe he was an English officer, who had been sent to survey the country, and had a fancy for founding a colony at Natal. He had been murdered by the natives before we went there; but my father had got all his information from him the previous year. Then, again, his move to Natal was well managed. His farm lay on the south side of Stellenbosch, only a short distance from Simon’s Bay. A large vessel was lent him by one of his friends, which took him and his family, his waggons, his household furniture, and such of his stock as he wished to take with him, to Natal, at a small cost, and in a few days.”
“Your father knew what he was about, Mr Baylen.”
“I think he did, sir. I remember well our arrival at Hakkluyt’s Kloof. We lived in the waggons till he and his men had run up the house and farm buildings. We soon found we had made a very good bargain.”
“That was in King Chaka’s time, wasn’t it, father?” asked Walter Baylen.
“No, Walter. It was Chaka who granted the land, or rather, leave to settle on the land, to Lieutenant Farewell. But he had been dead a year or two, and his brother Dingaan was king when we arrived there.”