The heat of the weather was, we have said, very oppressive during the middle of the day. It was hard work to dig in the trench, for the badness of the tools more than compensated for the lightness of the soil. The labourers, fully aware of the importance of conveying water to the crops, toiled most diligently through all hours of the day, till it became evident that such exertion was injurious to their strength. A new regulation was made, according to which they began work two hours earlier in the morning, and rested in the shade for two hours at noon. Some slept, while others, who were stronger or more industrious, employed themselves in some light occupation, either preparing flax with the women, or looking for honey or fruit, or cutting the reeds of proper lengths, and binding them in bundles ready for the builder, or helping to make bows and arrows. This was the most pleasant and refreshing time of the day. It was the only time for conversation; for in working hours they were too busy, and at night too weary to enjoy it. Mr. Stone was always ready for cheerful talk at these intervals, both because he was sociable, and because he knew it to be a very important thing to keep up the spirits of the people by all such natural and proper means. A few days after the labours of the settlement were got into train, he was sitting with a party of companions on the trunk of a tree which served as a work-bench, and which was drawn within the shadow of a noble chesnut. He was making sandals for some of the people whose shoes were worn out, by fastening leather thongs to slips of wood made as nearly the size of the foot as the saw could bring them. Some of the men had been for walking barefoot; thinking shoes too great a luxury for the present state of their affairs: but Mr. Stone would not hear of this, on account of the venomous reptiles in the grass, from whose bite there could be no security to the barefooted. He engaged to furnish each man with sandals as his shoes wore out, till there should be leather enough to make a sort of socks with wooden soles, which would serve the purpose better still. While he was thus busied, his wife was beside him mending his coat, which had received a terrible rent. It was amusing enough at first to see her set about this new sort of tailoring; for she had neither needle, thimble, nor scissors. George had furnished her with a porcupine’s quill from the stock which had been placed in his hands for his arrows. With this she pricked holes in the cloth, through which a string of flax was passed; and thus, by slow degrees, the edges of the rent were brought together. To be sure, it did not look much like a gentleman’s coat after this; but, as all clothes were now worn for a covering and not for ornament, it did not much signify.signify. Next Mrs. Stone sat Hill, sorting and picking the herbs and roots he had gathered, that he might not be without medicines in case of sickness or accidental bruises. He had also furnished a poison in which the points of the arrows were dipped, as it was found that though the bristles wounded the game, they were not strong enough to bring it down. Hill had discovered how the natives procured, from a venomous snake, poison so powerful as to destroy all animals which it could be made to reach; and having provided himself with it, he suffered no one else to touch it, for fear of accidents. George, who formed one of the party, was therefore obliged to give up his arrows as they were made, and did not receive them again till the venom was dried on their tips. All the game, as it was brought in, was given into the charge of the butcher, who carefully took out the parts round the wound the arrow had made. His wife was now plucking partridges, which had become abundant since the best way of bringing down game had been discovered. The feathers were carefully dried and preserved to answer various purposes of clothing and bedding hereafter.
While the little party were thus busily employed and sociably conversing, they saw Arnall at a distance, practising shooting with bow and arrow at a mark.
“I wonder“I wonder at the captain,” said Hill, “for calling that gentleman yonder a labourer, as he did the other day.”
“Arnall himself was surprised,” said Mr. Stone; “and I do not wonder at it: but I should have expected you would allow him the title. Remember the captain spoke of him as he had been,—a shopkeeper.”
“He led a pretty genteel life as a shopkeeper,” replied Hill. “Look at his delicate hands and his slight make, and it seems ridiculous to call him a labourer.”
“Did he not buy his goods at Cape Town, and have them brought in his waggon; and did he not purchase various productions of his neighbours in large quantities and sell them by retail?” asked Mr. Stone.
“Certainly,” replied Hill; “but there was no hard work in all this. It would have done him good to have driven his own team over the mountains, and to have stuck fast among the rocks, as many a waggoner does, unless he can put his own shoulder to the wheel.”
“I should have liked to see him kill his own meat,” added the butcher’s wife, “or thresh the corn he used to sell. A heavy flail would be a fine thing to put into hands like his.”
“We are not inquiring,” replied Mr. Stone, “what sort of discipline would be good for such a man; but whether he can properly be called a labourer. You seem to think, Hill, that there is no labour but that of the hands, and that even that does not deserve the name unless it be rough and require bodily strength to a great degree.”
“I don’t mean to say so,” replied Hill. “I consider that I work pretty hard, and yet my hands shew it more by being dyed with these plants than roughened by toil. And there are the straw-platters of my native town in dear old England;—the Dunstable folks labour hard enough, delicate as their work is.”
“And you, sir,” said Mrs. Prest, the butcher’s wife, “have done so much, setting aside your farm, that it would be a sin to say you have not toiled night and day for us. If there was a person sick or unhappy, or if your advice was wanted any hour in the twenty-four, you were always ready to help us. But you would not call yourself a labourer, would you?”
“Certainly,” replied Mr. Stone. “There is labour of the head as well as of the hands, you know. Any man who does anything is a labourer, as far as his exertion goes.”
“The king of England is a labourer,” said Mrs. Stone. “If he does nothing more than sign the acts of parliament which are brought to him, he does a very great thing for society. Those acts cannot become law till they are so signed; and the man, whoever he be, who performs a necessary part in making laws, is a labourer of a very high order, however little trouble the act of signing may cost him.”
“Arnall did take more trouble than that, to do him justice,” said Hill. “He kept his books very well, besides purchasing and looking after and selling goods: but still I cannot think he was so useful a man as the ploughman who helps us to food; for food is the most necessary of all things.”
“A great deal of harm has been done,” said Mr. Stone, “by that notion of yours, when it has been held by people who have more power to act upon it than you. In many states, it has been a received maxim that commercial labour is inferior in value to agricultural; and agriculture has therefore been favoured with many privileges, and manufactures and commerce burdened with many difficulties. This seems to me to be a very unjust and foolish policy; for the greatest good of society cannot be attained without the union of both kinds of labour. The thresher, and the miller, and the baker, do not help to produce food like the ploughman; but they are quite as useful as he, because we could not have bread without their help. They are manufacturers, and the retail baker is engaged in commerce; but it would be absurd to say that they are on that account to be thought less valuable than the sower.”
“But is not the case different, sir,”sir,” said Hill, “when things of less importance than food are in question? Is not a weaver worth less than a ploughman in society?”
“Suppose,” said Mr. Stone, “that in our society, consisting of fifty-four persons, fifty-three were engaged in tilling the ground every day and all day long, and that the other was able to prepare flax and weave it into cloth and make it into clothes. Suppose you were that one; do not you think you would always have your hands full of business, and be looked to as a very important person; and that, if you died, you would be more missed than any one of the fifty-three ploughmen?”
“Certainly,” said Hill, laughing. “But what a folly it would be to raise ten or twenty times as much corn as we could eat, and to be in want of everything else!”
“It would,” replied Mr. Stone: “and in such a case, we should be ready to pass a vote of thanks to any man who would leave the plough and turn tanner or weaver; and then we would spare another to be a tailor; and, at last, when we had gathered a good many comforts about us, we would thank another to set up a shop where we might exchange our goods. Now, would it not be ungrateful and foolish, when we had reached this point, to say that the farmers were, after all, the most valuable to us; and that they must have particular honour and particular privileges?”
“To be sure,” said Hill. “The natural consequence of such partiality would be to tempt the shopkeeper to give up his shop, and the weaver his loom, and the tailor his sheers, to go back to the plough, and then we should be as badly off as before.”
“This would be the consequence in larger states, as well,” said Mr. Stone, “if the practice of the people were not wiser than the principles of the policy by which they have hitherto been governed. People buy clothes and furniture and other comforts as they have need of them, without stopping to pronounce how much less valuable they are than food.”
“All the world seems to have agreed,”agreed,” said Mrs. Stone, “that the right leg is worth more than the left; and if a man had the choice which he would lose, he would probably rather part with the left: but it would be a sad waste of time to argue about which is the more useful in walking.”
“All labour, then, should be equally respected,” said Hill, “and no one kind should be set above another.”
“Nay; I was far from saying that,” replied Mr.Mr. Stone. “Our friend George, there, makes beautiful little boats out of walnut-shells, and he must have spent a good deal of trouble on his art before he could carve the prow and stern and put in the deck as he does. If he were now to set to work and make us each one within a week, he would no more have earned his dinner every day than if he should lie down and sleep for seven days. We do not want walnut-shell boats, and his ill-directed labour would be worth no more than no labour at all.”
“The captain was telling me, though,” said George, “that if I were at some place he mentioned in England, I might get a very pretty living by those same boats. He said the quality would give me five shillings a-piece for them.”
“Very likely,” said Mr. Stone; “and in that case your labour would not be ill-directed. The rich, in any country, who have as much as they want of food and clothes and shelter, have a right to pay money for baubles, if they choose; and in such a state of things there are always labourers who, not being wanted for necessary occupations, are ready to employ their labour in making luxuries.”
“The lace-makers and jewellers and glass-cutters, and even those who spin glass for the amusement of the wealthy, are respectably employed in England, where there is a demand for their services,” observed Mrs. Stone; “but they would be sadly out of place here, and very ridiculous. All labour must be directed by the circumstances of the state of society in which it is employed; and all labour, so regulated, is equally respectable.”
“I am afraid, madam,” said Hill, “that your doctrine would go far towards doing away the difference between labour that is productive and that which is unproductive.”
“It is impossible,” replied Mr. Stone, “to do away that difference, because it is a difference of fact which no opinions can alter. It must always be as clear as observation can make it whether a man’s labour produces any of the things which constitute wealth. But the respectability of labour does not depend on this circumstance. I hope you do not think it does?”
“I have been accustomed, certainly, to think productive labourers more valuable than unproductive.”
“It depends upon what you mean by the word valuable,” replied Mr. Stone. “If you mean that productive labourers add more to the wealth of the society, the very way of putting the question shews that you are right: but we may see, in the case of every civilized state, that a mixture of productive and unproductive labourers is the best for the comfort and prosperity of society.”
“What would the English nation do,” said Mrs. Stone, “without household servants, without physicians and soldiers, and clergy and lawyers, without a parliament, without a government? If they were a nation of farmers and graziers and builders, without any unproductive labourers, they would have abundance of corn and cattle and houses; but no towns, no commerce, no law, and no king. They would be a savage nation.”
“Ours was not a savage settlement,” said George, “and we had no unproductive labourers. Everybody worked very hard.”
“However hard our people worked,” said Mr. Stone, “they were divided into productive and unproductive labourers, as the people of every civilized society are. If you will just run over a few names, we will try to divide the two classes.”
“Let us begin with the lowest,” said George. “The labourers on Robertson’s farm and on yours, sir, are productive labourers, because they produce corn for ourselves, and hay for the horses, and flax for our clothes. Then there are the other servants, who have wages paid them,—the captain’s errand-boy, and your maid, ma’am, who nurses the child, and kept the house clean when you had one, and Goody Fulton, who attended to Arnall’s shop when he was out shooting——”
“Well: go on,” said Mr. Stone; “tell us what they produced.”
George laid down his bow to consider; but he could not think of anything produced by these last-mentioned people. He owned that however industrious and useful they might be, domestic servants were unproductive labourers. Then he went on with his list.
“Fulton, I suppose, sir, produces leather out of what was only the hide of a beast; and Harrison makes bricks out of what was only clay; and Links——let me see, what does the farrier do? He puts on horse-shoes: that is not making anything. He is unproductive, I suppose.”
“As a farrier;—but he is also a smith, and makes horse shoes and nails, and implements of many sorts, out of what was only a lump or a bar of iron.”
“Then he is a labourer of both kinds. That is curious. And so are you, Mr. Hill. You make medicines; but when you give your advice, or bleed your patients, or shave my father on Saturday night, you are an unproductive labourer.”
“And at the same time, one of the last men we could spare,” said Mr. Stone. At which, Hill rose and bowed low.
“I am afraid my father is an unproductive labourer,” said George. “I cannot think of anything that a butcher makes.”
“Why should you say ‘afraid’?” inquired Mr. Stone. “Your father is of the same class with the captain.”
“Why, that’s true,” cried George; “and there’s an end of all objections to unproductive labour; for who works harder than the captain, and how should we get on without him?”
“And how do you class yourself, my dear?” said Mrs. Stone.
“Unproductive in my pulpit and in the school-room,” replied her husband, “and productive when I am working in my field. I leave it to my friends to say in which capacity I am most useful.”
“You have cleared up the matter completely, sir,” said Hill. “We see now that the words relate to wealth and not to usefulness. I am only sorry I ever understood any reproach by the word unproductive; but I shall never fall into the mistake again.”
“It is as well to observe, however,” said Mr. Stone, “that the prosperity of a nation depends much on the proportion between these two classes of labourers. If it would be a bad thing to have a population that could do nothing but produce food, and clothes, and habitations, with as many other comforts and luxuries as the industry of man can supply, it would be worse by far to have more unproductive labourers among us than the labour of the productive could maintain.”
“Our settlement would soon be ruined,” observed his wife, “if we had a great many soldiers, and two or three clergymen, and four or five surgeons, and several household servants in every family. However skilful all these might be in their several ways, they would soon eat us out of house and home. In the same way the welfare of an empire depends on its productive resources being abundant enough to supply the wants and reasonable wishes of the whole people. But, my dear, what noise is that?”
The little party started to their feet as they heard the sound of a horn. For a moment they were alarmed by the fear that an enemy was upon them; but some labourers passing by informed them that the captain had ordered the horns of the bullock which had been slain to be taken care of; and had turned one to the best account by using it as a summons to call the people together. It was, from this time forward, to be blown at the hours of work, of eating, and of rising and going to rest. The two hours of repose being now over, Mr. Stone went to his work in the trench, and the little party broke up.
In a few days from this time, some of the most thoughtful of the settlers began to ponder the necessity of increasing their supplies of food. Prest, the butcher, sighed every day as he passed the ruined paddocks and saw no cattle in them for him to exercise his skill upon. “Heaven knows,” said he to his wife, “when I may have the pleasure of slaying a beast again. And as for our ever having a drove or a herd, there is no possibility of it unless we can get hides enough to make thongs for snares. Fulton says he has used up every scrap of leather, and unless we can get more, Campbell and I may both lay aside our craft, for we shall never more have droves in our fields, or smoking joints on the table.”
“We must live like savages, on roots and fruit and fish,” said his wife. “Now, fish is very good in its way; but we have had so much lately, that one might fancy it was to be Lent all the year round.”
While they were thus talking, a plan was being settled between Arnall and the captain which promised fair to supply the butcher with employment, and the paddocks with stock which might increase in time so as to employ a herdsman on the hills. This magnificent plan entered Arnall’s head one day when he was thinking how he might distinguish himself in a genteel way, and shew himself a benefactor to the settlement without sacrificing his dignity.
He had once passed a pit, dug in the middle of a plain and quite empty and apparently useless. He could not make out at the time what it was for; but now he remembered having read that the natives of some countries dig pits for snaring wild animals, covering them over lightly so as to look even with the rest of the ground, that the beast may fall in unawares. He thought that he might secure antelopes in this way, or even the buffalo—fierce and strong as it is, and more difficult to deal with than the wildest bull of his own country. He could not prepare the pit with his own delicate hands, of course; and was therefore obliged to apply to the captain for leave to employ some labourers. Their help was promised as soon as the trench should be completed, which was to be in two days. Nothing must interrupt that important work, the captain said; and in the mean while they must live as well as they could on what might come in.
“Now is my time then,” thought the sportsman, “to try my new arrows, and my skill in using them; and if I fail, nobody will know but George Prest, and I can trust him for not telling. He will hold his tongue in return for my shewing him how to get the eggs.”
Here were three different schemes,—the pits for buffaloes, a new sort of arrows for smaller game, and a way of getting the enormous eggs of the ostrich,—a rich and nourishing food. Truly Arnall had exerted his wits to some purpose.
“If I succeed,” thought he, “I will give each man his due. I will own that Harrison gave me these reeds, so much stronger and more fit for arrows than the common sort. And I will thank Prest for pointing out how sharp the thigh bone of the antelope is, though he did not think of making an arrow-head of it; and Hill has the merit of the poison altogether. And then,—if the captain should say that no other man might have put these things together so ingeniously and made so good a use of them,—why, then I need not mind their laughing at me as they did last week, because I would not work in the trench. What a pity I cannot climb trees! for then I might get these eggs without any body’s help.”
Thus thinking, Arnall went out into the plain in search of game. He hid himself among some bushes till he saw a herd of buffaloes coming in sight. They ran for some way, tossing their horned heads in the air and lashing their tails; then some among them stopped to graze. Arnall determined that if a stray one came within shot, he would take aim at it; but it was long before any of the herd seem disposed to afford him the opportunity, and when they did, they seemed likely to give him too much of it. They all set off again at once, and exactly in the direction of the bushes where the sportsman lay. He knew something of what it was to be trodden and gored by a buffalo, as he had seen more than one man who had been maimed by such an accident, and had heard of the deaths of others: so when he saw the herd coming on in full trot, he had half a mind to try whether he could not really climb a tree. If he had had three minutes more, he would certainly have made the attempt; but it was now too late; and all he could do was to crouch in the thicket, and take his chance for escape. Only two entered the bushes, and they passed quickly through, and left poor Arnall breathing space again. He soon recovered from his terror; for, as we have said, he was not a timid man. Looking out upon the plain, he saw that two of the herd were again grazing, and now within bow-shot. Thinking this too good an opportunity to be lost, he let fly one of his precious arrows. It struck the animal in the flank, but was not strong enough to pierce the thick hide. It broke and fell to the ground, while the startled beast, now tossing his horns and now goring the ground beneath him, turned his flight first one way and then another, and at length followed his companions at full speed.
“There is one arrow gone to no purpose,” thought Arnall; “but I think I can recover the head. I must aim at a thinner hide next time.”
He looked for and found the fragments of his arrow, and took his station, waiting to see what game would next come by. In the course of a few hours, several flocks of ostriches passed within sight, but at a great distance. As Arnall watched these enormous birds, running swiftly with their wings outspread in the wind, like sails to help their progress, he longed to be near enough to fix an arrow in the tender part beneath the wing where it is easiest to wound them; but they kept their distance; and he was obliged to content himself with vowing a warfare against them for the sake of their eggs, if they would not let themselves be caught.
At last, he was rewarded by the approach of a troop of antelopes of the largest kind, called Elands. As he looked at their majestic form, (like that of the ox, only more slender,) and measured them with his eye, he felt that if he could secure one, he would have made a good day’s work of his hunting. Their length was, as nearly as he could measure by the eye, seven or eight feet, and their height between four and five; and he knew that the weight of each was seldom less than seven or eight hundred pounds. He counted fifteen of them, and thought it would be hard if not one of such a number should fall into his power. They came nearer, sometimes trotting all together, sometimes dispersing on the plain, and then collecting again. It seemed a wearisome time to Arnall, till, after many freaks and gambols, the whole herd began to graze very near him. He laid an arrow on the string, and disposed two more close beside him, that he might shoot one after another as quickly as possible. Whizz! went the first, and struck the nearest animal in the neck. While it was staggering away to a little distance, and before the alarm had well been given, he shot again and wounded another in the flank. The poor beast took flight, but Arnall knew that if the poison did its work, the run would be soon over. A third arrow which he despatched fell short, for the troop were making their escape full speed. Arnall came out of his hiding-place with the sort of stone-hatchet that he used for a knife, and seating himself on the head of his victims, which were quivering in the agonies of death, he cut their throats. As soon as they were quite dead, he carefully cut out all the parts round the poisoned arrow-head, and then prepared to carry home his trophies of victory. It was necessary to lose no time, if the carcasses were to be housed before night; so, severing the horns and gathering up his weapons, he hastened home. There was great joy in the settlement at his success; and Prest, the butcher, had soon formed his party, and prepared the hurdles on which the prey was to be dragged home. They took torches with them, to guard against the dangers of being benighted; and it was well they did; for the procession did not reappear till two hours after dark, and reported that the howlings of wild beasts were heard, not far off, the whole way as they were returning. Not the youngest child in the settlement went to rest that night till fires were lighted round the carcasses and the dogs set to watch.
The next day, all hands that could be spared were employed in preparing this new supply of meat for being preserved. There was a pool of very salt water in the neighbourhood—such as occurs very frequently in that part of the world—and the salt which had been procured from it by evaporation was rubbed into the meat as the butcher cut it into strips; and then the strips were hung up in the smoke of a wood fire till they were quite dry; after which they were buried in a hole in the sand, lined and well secured with stones. The honour of superintending the preparation of this game was offered to Arnall; but he declined it, asking, in preference, the favour of having George for his companion in an excursion, and the loan of a hide-sack which had been made for general use. George, who was not particularly fond of Arnall, and did not know what they were going to do, had much rather have stayed to help his father: but he felt that Arnall had earned the right of asking his assistance, and therefore willingly accompanied him.
When they were out upon the plain, Arnall looked round upon the various clumps of trees which grew here and there.
“Which is the highest, George,George,” said he, “yonder middle tree of that copse, or the straggler to the west?”
“That to the west,” answered George, “but they are neither of them fruit-trees, and they are not places likely for monkeys to lodge in.”
“I want neither monkeys nor fruit,” said Arnall. “They can be had nearer home. I want ostriches’ eggs.”
George looked puzzled, for he knew ostriches laid their eggs in the sand, far away from trees. His companion, however, explained that the ostrich is so shy a creature, that it is impossible to learn where her eggs are hid, unless she is watched from a distance, and even at that distance it must be from some place of concealment, so sharpsighted and timid are these singular birds.
“Do you get as high in the tree as you can,” said Arnall, “and watch for ostriches on all sides. If you see any one run round and round in a circle, mark the spot carefully, and when you are sure of it, come down. If the birds choose to go to a distance of their own accord and to leave the eggs (as they often do on so hot a day as this), we shall be obliged to them for saving us a deal of trouble; but if one remains sitting, I will go out with my dogs and make a hubbub, and put them all to flight. While we are pursuing them, do you take the sack and go straight to the nest, and carry off some eggs.”
“How many?” asked George.
“Why, I must tell you a little about the make of the nest. It is nothing more than a large hole in the ground, with a little bank round it, made by their scratching up the earth with their feet. Inside you will see the eggs set up on end, to save room. If there should be half a dozen or so, you may bring all; for then they can have been only just laid, and must be good eating. If you find as many as fifteen, bring away the outer circle, which will be eight or nine. If there are thirty—”
“Thirty eggs in one nest!” cried George. “I never heard of such a thing.”
“Perhaps not, because you may never before have heard of a tribe of birds whose habit is to unite in flocks that all the eggs of a flock may be laid in one nest. As I was saying, if there are as many as thirty, you will find some laid on the outside of the bank. They are the best that can be got, so bring them all, and as many of the next outer circle as you can carry.”
“And if I find any feathers,” said George, “shall I bring them too? The time may come when we shall be able to sell them to advantage. Ostrich feathers bear a good price in England at all times.”
“True,” said Arnall; “but when we deal in ostrich feathers, we must take more pains to get them than just picking them up. You will find plenty lying about the nest; but let them lie. They are good for nothing, unless it be to stuff our pillows by and by, when we come to have pillows again. The beautiful white feathers which English ladies wear must be plucked from the male ostrich. The feathers of the female are of a dark grey or black. When we get every thing comfortable about us, we will have ostrich-hunts, and sell the feathers for three or four shillings a-piece; but just now we want the eggs more by far.”
Arnall knew that a few snakes of the poisonous kind would be very acceptable to Hill; so he employed himself in looking for them in the copse, while George was swinging about at the top of the tree. There is little or no danger of a bite when people are on their guard; and the dogs having been trained to catch them, several were soon secured without difficulty, their heads cut off for a present to Hill, and the bodies put into the sack to be cooked for dinner, many people being as fond of them as of eels. Arnall was just carrying a beautiful one, lemon-coloured, and speckled with black, and five feet long, to the foot of the tree, to show to his young companion, when he saw George coming down in great haste.
“Off with you and your dogs,” said the boy.
“Which way?”
“Due east, to the left of yonder thicket, and I will follow and strip the nest presently. They are not three hundred paces off. But where’s the sack?”
Arnall pointed to the place in the copse where he had left it, whistled to his dogs, and set off at full speed. As soon as the ostriches saw him, they took flight; and as his pursuit was only a pretence, he was not too eager to observe their motions. There was something laughable in the way in which they sped along, one behind another, with their short wings and tufted tails spread, and their long legs clearing the ground as swiftly as a race-horse can follow. When they were out of sight, our sportsman whistled back his dogs, and stood to wipe his brows and look round for his companion. He could see no one, but supposed some rising of the ground might conceal the lad, or that he might be stooping after the eggs; so he walked leisurely back. Presently he came upon an ostrich’s nest, crowded with eggs, and with so many lying round the outside, that he was sure no one had meddled with it. He looked again and again, and measured the space with his eye, and calculated the direction, and after all could not make himself sure whether this was the right nest. It was not usual, he knew, for two nests to be so near together; but, if this were the one, he could not conceive the reason of George’s delay.
“He is so ready-witted and so quick-handed,” thought he, “it is impossible he should be groping for the sack all this time. I will carry off as many as I can take, and come back with him for more. I will put one of these feathers into my cap too, grey though they be, and give one to him too, for a trophy. And I do not see why these skins should not make us caps and waistcoats, under Fulton’s good management; so I shall take these dead beasts into the shade and skin them.”
The beasts he spoke of were a jackal and two wild cats, which had ventured near the nest for eggs in the night, and had apparently been crushed to death by a blow from the foot of the cock-ostrich, whose office it is to keep guard at night. Arnall tied them together by the tails, and slung them over his shoulder, and carried also three eggs, which were as many as he could manage without a sack; for they were each as large as a pumpkin. All the way as he went, he whistled aloud and shouted, but could see and hear nothing of George.
When he entered the shade of the copse, his heart misgave him, for at last he began to fear some accident had happened. Before he had advanced many paces, he saw the poor lad lying on his back, his face expressive of great suffering, and one of his legs swollen to an enormous size. His countenance brightened a little when Arnall appeared.
“I thought you would not go home without coming back to see what had become of me,” he said.
“And what has happened to you, my poor boy?” said his companion. “Have you been bitten by a snake, or a scorpion, or what?”
“By a horned-snake,” said George, “I did not see him till I was close upon him, so that I could not get away: so I tried to kill him as the natives do; but he struggled hard and slipped his neck from under my foot; and before I could get him down again, he bit me in the calf of my leg. I did kill him at last, and yonder he lies; but do you know, Mr. Arnall, I think he has killed me too!”
Arnall was too much grieved to speak. He examined the wound, and tried to ease the swollen limb by cutting off the trowser which confined it. He gathered some leaves of a particular plant, and bruised them, and applied them to the part, as he had seen the natives do on such an occasion, and then told George that he would carry him home as fast as possible.
“Can you carry me three miles?” said George. “I do not feel as if I could help myself at all, but I will try. I should like to see father and mother again.”
“They shall come to you if we cannot reach home,” replied Arnall; “but let us try without losing more time. I want that Hill should see your leg.”
“There“There would be little use in that,” said poor George, faintly, as, on trying to sit up, he felt sick and dizzy.
“Put your arm round my neck, and I will lift you up,” said Arnall; but George did not move. His companion put the arm over his shoulder; but it fell again. George seemed insensible.—Arnall made one more trial.
“Will you not make an effort to see your mother?”
George opened his eyes, raised himself, and made a sort of spring upon his companion’s shoulder, and then laid his head down, clinging with all his remaining strength. Arnall used all the speed he could with so heavy a burden, and was comforted by finding that either the air or the motion seemed to rouse the poor patient, who appeared better able to keep his hold, and even spoke from time to time.
“Mr. Arnall!” said he.
“Well, George.”
“There is a thing I want to tell you about making arrows. Bring me a reed when you put me down, and I will shew you how the natives barb them. I meant to have made the first myself, but as I can’t, I will teach you.”
“Thank you: but do not tire yourself with talking.”
After a while, however, George began again.
“Do you know, Mr. Arnall, I think when the crops are got in, and the houses built, and some cattle in the fields again, you will have the Bushmen down upon you some night?”
“Well, we have sent for arms and powder from Cape Town.”
“I know: but they will be of no use if every body is asleep. I meant to ask to be a watchman with as many as would join me, and to take it in turn, three or four every night. I wish you would see it done, and have all the boys taught to fire a gun.”
Arnall promised, and again urged him to be silent.
“I will, when I have said one other thing about my mother. I wish you would tell her——”
Here his head drooped on Arnall’s shoulder, and presently, being unable to hold on any longer, he fell gently on the grass, and his companion saw with grief, that it was impossible to move him farther.
“The dogs will stay and take care of you, George,” said he, “while I run for your parents and Hill. I will be back the first moment I can. Here; I will put the sack under your head for a pillow. In less than an hour you will see us. God bless you!”
“Stay one moment,” said George. “Tell little Mary the whistle I promised to make her is just finished, and it lies in the hollow of the chestnut-tree,—call it my cupboard and she will know.”
“All this will do when I come back,” said Arnall, who was impatient to be gone. He wiped the boy’s moist forehead and kissed it. George pressed his hand and whispered:
“Let me say one thing more, only this one. If my father had seen you do that, he would never call you proud again; and if you would only play with Mary Stone sometimes, and speak a little kinder to dame Fulton, you can’t think what a difference it would make. Do, for my sake. I want them to know how kind you are, and I do not think I shall live to tell them. You are not crying for me, surely? No; ’tis for mother. God bless you for those tears, then! Good bye, Mr. Arnall.”
Arnall looked back once or twice, and then George feebly waved his hand.
As many as were near enough to hear the sad news Arnall brought to the settlement followed with those he came to seek. They made all speed; but the whining of the dogs as they approached made them fear that they were too late. It was indeed so, though at the first moment it seemed doubtful whether George was not asleep. One arm was about the neck of his favourite Rover. The other hand was over his eyes, as if the light had been too much for him. He did not move when the dog was released. He never moved again.
The death of George Prest was lamented as a public misfortune in the settlement; for he was not only a dutiful son and an amiable companion, but one of the most ready and industrious of the labourers for the community. A sudden damp seemed to be cast over all the plans and doings of the little society by this event, and the affairs which had been most interesting in the morning had lost their interest by night.—The water flowed into the finished trenches, and no one looked on but the one labourer and Mr. Stone who finished the work; and when, the next morning, the young corn which had been parched and withered began already to show signs of revival, no one smiled at this promise of fruitfulness. The little company walked in silence to their cave at night, and seemed unwilling to be roused by the dawn. The fathers grasped the hands of their children, as if some danger was at hand; and it was long before any mother in the settlement would allow her little ones to go out of her sight. It was an affecting thing to observe how George was missed by every body;—a sure sign what a valuable member of society he had been. His father and mother mourned him in silence, but the little children, who could not be made to understand what had happened, were continually asking for him.
“I want George. Where is George?” was the daily complaint of little Mary and some of her playmates; and long after they had become accustomed to his absence, and had ceased to mention him, his older friends felt the same want, though they did not express it. The captain himself often said in his heart, “I wish George was here.”
As the captain was going his rounds a few days after the funeral, he stopped to look on while Harrison worked at the reed-house. Harrison looked grave,—almost sulky.
“I’ll tell you what, captain,” said he, “it is too bad to expect so much of me as you seem to do. Unless I have more help, I shall never get a roof over our heads before the rains come. ’Tis a folly to expect it.”
“That is just what I was thinking about,” said the captain. “Mr. Stone told me this morning that the wind has changed a little, and that he thinks we shall be in for the rainy season ten days hence. What help would you like?”
“As much as ever you can spare me,” answered Harrison. “If we had half a dozen hands, the work would go on a dozen times as fast, for I lose much of my time in turning from one thing to another, and so does my man. Before he has brought reeds enough, I want them made up in bundles to my hand; and before he has tied three or four bundles, he wants more thongs. And then again the clay might be drying on the parts that are done if it was ready, and somebody was here to plaster; and if I set about that, I am directly told that the first thing to be done is to cover in the part that is reared, in case of the rains coming; but then the wood (whatever it is to be) for the roof is not ready, nor yet the thatch: and so we go on.”
“I was sorry,” said the captain, “to call off the men I promised you at first; but the trench was the great object, you know. Now that is finished; and I hope the folks will be home from the hunt to-night, and then you shall have as much help as you wish for.”
Harrison touched his cap, and hoped no offence from his manner of speaking; but it wounded him, he said, to think how he had lost the little help he had. It was poor George who had worked the clay, and who had plastered the chief part of the wall that was done.
The captain himself took up the spade that lay idle, and watered and worked the clay till he was called away; and this, and the prospect of more help to-morrow, put Harrison into good humour again.
The hunt, of which the captain spoke, proved grandly successful. As there were neither horses nor guns, and a very few dogs, it could scarcely be called a hunt, in comparison with many which take place in that country. All that could be done was to alarm the herds of buffaloes and antelopes with noise, and so to echo the din as to drive the animals towards the pits which had been dug and carefully covered over, that they might not be observed by the prey. On they rushed; and though some seemed to escape the traps by a hair’s breadth, others fell in: and when one herd after another had been driven over the ground till dark, it was found that out of seven pits which had been prepared, five had caught a prey. The huntsmen then lighted their torches, and proceeded to examine their gains; two or three of them with secret hopes that they might find a stray horse or two out of a small number they had seen crossing the plain in the morning. As it does not appear that there is now a breed of wild horses at the Cape (though it is supposed there formerly was), these were probably once the property of settlers in some neighbouring district, who had either lost them after turning them out to feed on the mountains, or had set them free on quitting their settlement. However it might be, these horses appeared of so elegant a form, and so rapid and even in their paces, that our hunters could not but long to have them in possession; and their wishes were partly gratified. A fine grey mare was found in one of the traps. The fear was that she might have been injured by the fall; and great was the anxiety of the lookers on till, one noose being securely slipped over her head, and another prepared for her fore-legs, she was got out of the pit. She appeared to be unhurt, and sound in every part, and began to neigh when she felt herself on open ground again, as if she would have called all her companions round her. One only answered her; her own foal, which came bounding to her, fearless of all the enemies at hand. He was presently secured, and this valuable prey led home. In three of the other pits they found three antelopes, which were led home for stock, and in the fourth a buffalo. He alone was destined for slaughter. He was slain and removed at once, that the pits might again be covered over for the chance of a further prey. It was very late before the whole was finished; but it was a satisfaction that most of the hands thus employed would be at liberty for other work the next day.
Before they slept, the captain and Mr. Stone had a consultation on a matter of increasing importance.
“I am afraid,” said the captain, “we are on a wrong plan. Indeed, I hope to find we are, for unless some change can be made in our mode of operation, I shall be quite at a loss to know what answer to make to all the entreaties for help in the works we have in hand. Our people seem to think I can command labour to any extent.”
“All governors,” said Mr. Stone, “are supposed to have boundless resources, and are doomed to disappoint their subjects. You only pay the regular tax for your dignity. But do you think there is a proper economy of labour in our society?”
“That is what I want to consult you about. I think not. I think we have too many undertakings at once for our number of hands.”
“It has occurred to me,” said Mr. Stone, “that we should get on faster by putting all our strength into one task at a time, than by having a dozen at once on hand, with little prospect of finishing them. Look how poor Harrison frets over his building; and well he may. The weather is beginning to change, and instead of having three sheds, I doubt whether we shall have one finished by the time the rains come on.”
The captain here interrupted him with an account of what had passed in the morning; and it was agreed that building should now be the first object.
“I could not help thinking,” said Mr. Stone, “that the women and children set us a good example as to the wisdom of saving labour, when they laid their own little plans for doing their appointed tasks. Have you observed the boys making their bows and arrows, and other weapons?”
“I saw by the number they made that they must be proceeding on a good plan. What was it?”
“The first day,” said Mr. Stone, “they sat down, each by himself under a tree, to cut his piece of wood the right length and thickness for his bow. It was weary work with any tool but the hatchet, which was lent them while it was not wanted for other purposes. There was but one hatchet among three, after all; so while Joe used it, little Tommy stood by waiting. He would not go to seek reeds for arrows like John, because he expected every moment that he might have the hatchet; so there he stood, with the wood in his hand, winking at every stroke of the hatchet, and looking disappointed as often as Joe shook his head and began again. At last, he got possession of it; but he was very awkward, and first chopped his wood too short, and then shaved it too thin; and by the time he had spoiled one piece, John came up and wanted the tool. ‘Presently,’ said Tommy; and in his hurry he split the next piece all the way up, so that it was fit for nothing. Then he lost his patience, and cried out, ‘I wish you would look and see what Joe is doing, instead of staring at me in that manner.’ So John turned to observe his friend Joe.
“And what was Joe doing?”
“He was getting on little better than Tommy. The next thing to be done was to twist the gut for the bow-string—an easy task enough: but Joe’s hand shook so with using the hatchet, that he could scarcely fasten the ends ready to twist. Besides this, it was all uneven and knotty, and not fit to be used at last. ‘Dear me,’ said Tommy, coming to see, while he fanned himself with his cap and took breath, ‘I can twist a bow-string better than that any day.’ ‘Well, then,’ said Joe, ‘I wish you would do my job for me, and I will do yours for you.’ ‘And while your hand is in,’ said John, ‘you may as well do mine too, and I will make your arrows; for that is a sort of work I am accustomed to.’”
“A good bargain,” observed the captain.
“Indeed, they found it so; for instead of wounding themselves and spoiling their materials and losing time by going from one kind of work to another, they each did what he could do best, and thus made a great saving of time and labour. The three bows were finished so soon, that the little lads were inclined to make more to change away for something they wished for; and they have set up a regular manufactory under the great oak. There is a block for Joe to chop upon; and a hook for Tommy to fasten his bow-strings to; and a sharp stone fixed into a chink, for John to point and barb his reeds with.”
“So with them the division of labour has led to the invention of machinery,” said the captain.
“A certain consequence,” replied his friend. “Men, women, and children, are never so apt at devising ways of easing their toils as when they are confined to one sort of labour, and have to give their attention wholly to it. That puts me in mind of what our ladies are doing.”
“What is that?”
“They have divided their labour according to their talents or habits, and daily find the advantages of such a plan. My wife was telling me how little she could get done while she had to turn from her cooking to her sewing, and from her sewing to take charge of the children when they strayed into the wood.”
“It was a new sort of sewing and a new sort of cooking,” said the captain, “and I dare say it was some time before she got her hand in, as we say.”
“To be sure; and it is clear that if each person had only one new method to practise, and was not disturbed when once her hand was in, the work of every kind would go on faster. My wife’s neighbours found that she used the porcupine’s quill—her new needle—and the threads of flax more handily than they; so they offered to do her other work, if she would mend their own and their husbands’ clothes. She was very willing, because she could thus keep our little girl always beside her. The child is too young, you know, to play in the wood with the others.”
“And what becomes of them?”
“Kate goes with them to take care of them; and while she watches their play, she plats dry grass to make hats for us all. She is a neat and quick hand at this, and it is a work which can be done as she goes from place to place. By the time the sun shines out again after the rains, there will be a large light straw hat for each labourer—a very good thing in such a climate.”
“I wondered,” said the captain, “what made Robertson steal away into the wood so often, so steady a workman as he is; and I thought it was a new fancy in him to have some pretty wild flower in his hat or his breast when he came again.”
“I dare say the lovers do not turn off less work on the whole,” said Mr. Stone, “for these few moments’ chat during the day. Did you not observe that he is the first man in the settlement who has had a straw hat?”
“I did. Well: who undertakes the cooking?”
“Mrs. Prest; whose husband helps her with the management of the oven and the more laborious parts of her business. Then little Betsy and her mother are our housemaids. They stay behind when we leave the cave in the morning, and sweep it out, and strew fresh rushes, and pile the wood for the night fire. And between this division of labour and the little contrivances to which it gives occasion, we are certainly better waited on and taken care of by our wives and companions than if each had to do all the offices of one household.”
“True: and as long as we cannot have the comfort of a private home to each family, such a division is wise in every way. But it will not be long before the state of things will change.”
“Even then,” said Mr. Stone, “it will be desirable to continue the same plan till labour becomes less precious than it will be to us for months to come. When each family has a house, let each family eat in private; but why should not the cooking go on as at present? There will soon be baking to do in addition, and an increase of labour in proportion to our increased means of comfort: so that we must spare labour to the utmost till we can get a stock of labourers who do not require to be fed and taken care of.”
“You mean machines.”
“I mean, in the first place, the tools which will soon be on their way from Cape Town, and which will be our simple machinery and, in the next place, the more complicated machinery which those tools will make. When we get such a fund of labour as this at our command, we may begin to indulge in the luxury of having everything within our houses done for us by those we love best, and according to our own fancy. Our society must be much richer, one and all, than now, before I think of having one of my wife’s Dorsetshire pies, made by her own neat hands, and baked in an oven of our own.”
“There must be an extensive division of labour,” said the captain, “before even that single dish can be prepared. To say nothing of what has already been done in our fields in fencing, ploughing, sowing, and trenching, there is much work remaining in reaping, threshing, and grinding, before you can have the flour. Then the meat for your pie is still grazing, and must be brought home and slaughtered and cut up. Then the salt must be got from the lake yonder; and the pepper,—what will you do for pepper?”
“The pepper must come from over the sea; and only think of all the labour that will cost: the trouble of those who grow and prepare it in another land, the boxes in which it is packed, the ship in which it is conveyed, the waggon which brings it from Cape Town; all these things are necessary to afford us pepper for our plainest pies.”
“And how much more would a plum-pudding cost! The flour and the butter may be had near home; but the sugar must be brought from one country, and the raisins from another, and the spice from a third, and the brandy from a fourth. There could be no plum-puddings without such a division of labour as it almost confuses one to think of.”
“No, indeed; for we must consider, moreover, the labour which has been spent in providing the means of producing and conveying the things which make a plum-pudding. Think of the toil of preparing the vineyards where the raisins grow; of the smith and the carpenter who made the press where the grapes are prepared, and of the miner, the smelter, the founder, the furnace-builder, the bricklayer, and others who helped to make their tools, and the feller of wood, the grower of hemp, the rope-makers, the sail-makers, the ship-builders, the sailors who must do their part towards bringing the fruit to our shores. And then—”
“Nay, stop,” said the captain laughing; “you have said quite enough to show that it would cost more than the toil of a man’s whole life to make a plum-pudding without the division of labour which renders it so easy a matter to any cook in England. I have heard it said that the breakfast of an English washerwoman has cost the labour of many hundred hands; and I believe it. If we think of nothing but the tea and the sugar, we may fairly say this; for the one comes from the East Indies and the other from the West, and innumerable are the hands which have been engaged in growing and preparing and conveying them to the table of an English kitchen. Our countrymen little think how much the poorest of them owes to this grand principle of the division of labour.”
“They little think,” added Mr. Stone, “how many kings and princes of countries less favoured than theirs would be glad to exchange their heaps of silver and gold for the accommodations of an English day-labourer. Many a sovereign, who covers himself and his courtiers with jewels, or who has absolute power over the lives and liberties of a million of people, could not, if he would, have anything better than a mat or a skin to sleep on: he could not, if he would, have anything better than a wooden trencher to eat off, or the shell of a large nut to drink out of; and as to what he eats and drinks, he might give the wealth of his kingdom in vain for any thing so good as a plum-pudding, or a Dorsetshire pie, or a breakfast of tea and toast. And all this, because he and his people know nothing about the division of labour.”
“Well,” said the captain, “we are not yet in a condition to have tea and toast; but we will try to-morrow what a division of labour will do towards rearing a house over our heads.”
“And next,” said Mr. Stone, “in getting some earthenware utensils. I see Harrison is in a hurry to begin his pottery. I tell him that we can eat off wooden trenchers for a while; but I believe we shall be glad to have a better draught than we can fetch with the palms of our hands.”
A rapid improvement took place in the affairs of the settlement within three months. An abundant supply of food being secured by the getting in of the harvest, the most efficient labour of the society was directed towards the procuring of the domestic comforts for which every man, woman, and child of them was beginning to pine. Their condition at this time may be best described by giving a picture of a sick-room, inhabited, alas! by Mrs. Stone, who had fallen ill of a fever in consequence of over-exertion, and of anxiety for her husband and for the poor little girl who had appeared too young and tender for the hardships of a settler’s life. Mr. Stone, however, had suffered nothing beyond temporary fatigue; and the little girl was taken so much care of by every body, that she throve as well as she could have done under any circumstances. The warmest corner of the cave and the softest bed of dry grass had been set apart for this child. Little Mary was presented with a straw-hat by Kate before her lover’s was even begun; and it was made large enough to protect her delicate skin as well as to shade her eyes from the glare of the sun. The first draught that was milked from the antelope was brought to little Mary; and dame Fulton tied a charm round her neck to prevent her being wounded by any venomous reptile. Nobody, to be sure, thought this of any use but the dame herself; but as the child was never stung by any thing worse than midges, the old lady appealed triumphantly to fact in defence of her charm. The men used to carry Mary on their shoulders to the wood and hold her up to gather an orange or a bunch of grapes; and then the fruit was brought to the captain or Mary’s papa as the little girl’s gift. Then the boys had a tame monkey, and they taught Mary how to play with it without teasing it; and they trained one of the dogs to carry the little girl while one of the older lads held her on; and she generally took a ride every morning and every evening, before and after work; and being thus carefully tended and so well amused, little Mary grew fat and strong, and her papa found, as regularly as Sunday came about, (for he could not be much with her on other days,) that she had learned to do something which she could not do the week before. At last, Mrs. Stone ceased to be anxious about her child, and then she fell it herself. It was not a dangerous illness; but it was a tedious time to herself, and a very uneasy one to her husband, who sighed for many comforts on her account that he would never have cared for on his own. She tried continually to console him, and often pointed out her many blessings, and expressed her thankfulness for the care that was taken of her. Mr.her. Mr. Hill who was not very sorry to have a patient once more, was experienced as well as attentive. He was a good deal put out at first at having neither phials nor gallipots to send in to his patient, for he had been accustomed to think them as essential to a sick-room as the medicines themselves: but when he found that the lady slept as well after taking her draught out of a coarse earthen pipkin as if it had been brought, duly labelled, in a phial, he began to think, as she did, that it was a fine thing to have medicine at all in such a situation, and that his importance was wholly independent of the furniture of his surgery.
It was a happy circumstance that the removal from the cave had taken place before Mrs. Stone’s illness began. She was lodged in the largest of the three reed-houses which had been built, and each of which had been partitioned off into apartments for the families of the settlement. The invalid had the middlemost one, as being the coolest. A very good bed had been made by sewing up a soft hide into a bag and filling it with chaff. This was laid in one corner, on a frame supported by blocks of wood, the second bottom being made of hide in the absence of sacking. It is too dangerous to lie on the ground in places where venomous insects may enter. The covering of the bed was a light, flexible mat, woven by Kate’s neat hands. A shelf of wood rested on tressels, within reach of the patient, on which stood a rude earthenware plate of figs and grapes, and a basin of cooling drink pressed from the sweet orange, and flavoured with its fragrant rind. There was a cupboard, stored with little dainties sent in by the neighbours to tempt the appetite of the sick lady:—sweetmeats, made of various fruits and honey; cakes of wheat and other flour with orange peel, honey, and seeds of various flavour; and abundance of broth, jelly, and other preparations of animal food. The only comfort the lady wanted was that of books; but as she knew it was impossible at present to procure them, she said nothing of her wish. Her neighbours were very kind in coming to see her and amuse her with accounts of all that was going on; and her husband spent by her side whatever time his other duties allowed. She had also a well-stored mind, and was thankful to be able to interest herself again in what she had read when she had little idea that she should ever be debarred from books. But with all these resources, she could not help sighing now and then for one favourite volume or another that might improve her knowledge and occupy her attention.
One day when she was sitting up, and when her husband was sure she was so much better as to be able to see a new face without too much fatigue, he brought the captain to pay her a visit.
“Why, really,” said he, when he began to look round him, “though this is not exactly the way one would furnish a sick-room if one had the choice, it is surprising how comfortable this place has been made.”
“I assure you,” said Mrs. Stone, “I have wanted for nothing really necessary, and have had many luxuries. I do not believe I should have recovered a day sooner if I had had the best room in the best house in England.”
“Every thing needful for bodily comfort has been furnished,” said her husband; “but it has been a daily regret to me that we could not supply you with the independent enjoyment of books. If we could, you would have been spared many a tedious hour when I was obliged to be away from you.”
“I have certainty felt enough of this,” said his wife, “to be more than ever sensible that, though it is a most desirable thing that the external comforts of life should be provided for every body, these comforts are after all only means to a higher end.end. When we have all that can be obtained in that way, we remain unsatisfied unless there be pursuits to occupy the mind.”
“It is as a pursuit occupying the mind,” observed her husband, “that productive industry is chiefly valuable. It has another object,—to place us in a condition fit for a further and better pursuit: and if we stop short when we have secured the requisite leisure and comfort, we stop short of what we were made for.”
“I am rather afraid of our people mistaking the means for the end,” said Mrs. Stone. “They know that they are doing their duty—that they are employed to the best possible purpose at present, in providing for the support and comfort of themselves and their families; and the pursuit itself keeps their minds active, and therefore makes them happy. But I am afraid of their going on to make this their only object, when they ought to be reaching forward to something better. In a few months we shall have stores of whatever we want; and it would be a pity to forget all we have learned from books and seen in the world, for the sake of heaping up more food and clothing than we can possibly use.”
“You need not fear, madam,” said the captain. “Our people are already thinking of trading with the next settlement, and even with Cape Town. I should not wonder if in five years we have a flourishing commerce, exchanging our productions for the manufactures of England. If we should go on working till we have a regular town of brick or stone houses, and roads and bridges, and periodical conveyances to and from Cape Town, with all the new objects which would be introduced by these means, you would no longer fear our people’s not having a sufficient variety of pursuits, would you?”