ad to resent, and endeavoured
justly, though impotently, to avenge a series of encroachments"
(despatch of the 26th of December 1835). This attitude towards the
Kaffirs was one of the many reasons given by the Trek Boers for leaving
Cape Colony. The Great Trek, as it is called, lasted from 1836 to 1840,
the trekkers, who numbered about 7000, founding communities with a
republican form of government beyond the Orange and Vaal rivers, and in
Natal, where they had been preceded, however, by British emigrants. From
this time Cape Colony ceased to be the only civilized community in South
Africa, though for long it maintained its predominance. Up to 1856 Natal
was, in fact, a dependency of the Cape (see SOUTH AFRICA). Considerable
trouble was caused by the emigrant Boers on either side of the Orange
river, where the new comers, the Basutos and other Kaffir tribes,
Bushmen and Griquas contended for mastery. The Cape government
endeavoured to protect the rights of the natives. On the advice of the
missionaries, who exercised great influence with all the non-Dutch
races, a number of native states were recognized and subsidized by the
Cape government, with the object--not realized--of obtaining peace on
this northern frontier. The first of these "Treaty States" recognized
was that of the Griquas of Griqualand West. Others were recognized in
1843 and 1844--in the last-named year a treaty was made with the Pondoes
on the eastern border. During this period the condition of affairs on
the eastern frontier was deplorable, the government being unable or
unwilling to afford protection to the farmers from the depredations of
the Kaffirs. Elsewhere, however, the colony was making progress. The
change from slave to free labour proved to be advantageous to the
farmers in the western provinces; an efficient educational system, which
owed its initiation to Sir John Herschel, the astronomer (who lived in
Cape Colony from 1834 to 1838), was adopted; Road Boards were
established and did much good work; to the staple industries--the
growing of wheat, the rearing of cattle and the making of wine--was
added sheep-raising; and by 1846 wool became the most valuable export
from the country. The creation, in 1835, of a legislative council, on
which unofficial members had seats, was the first step in giving the
colonists a share in the government.

_The War of the Axe_.--Another war with the Kaffirs broke out in 1846
and was known as the War of the Axe,