constitute the central thread in the annals
of the country. As that of 1852 recognised the Transvaal State, so from
that of 1854, which is a more explicit and complete declaration of
independence than had been accorded to the Transvaal people two years
before, dates the beginning of the second Boer republic, the Orange
Free State, which, subsequently increased by the conquest from the
Basutos of a strip of fertile territory in the south, has ever since
remained perfectly independent and at peace with the British colonies.
Its only serious troubles have arisen from native wars, and these have
long ago come to an end. In 1854 an assembly of delegates enacted for it
the republican constitution under which it has ever since been quietly
and peaceably governed. It had the good fortune to elect, as its
president, in 1865, a lawyer from Cape Colony, of Dutch extraction, Mr.
(afterwards Sir) John Brand, who guided its course with great tact and
wisdom for twenty-four years, and whose favourite expression, "All shall
come right," now inscribed on his tombstone at Bloemfontein, has become
throughout South Africa a proverbial phrase of encouragement in moments
of difficulty.[22]

Beyond the Vaal river things have gone very differently. The farmers of
that region were more scattered, more rude and uneducated, and more
prone to factious dissensions than those of the Free State proved to be
after 1854; and while the latter were compressed within definite
boundaries on three sides, the Transvaal Boers were scattered over a
practically limitless area. During the next twenty-five years the
Transvaal people had very little to do with the British government. But
they were distracted by internal feuds, and involved in almost incessant
strife with the natives. These two sources of trouble brought their
government, in 1877, to a condition of virtual collapse. But that
collapse and the annexation which followed it belong to a later phase of
South African history, and we must now turn from them to trace the
progress of events in other parts of the country between 1852 and 1877.

[Footnote 16: The best recent account of the doings of the Portuguese is
to be found in Dr. Theal's book, _The Portuguese in South Africa_,
published in 1896.]

[Footnote 17: I have heard from Lord Wolseley that in his expedition
against Sikukuni, a Kafir chief in the north-east of the Transvaal, he
was told by a German trader who acted as guide that the natives had