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Hans had invited all or any of the Brook family to visit his father's farm on the karroo. Gertie catching a cold, or in some other way becoming feeble, wanted a change of air. Her father, recalling the invitation, and happening to know that Hans was in Grahamstown at the time, drove her over with Mrs Scholtz and Junkie to make the thing proper, and offered a visit of all three.
This was in the Amakosa country, lying between the Grahamstown settlement and Port Natal, and to the present day unannexed, though even then there were traders' stations at intervals, so filthy and wretched as to be little above the huts of the natives.
Possessing a remnant of their means when they gave up farming, two of the brothers, James and Robert, established a small general store in Grahamstown, while John and Frank set up a joint waggon and took to hunting and trading on a large scale.
I suppose this was inevitable; true hospitality is a plant which seldom survives the hot stress of the struggle for riches. Grahamstown was our destination, so an ox-wagon of the largest size and with a team to match was hired to convey us and our belongings to the city, which has since become so celebrated as the abode of saints.
Early on the morning of the 22nd April 1819 this singular man led his force of 9000 sable warriors towards Grahamstown, and the affair had been conducted with so great secrecy that the few troops there were almost taken by surprise. Enemies in the camp are always to be more dreaded than open foes.
The first Cape newspaper, the South African Commercial Advertiser, edited by Pringle the poet and Fairbairn, was published in 1824, and the Grahamstown Journal, the first Eastern Province newspaper, was issued by Mr Godlonton in 1831. Schools were also established. Wool-growing began to assume an importance which was a premonition of the future staple of the Eastern Provinces.
Nor were these the only instances of organised and assisted emigration. In 1820 a substantial settlement, financed by government, was made in the eastern part of Cape Colony, in the region of Grahamstown and Port Elizabeth, and this brought the first considerable body of British inhabitants into South Africa, hitherto almost exclusively Dutch.
Through a mutual friend, Lorenzo Boyes, Acting Civil Commissioner of the District, the pebble came to the notice of an expert mineralogist named Atherstone at Grahamstown, but it was held so lightly in esteem by the sender that it reached Atherstone as an enclosure in an ordinary unregistered letter.
The sky is brightening at last; the sun of prosperity will rise in the `east' ere long!" In Grahamstown itself the bustle and excitement culminated. Friends from the country were naturally stirred by meeting each other there, besides being additionally affected by the object of the meeting.
The Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord." Her mother sat up looking at him reproachfully with her blue eyes, and answered in her soft Scotch accent: "You said that to me before, John, when the other one went, down at Grahamstown, and I am tired of hearing it. Don't ask me to bless the Lord when He takes my babes, no, nor any mother, He Who could spare them if He chose.
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