The story of the trekkers is one of surpassing interest, and must
enlist for them the sympathy and unbounded admiration of all.

By the middle of the year 1837 there were over one thousand waggons
between the Caledon and Vaal rivers--truly a notable and alarming
exodus; and the Boers then began the work of carving out new
countries for themselves. Their history surpasses all fiction in its
vicissitudes, successes, and tragedies. They fought and worked and
trekked, onward, always onward--never returning--on beyond the
furthermost outposts of civilization.

And so the story rolls on, gaining pathos, but losing no whit of
interest from its eternal sameness. They fought, and worked, and
starved, and died for their land of promise, where they might hope to
be alone, like the simple people of their one Book; where they might
never know the hated British rule; where they might never experience
the forms and trammels, the restlessness and changes, the worries,
the necessities or benefits, of progressing civilization. Their
quarrel had been with the abuses and blunders of one Government; but
a narrow experience moved them to mistrust all but their own pastoral
patriarchal way, moulded on the records of the Bible, and to regard
the evidences of progress as warnings of coming oppression and
curtailment of liberty, and a departure from the simple and ideal
way. The abuses from which they suffered are no more; the methods
which were unjust have been abandoned; the ignorance of the ruler has
been dispelled; in place of despotism there is autonomy; justice
rules where ignorance and bias sat; liberty where there was
interference; protection for oppression; progress and civilization
have increased as in no other epoch; and the nation and Government
from which they severed themselves have taken their place in the very