What is still more strange, however, is that the colonists, having
regard to the position they occupy with reference to the Kafirs that
surround them, to whom they bear the same relative proportion that the
oases do in the desert, or the islands of an archipelago to the ocean
that washes their shores, should wish for such a dangerous boon as that
of self-government, if indeed they really do wish it. When I lived in
Natal, I often heard the subject discussed, and watched the Legislative
Council pass its periodical resolutions about it, but I confess I always
looked on the matter as being more or less of a farce. There exists,
however, in Natal a knot of politicians who are doubtless desirous
of the change, partly because they think that it would be really
beneficial, and partly because they are possessed by a laudable ambition
to fill the high positions of Prime Minister, Treasurer, &c., in the
future Parliament. But these gentlemen for the most part live in towns,
where they are comparatively safe should a native rising occur. I have
not noticed the same enthusiasm for responsible government among those
Natalians who live up country in the neighbourhood of the locations.

Still there does exist a considerable party who are in favour of the
change, a party that has recently sprung into existence. Many things
have occurred within the last few years to irritate and even exasperate
people in Natal with the Imperial Government, and generally with the
treatment that they have received at our hands. For instance, colonists
are proverbially sensitive, and it is therefore rather hard that every
newspaper correspondent or itinerant bookmaker who comes to their
shores, should at once proceed to print endless letters and books
abusing them without mercy. The fact of the matter is that these
gentlemen come, and put up at the hotels and pot-shops, where they meet
all the loafers and bad characters in the country, whom they take to be