- tion. And yet nothing can be more attractive than the
land about Bathurst, either in regard to picturesque situation or fertility. The same may be said of the other bank of this river. It is impossible to imagine a fairer district to a farmer's eye. It will grow wheat, but it will also grow on the slopes of the hills, cotton and coffee. It is all possessed, and generally all cultivated;—but it can hardly be said to be inhabited by white men, so few are they and so far-between. A very large proportion of the land is let out to Kafirs who pay a certain sum for certain rights and privileges. He is to build his hut and have enough land to cultivate for his own purposes, and grass enough for his cattle;—and for these he contracts to pay perhaps £10 per annum, or more, or less, according to circumstances. I was assured that the rent is punctually paid. But this mode of disposing of the land, excellent for all purposes as it is, has not arisen of choice but of necessity. The white farmer knows that as yet he can have no security if he himself farms on a large scale. Next year there may be another scare, and then a general attack from the Kafirs; or the very scare if there be no attack, frightens away his profits;—or, as has happened before, the attack may come without the scare. The country is a European country,—belongs that is to white men,—but it is full of Kafirs;—and then, but a hundred miles away to the East, is Kafraria Proper where the British law does not rule even yet.
No one wants to banish the Kafirs. Situated as the country is and will be, it cannot exist without Kafirs, because the Kafirs are the only possible labourers. To
