There was no difficulty at first in subjecting to proper control the broken, dispirited bands of refugees, who sought shelter, food, and protection in Natal; and if right methods had been adopted, one of the finest races of the African continent would have been raised from a state of loathsome degradation to one of civilization—saved from heathenism themselves to become coadjutors with the white races in raising the country to real prosperity. In place of this, the cruel slavery of polygamy was permitted, which allows the men to live in independent idleness by means of the severe drudgery of their oppressed wives. Grossly impure and inhuman laws and practices, including the vile superstitions of witchcraft, were tolerated and allowed. No country could advance under such circumstances, and the colony of Natal, therefore, remains at the present day what it has always been—immeasurably behind the Cape of Good Hope; a land of samples in which nothing really succeeds, and where sugar, which forms its principal export, is even now a doubtful experiment, on which labour imported from India at enormous cost has to be employed; a lovely country, whose fertility is almost as great as its beauty, but cursed by a most unchristian, wicked, and foolish system of government, so far as the great bulk of the population is concerned. It would have been very easy at the outset to establish comparatively small locations, presided over by British magistrates, who would have administered justice according to British law. If, in addition, title-deeds had been given in such a manner as to give individual rights, then, in the words of the Rev. W. C. Holden,[9] the large number of natives within the colony might have been converted into men who would take a real interest in the country and soil, for the defence of which they would fight and die. They would have become a strong wall of defence against the Zulu on the east, and the Amaxosa on the west, instead of a source of continual danger and alarm.[10] Slavery was abolished everywhere throughout the British dominions, with the one exception of Natal. There 50,000 women were sold for wives to the highest bidder, as horses, cattle, and goods at an auction mart, under the special sanction and special arrangement of the Queen's Government.