equitable claim for the 39,000 slaves to be set free. Additional irritation was felt when it was found that the certificates for compensation were made payable in London only, so that most of the Cape slave-holders were forced to sell them to speculators at a heavy discount. Many farmers were impoverished by the change, and labor became so scarce and dear that it was impossible to carry on agriculture to profit. Serious enough was the summing up of the causes that made for the disruption of the Dutch and the English classes in Cape Colony. Hitherto the Africanders had been able to indulge their love of independence by living apart from the centers of organized government. But now they had come under the conquering hand of an alien and masterful people; they had been sold for money by their mother country; they had been treated with undue sharpness and cruelty—as witness the atrocity of Schlachter’s Nek; they had been spied upon and denounced by the missionaries; they had been forced to transact all their official and legal business in a foreign language which few of them understood; the savage native blacks had been put on a level with them; their victory over the Kaffirs at the cost of much blood had been rendered fruitless by the interference of the home government; and now their slave property, which they had acquired under law, had been taken away without adequate compensation, and the further practice of slavery had been interdicted. Rebellion against the power of Great Britain was hopeless and not to be thought of. But they could go out into the wilderness and begin life anew where they could follow the independent pastoral pursuits they preferred, enjoy the isolation and solitude they loved, preserve all their ancient customs, and deal with whatever native people they might find there in their own way, untrammeled by the English who had undertaken to govern them on principles which they could neither understand nor approve. Then began the “Great Trek” of 1836—the Africander secession and exodus, leaving their former country to the possession of the English, and seeking towards the north for a country wherein they would be free according to their own ideals of liberty.