Sad scenes of distress among the unsettled farmers excited the sympathy of the humane Governor on his journey. Rains, in almost unparalleled floods, having fallen at this period, the plains were inundated: the waggons, their drivers, and the cattle, were found resting disconsolately in the midst of a waste of waters. The old, the young, the sick, and the impoverished, were bewailing their sad condition at the foot of the Draakenberg Mountains, dreading their journey through the wilderness, over which they were about to drag their weary way, when he, who "had come because he knew they wanted a friend," rode into the encampment of Pretorius. Some idea may be formed of the sufferings of these people, by the fact that the forelouper of the waggon of Pretorius having left them, a young girl of twelve years, Pretorius's daughter, had been compelled to lead the oxen for some days; and in doing so, her arm had been frightfully gored by the leading bullock. The fatigue of a forelouper is great for a boy, and to a young girl must be absolutely injurious. In sullen disgust at his reception in Graham's Town, or rather his non-reception by Sir Henry Pottinger, Pretorius had resolved on abandoning the districts under our Government, and the example of such a man was not lost on his neighbours. From the difficulty of communication between the immediate scene of Sir Harry Smith's proclamations, and the disaffected Boers, no positive assurance of better prospects had reached them, till he in person offered himself as their friend. A spot on the banks of the Tugala River was named as a place of conference, and a great many farmers assembled there, requesting Pretorius to address his Excellency on the subject of their grievances, which he did in such a way as to excite the sympathy of all who heard him. The result of this conference was a Proclamation announcing "the Sovereignty of the Queen of England over the territories north of the Orange River, north to the Vaal River, and east to the Draakenberg, or Quathlamba, Mountains." The Boers, to a man, declared their readiness and anxiety to return to the farms they had forsaken; those further off were invited by proclamation to leave "their miserable locations among the Draakenberg Mountains;" and the arrangements respecting quit-rents, judicial authority, grants of land, etc, were met with satisfaction by the whole population assembled to hear and understand them.