By the middle of the year 1837 there were over one thousand waggons between the Caledon and Vaal rivers--truly a notable and alarming exodus; and the Boers then began the work of carving out new countries for themselves. Their history surpasses all fiction in its vicissitudes, successes, and tragedies. They fought and worked and trekked, onward, always onward--never returning--on beyond the furthermost outposts of civilization. And so the story rolls on, gaining pathos, but losing no whit of interest from its eternal sameness. They fought, and worked, and starved, and died for their land of promise, where they might hope to be alone, like the simple people of their one Book; where they might never know the hated British rule; where they might never experience the forms and trammels, the restlessness and changes, the worries, the necessities or benefits, of progressing civilization. Their quarrel had been with the abuses and blunders of one Government; but a narrow experience moved them to mistrust all but their own pastoral patriarchal way, moulded on the records of the Bible, and to regard the evidences of progress as warnings of coming oppression and curtailment of liberty, and a departure from the simple and ideal way. The abuses from which they suffered are no more; the methods which were unjust have been abandoned; the ignorance of the ruler has been dispelled; in place of despotism there is autonomy; justice rules where ignorance and bias sat; liberty where there was interference; protection for oppression; progress and civilization have increased as in no other epoch; and the nation and Government from which they severed themselves have taken their place in the very forefront of all. But the Boer sees with the eyes of sixty years ago! The ideal was impossible, the struggle hopeless, the end certain. They trekked, and trekked and trekked again; but the flag of England--emblem of all they hated--was close by; behind, beside, in front, or over them; and the something which they could not fight--the ever-advancing tide of civilization--lapped at their feet, and slowly, silently, and for ever blotted out the line where they had written, 'Thus far and no further.'