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Ralph Goldswain. Roughing It
Preface
1 Oh Dreadful Seasickness!
2 Barren Sand Hills
3 A Very Beautiful Country
4 Damned Old Rogues
5 Take Root or Die
6 The Besom of Destruction
7 The Triumph of Obnoxious Individuals
8 Something Rich and Strange
References
Bibliography
Photo Section
Отрывок из книги
Ralph Goldswain
This story is contextless: it says nothing about the damage that was done by this colonisation project to the African peoples, its effect on the social and political structures of southern Africa or its impact on post-apartheid South Africa. It is simply the story of the 1820 settlers’ voyage, arrival and first three years in the Eastern Cape. The settlement of some 4 000 Britons on the frontier, and the tragic and violent conflict that took place in that region for more than a century, contributed significantly to the creation of the fault line that has been painful for South Africans for two centuries and that looks as though it will never be repaired. I haven’t addressed that issue in telling this story.
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These passengers would have made good frontier settlers: mothers and fathers, regardless of their own lives, gathered their young children and threw them into the boats so they could be rescued. One family, the Barries, who had left Glasgow with their ten children, with great hope for a future in a land of opportunity, were confronted with the dilemma of who should survive. The father and mother, with the help of their two elder sons, flung the other children into the arms of the sailors on one of the boats just in time, before they were themselves devoured by the flames. One of the saved children was just fifteen months old.
A young couple, the MacFarlanes, who had been married only a few days before embarking, jumped overboard. The wife could not swim, so MacFarlane took her on to his back and tried to swim out to one of the boats. When his strength failed him, they clasped each other and drowned together.
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