safety
for a small herd. The total number of farms secured by grant was only
twelve hundred and sixty-five, but they extended over eleven million
acres. Of the farm owners only one hundred and thirty-nine were
Englishmen, and a number of these were nonresidents.1 In
the abstract there was seemingly little attraction or value to excite
any flow of immigration or to make the province a prize worth the cost
of defending.
Not
only the prospects of the Orange Free State and of its neighbor on the
other side of the Vaal seemed dull and inconsiderable to most
observers, but the condition of Natal and
i " South Africa," Theal.
