THE PIONEER ADVANCE 113
of
Cape Colony itself was little more promising. In Great Britain the
whole dependency was so lightly esteemed that it was determined in 1849
to utilize it as a dumping ground for convicts, after Australia had
resentfully thrown off this burden. The convict ship Neptune was
actually sent out, but the indignation of the colonists was so
demonstrative that no convicts were landed, and the ship with its load
was held for five months in Simon's Bay, the present Naval Station, a
little south of Cape Town, until the recalling order was received,
February 13, 1850. The colony had not sunk so low as to submit to this
mark of contempt, but it was undoubtedly drooping in hopes and
enterprise, and the progress of its industrial development was
painfully slow. There had been a pronounced diversion from agriculture
to cattle and sheep raising for reasons before noted, and wool had
become the chief and almost the only export of consequence. Still the
peculiar condition and vagaries of the South African climate and
seasons were hard to provide for or overcome, and there were prevalent
diseases that attacked horses, cattle, and sheep, and greatly checked
the rise of the pastoral industry. Communication from one part of the
colony to another was very slowly improved. The roads were few and bad,
and in 1867 the only stretch of railway in all South Africa was a bare
forty miles from Cape Town to Wellington. The total annual export of
the Colony was a trifle over ^2,000,000 in value, and there was no
diversification of industries and no manufactures of any considerable
extent.1 This was the situation when the gloom was suddenly
dispelled and the whole face of South Africa changed by the discovery
of the Diamond Fields.
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