fertile
plains of Albany.

A few days of slow but pleasant journeying and romantic
night-bivouacking brought the latter to their locations on the Kowie and
Great Fish River.

On the way, the party to which Edwin Brook belonged passed the ground
already occupied by the large band of settlers known as "Chapman's
party," which had left Algoa Bay a few weeks before them in an imposing
procession of ninety-six waggons. They had been accompanied to their
future home by a small detachment of the Cape Corps, the officer in
command of which gave them the suggestive advice, on bidding them
goodbye, never to leave their guns behind them when they went out to
plough! Although so short a time located, this party had produced a
marvellous change in the appearance of the wilderness, and gave the
settlers who passed farther eastward, an idea of what lay before
themselves. Fields had already been marked out; the virgin soil broken
up; timber cut, and bush cleared; while fragile cottages and huts were
springing up here and there to supplant the tents which had given the
first encampments a somewhat military aspect. Grotesque dwellings
these, many of them, with mats and rugs for doors, and white calico or
empty space for windows. It was interesting, in these first locations,
to mark the development of character among the settlers. Those who were
practical examined the "lie" of the land and the nature of the soil,
with a view to their future residence. Timid souls chose their sites
with reference to defence. Men of sentiment had regard to the
picturesque, and careless fellows "squatted" in the first convenient
spot that presented itself. Of course errors of judgment had to be
corrected afterwards on all hands, but the power to choose and change
was happily great at first, as well as easy.

As Brook's party advanced, portions of it dropped off or turned aside,
until at last Edwin found himself reduced to one family besides his own.
Even this he parted from on a ridge of land which overlooked his own
"location," and about noon of the same day his waggons came to a halt on
a grassy mound, which was just sufficiently elevated to command a
magnificent view of the surrounding country.

"Your location," said his Dutch waggon-driver, with a curious smile, as
though he should say, "I wonder what you'll do with yourselves."

But the Dutchman made no further remark. He was one of the taciturn
specimens of his class, and began at once