n
had sprung into existence, with all the genuine characteristics of an
English community. Education and trade, races and quadrilles, were
already flourishing. The well-known political parties, the Buffs and
the Blues, the foes of corruption and the friends of established
institutions, were already arraying themselves in hostile ranks. In
two years more, we may expect to receive the first numbers of the
_Harrismith Gazette_ and the _Harrismith Independent_, the 'organs' of
the respective parties; and to learn through their valuable columns,
that the 'Harrismith Agricultural and Commercial Bank' has declared
its first annual dividend of 10 per cent., and that the new
'Harrismith Assembly-Rooms' were thrown open, on the auspicious
anniversary of the royal birthday, to a large and select assemblage of
the rank, fashion, and beauty of the city and its neighbourhood.

The writer from whose letter some of the foregoing quotations are
made, strongly recommends that the government should offer 'unstinted
encouragement and liberal assistance' to promote emigration from Great
Britain; and considers that, if this were done, 'thousands of hardy
English and Scotch farmers would avail themselves of the advantages
which the country offers.' This is possible; but at the same time, it
should be known, that the excitement among the native tribes, caused
by the war in Caffreland, had extended across the Orange River into
the sovereignty, and that much confusion, and, unfortunately, some
bloodshed, had ensued. These disorders, it is true, were only local;
but it is evident that the neighbourhood of some 80,000 barbarians
must, for some time to come, be a source of considerable embarrassment
and danger to all settlers in the new colony. In time, no doubt, with
the progress of civilisation, this danger will be removed; and the
natives may become, as in New Zealand, a source of wealth to the
colony, as useful labourers--like the 'skipping Caffres' under the
brickmaker's instructions, or peaceful cultivators of the soil. At
present, however, the peril from this source is so evident and so
serious, that a warning reference to it could not with propriety be
omitted in any description of this otherwise promising settlement.

THE SECRET.

Jean Baptiste Veron, a native, it was understood, of the south of
France, established himself as a merchant at Havre-de-Grace in 1788,
being then a widower with one child, a young boy. The new-comer's