BOERS TREKKING BACK TO UNION

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 289, 6 September 1928, Page 11

BOERS TREKKING BACK TO UNION

RETURNING OF OWN FREE WILL lAuslraban Press Assu. —United Ser.ice.) Cape Town, September 4. Six heavily-loaded lorries with the first five families of Boers from Angola have arrived at the railhead in South-West. Africa on their way to Gobabis. Before leaving Angola the Boers signed a declaration that they were trekking of their own free will, and were not forced to leave. The Union hits made arrangements for motor transport over a distance of 700 miles from the Kunene River. The trekkers regard it as a picnic. At Otavi they passed the ruins of the church and houses which their fathers built fifty years ago on the northward trek, saw herds of elephants, giraffes, and buck, and heard lions roaring, but there was no untoward incident. Four convoys are continually operating until the whole two thousand have been transported. Towards the end of the exile the Portuguese in Angola were more reasonable, returning the settlers’ rifles, and facilitated the trek. [The Boers trekked originally into Angola to avoid living under the Union Jack, but did not find the conditions congenial under the Portuguese flag, and are being repatriated. Gobabis is on the eastern side of South-West Africa. formerly German, blit now attached to the Union.]