AWFUL SUFFERINGS OF SOUTH AFRICAN EMIGRANTS.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VI, Issue 968, 5 December 1879, Page 2

AWFUL SUFFERINGS OF SOUTH AFRICAN EMIGRANTS.

A sad story is told m a letter which appears m the " Daily News " from a South African correspondent regarding the fate of a party of Boer farmers who "trecked" from the Transvaal some four. years ago with their wives and families. These unhappy people, 300 m number, with their women and children, stock and waggons, set out m 1875 m order to avoid the reforming rule of. Mr Burgers, then President of the Republic. They struck westward across the deserts to Lak6 {N'Gami, led by some vague reports of a fair country to the west. The narrative of their sufferings reads like the account, of the wreck of the Medusa. They encountered thirst, famine, and fever, they fell amongst hostile natives, and they quarrelled' among themselves. Many men died, leaving their widows and orphans entirely dependent for food on the rifles of those who had the courage to stick to this pitf ul party, for m one of their disputes the original party seems to have separated, and >the stronger and more compact section took a different course. The latest accounts come from a traveller who has visited them, and who tells us that only 70 men and 30 women and children are still alive, while hundreds, mostly children and men, have succumbed. The men maintained a precarious existence by hunting, and the privations they have endured aro plainly visible from their emaciated frames and scanty and tattered clothing. Another account m a letter from .an elephant hunter lo a mercantile firm m the place nays, m describing the conditions of the party .;, I have heard of putred carcases of dead Cattle have been eaten by people already weak and emaciated through sickness and hiinger, and haveing caused fearful sufferings. Altogether 100 men, women, and children have fallen victims and succumbed to suoh hardships, and a more bitter and heart-rending state of affairs it would be impossible to imagine. In one instance, a person came across 5 or 10 waggons occupied by perhaps one or two women and a few children with n«t a man left, and not an ox, cow, horse, or other living animal to live from, looking starvation and death m the face, and praying for Bpeedy release. Again j you approach a number of waggbnß and -find a few sick men, women, and children, scarce able to crawl about} with nothing to eat, no medicine, and no one to pay them any

attention, awaiting tho inevitable rfl^tt with what fortitude Heaven may grant # them, striving to hope for some change for the better. Here a child is being carried to its grave ; there an old man lies trying ; here five or six are given up as past all hope ; there a mother, or, perchance, father, listening: md watching the death throes of an only remaining child I here a few raving for food ; there another frightening Away the birds of prey from soiae putrid carcass, that he may regain himwlf-tm what a wolf would pass, m disdain. All this makes up such a picture of horror sis may God grant we shalUseldonvJiavd to witness and still less seldom to be m the midst of. As soon as the newa ■>f the straits to which the poor emigrants had been reduced' reached our South African colonies,: steps; we're at once taken, as was to be .expeoted,-^ organise ways and means of sending them relief, and it is to be hoped that relief will .reach them before it is too late. ______^__ i^__