including the town, had 4,155. 27
Transportation between the trekboer homesteads and between the trek-
boer country and the Cape peninsula-which
contained Cape Town, the
seat of government, and Table Bayand Simonstown, the only harbors in the
colony that were used throughout the eighteenth century-was
over rough
tracks, traversed on horseback or by ox wagon. From Graaff-Reinet it took
up to three months for a wagon to go to and from the Cape. Trekboers
nevertheless depended on acquiring guns and gunpowder for the hunt and
for protection; they also imported tea, coffee,sugar, and tobacco as essen-
tial commodities. To pay for these, they sold sheep, cattle, and butter, and
in some cases elephant ivory, to Cape Town tradesmen who toured the
country collecting them and drove the livestock on the hoof to the Cape.
For the rest, the trekboers relied on their own resources. They were largely,
but by no means wholly, a noncapitalist subsistence community, on the
periphery of the market economy; and since there were no substantial
villages 'east of Stellenbosch-Swellendam
had only four houses thirty
years after it had become the seat of a landdrost-there
were few spe-
cialized artisans and every trekboer was a jack-of-all-trades.s"