the late Governor of the Cape Colony, who had returned home just before I started from London, and who was kind enough to prepare for me with great minuteness a sketch of my journey, as, in his opionion, it ought to be made, giving me not only a list of the places which I should visit but an estimate of the time which should be allotted to each, so as to turn to the best advantage the months which I had at my disposal. I have not quite done all which his energy would have exacted from me. I did not get to the Gold-fields of the Transvaal or into Basutoland. But I have followed his guidance throughout, and can certainly testify to the exactness of his knowledge of the country.

My readers will find that in speaking of the three races I found in South Africa, the native tribes namely, the Dutch and the English, I have attributed by far the greater importance to the former because of their numbers. But I fear that I have done so in such a way as not to have conciliated the friends of the aborigines at home, while I shall certainly have insured the hostility,or at any rate opposition,--of the normal white men in the Colonies. The white man in the South African Colonies feels that the colony ought to be his and kept up for him, because he, perhaps, with his life in his hand, went forth as a pioneer to spread the civilization of Europe and to cultivate the wilds of the world's surface. If he has not done so himself, his father did it before him, and he thinks that the gratitude of the Mother Country should maintain for him the complete ascendency which his superiority to the black man has given him. I feel confident that he will maintain his own ascendency, and think that the Mother Country should take care that that ascendency be not too complete. The colonist will therefore hardly agree with me. The friend of the aborigines,

on the other hand, seems to me to ignore the fact,—a fact as it presents itself to my eyes,—that the white man has to be master and the black man servant, and that the best friendship will be shown to the black man by seeing that the terms on which the master and servant shall be brought together are just. In the first place we have to take care that the native shall not be subjected to slavery on any pretence or in any of its forms; and in doing this we shall have to own that compulsory labour, the wages for which are to be settled by the employer without the consent of the employed, is a form of slavery. After that, after acknowledging so much, and providing against any infraction of the great law so laid down,—the more we do to promote the working of the coloured man, the more successful we are in bringing him into his harness, the better for himself, and for the colony at large. A little garden, a wretched hut, and a great many hymns do not seem to me to bring the man any nearer to civilization. Work alone will civilize him, and his incentive to work should be, and is, the desire to procure those good things which he sees to be in the enjoyment of white men around him. He is quite alive to this desire, and is led into new habits by good eating, good clothes, even by finery and luxuries, much quicker than by hymns and gardens supposed to be just sufficient to maintain an innocent existence. The friend of the aboriginal would, I fear, fain keep his aboriginal separated from the white man; whereas I would wish to see their connexion as close as possible. In this way I fear that I may have fallen between two stools.

In regard to Kreli and his rebellious Galekas,—in regard also to the unsettled state of the Zulus and their borders, I have to ask my readers to remember that my book has been written while these disturbances were in

existence. In respect to them I can not do more than express an opinion of my own,-more or less crude as it must necessarily be.

CHAPTER II.

Early Dutch History.

OUR possessions in South Africa, like many of our other Colonial territories, were taken by us from others who did the first rough work of discovering and occupying the land. As we got Canada from the French, Jamaica from the Spaniards, and Ceylon from the Dutch, so did we take the Cape of Good Hope from the latter people. In Australia and New Zealand we were the pioneers, and very hard work we found it. So also was it in Massachusetts and Virginia, which have now, happily, passed away from us. But in South Africa the Dutch were the first to deal with the Hottentots and Bushmen; and their task was nearly as hard as that which fell to the lot of Englishmen when they first landed on the coast of Australia with a cargo of convicts.

The Portuguese indeed came before the Dutch, but they only came, and did not stay. The Cape, as far as we know, was first doubled by Bartholomew Diaz in 1486. He, and some of the mariners with him, called it the Cape of Torments, or Capo Tormentoso, from the miseries they endured. The more comfortable name which it now bears was given to it by King John of Portugal, as being the new way discovered by his subjects to the glorious Indies. Diaz, it seems never in truth saw the Cape but carried past it to Algoa Bay where he merely landed on an island and put up a cross. But he certainly was one of the great naval heroes of the world and deserves to be ranked with Columbus. Vasco da Gama, another

sailor hero, said to have been of royal Portuguese descent, followed him in 1497. He landed to the west of the Cape. There the meeting between Savage and Christian was as it has almost always been. At first there was love and friendship, a bartering of goods in which the Christian of course had the advantage, and a general interchange of amenities. Then arose mistakes, so natural among strangers who could not speak to each other, suspicion, violence, and very quickly an internecine quarrel in which the poor Savage was sure to go to the wall. Vasco da Gama did not stay long at the Cape, but proceeding on went up the East Coast as far as our second South African colony, which bears the name which he then gave to it. He called the land Tierra de Natal, because he reached it on the day of our Lord's Nativity. The name has stuck to it ever since and no doubt will now be preserved. From thence Da Gama went on to India, and we who are interested in the Cape will lose sight of him. But he also was one of the world's mighty mariners,—a man born to endure much, having to deal not only with Savages who mistook him and his purposes, but with frequent mutinies among his own men,- a hero who had ever to do his work with his life in his hand, and to undergo hardships of which our sailors in these happier days know nothing.

The Portuguese seem to have made no settlement at the Cape intended even to be permanent; but they did use the place during the sixteenth and first half of the next century as a port at which they could call for supplies and assistance on their way out to the East Indies.

The East had then become the great goal of commerce to others besides the Portuguese. In 1600 our own East India Company was formed, and in 1602 that

of the Dutch. Previous to those dates, in 1591, an English sailor, Captain Lancaster, visited the Cape, and in 1620 Englishmen landed and took possession of it in the name of James I. But nothing came of these visitings and declarations, although an attempt was made by Great Britain to establish a house of call for her trade out to the East. For this purpose a small gang of convicts was deposited on Robben Island, which is just off Capetown, but as a matter of course the convicts quarrelled with themselves and the Natives, and came to a speedy end. In 1595 the Dutch came, but did not then remain. It was not till 1652 that the first Europeans who were destined to be the pioneer occupants of the new land were put on shore at the Cape of Good Hope, and thus made the first Dutch settlement. Previous to that the Cape had in fact been a place of call for vessels of all nations going and coming to and from the East. But from this date, 1652, it was to be used for the Dutch exclusively. The Hollanders of that day were stanch Protestants and sound Christians, but they hardly understood their duty to their neighbours. They had two ideas in forming their establishment at the Cape;-firstly that of aiding their own commerce with the East, and secondly that of debarring the commerce of all other nations from the aid which they sought for themselves. It is on record that when a French merchant-vessel was once treated with hospitality by the authorities at the Cape, the authorities at home brought their colonial dependents very severely to task for such forgetfulness of their duty. The Governor at the time was dismissed for not allowing the Frenchman to "float on his own fins." It was then decided that water should be given to Europeans in want of it, but as little other refreshment as possible.

The home Authority at this time was not the Dutch South Africa. I.

2