purchaser, and he on the other side has no means of ascertaining who in truth has the right to sell, and cannot know to whom the purchase money should be paid. But he does know that he must have the land. He feels that in spreading himself over the earth he is carrying out God's purpose, and has no idea of giving way before this difficulty. He tries to harden his heart against the Savage, and gradually does so in spite of his own conscience. The man is a nuisance and must be made to go. Generally he has gone rapidly enough. The contact with civilization does not suit his nature. We are told that he takes the white man's vices and ignores the white man's virtues. In truth vices are always more attractive than virtues. To drink is easy and pleasant. To love your neighbour as yourself is very difficult, and sometimes unpleasant. So the Savage has taken to drink, and has worn his very clothes unwholesomely, and has generally perished during the process of civilization. The North American Indian, the Australian Aboriginal, the Maori of New Zealand are either going or gone,-and so in these lands there has come, or is coming, an end of trouble from that source.

The Hottentot too of whom we have been speaking is said to be nearly gone, and, being a yellow man, to have lacked strength to endure European seductions. But as to the Hottentot and his fate there are varied opinions. I have been told by some that I have never seen a pure Hottentot. Using my own eyes and my own idea of what a Hottentot is, I should have said that the bulk of the population of the Western Province of the Cape Colony is Hottentot. The truth probably is that they have become so mingled with other races as to have lost much of their identity; but that the race has not perished, as have the Indians of North America and the Maoris. The

difficulty as to the Savage has at any rate not been solved in South Africa as in other countries in which our Colonies have settled themselves. The Kafir with his numerous varieties of race is still here, and is by no means inclined to go. And for this reason South Africa at present differs altogether from the other lands from which white Colonists have driven the native inhabitants. Of these races I shall have to speak further as I go on with my task.

In 1687 and 1689 there arrived at the Cape a body of emigrants whose presence has no doubt had much effect in creating the race which now occupies the land, and without whom probably the settlers could not have made such progress as they did effect. These were Protestant Frenchmen, who in consequence of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes were in want of a home in which they could exercise their religion in freedom. These arrived to the number of about 300, and the names of most of them have been duly recorded. Very many of the same names are now to be found through the Colony -to such an extent as to make the stranger ask why the infant settlement should have been held to be exclusively Dutch. These Frenchmen, who were placed out round the Cape as agriculturists, were useful, industrious, religious people. But though they grew and multiplied they also had their troubles, and hardly enjoyed all the freedom which they had expected. The Dutch, indeed, appear to have had no idea of freedom either as to private life, political life, or religious life. Gradually they succeeded in imposing their own language upon the new comers. In 1709 the use of French was forbidden in all public matters, and in 1724 the services of the French Church were for the last time performed in the French language. Before the end of the last century the language

was gone. Thus the French comers with their descendants were forced by an iron hand into Dutch moulds, and now nothing is left to them of their old country but their names. When one meets a Du Plessis or a De Villiers it is impossible to escape the memory of the French immigration.

The last half of the seventeenth and the whole of the eighteenth century saw the gradual progress of the Dutch depôt, a colony it could hardly be called,-going on in the same slow determined way, and always with the same purpose. It was no colony because those who managed it at home in Holland, and they who at the Cape served with admirable fidelity their Dutch masters, never entertained an idea as to the colonization of the country. A half-way house to India was erected by the Dutch East India Company for the purpose of commerce, and it was necessary that a community should be maintained at the Cape for this purpose. The less of trouble, the less of expense, the less of anything beyond mechanical service with which the work could be carried on, the better. It was not for the good of the Dutchmen who were sent out or of the Frenchmen who joined them, that the Council of 17 at Amsterdam troubled themselves with the matter; but because by doing so they could assist their own trade and add to their own gains. Judge Watermeyer in one of three lectures which he gave on the state of the Colony under the Dutch quotes the following opinion on colonization from a Dutch Attorney General of the time. "The object of paramount importance in legislation for Colonies should be the welfare of the parent State of which the Colony is but a subordinate part and to which it owes its existence!" I need hardly point out that the present British theory of colonization is exactly the reverse of this. Some of those

prosperous but by no means benevolent looking old gentlemen with gold chains, as we see them painted by Rembrandt and other Dutch Masters, were no doubt the owners of the Cape and its inhabitants. Slave labour was the readiest labour, and therefore slave labour was procured. The native races were not to be oppressed beyond endurance, because they would rise and fight. The community itself was not to grow rich, because if rich it would no longer be subservient to its masters. In the midst of all this there were fine qualities. The Governors were brave, stanch, and faithful. The people were brave and industrious,--and were not self-indulgent except with occasional festivities in which drunkenness was permissible. The wonder is that for so long a time they should have been so submissive, so serviceable, and yet have had so little of the sweets of life to enjoy.

There were some to whom the austerities of Dutch rule proved too hard for endurance, and these men moved away without permission into further districts in which they might live a free though hard life. In other words they "trekked," as the practice has been called to this day. This system has been the mode of escape from the thraldom of government which has been open to all inhabitants of South Africa. Men when they have been dissatisfied have gone away, always intending to get beyond the arm of the existing law; but as they have gone, the law has of necessity followed at their heels. An outlawed crew on the borders of any colony or settlement must be ruinous to it. And therefore far as white men have trekked, government has trekked after them, as we shall find when we come by and bye to speak of Natal, the Orange Free State, and the Transvaal.

In 1795 came the English. In that year the French Republican troops had taken possession of Holland, and

the Prince of Orange, after the manner of dethroned potentates, took refuge in England. He gave an authority, which was dated from Kew, to the Governor of the Cape to deliver up all and everything in his hands to the English forces. On the arrival of the English fleet there was found to be, at the same time, a colonist rebellion. Certain distant burghers,-for the territory had of course grown, refused to obey the officers of the Company or to contribute to the taxes. In this double emergency the poor Dutch Governor, who does not seem to have regarded the Prince's order as an authority, was sorely puzzled. He fought a little, but only a little, and then the English were in possession. The castle was given up to General Craig, and in 1797 Lord Macartney came out as the first British Governor.

Great Britain at this time took possession of the Cape to prevent the French from doing so. No doubt it was a most desirable possession, as being a half-way house for us to India as it had been for the Dutch. But we should not, at any rate then, have touched the place had it not been that Holland, or rather the Dutch, were manifestly unable to retain it. We spent a great deal of money at the settlement, built military works, and maintained a large garrison. But it was but for a short time, and during that short time our rule over the Dutchmen was uneasy and unprofitable. Something of rebellion seems to have been going on during the whole time,— not so much against English authority as against Dutch law, and this rebellion was complicated by continual quarrels between the distant Boers, or Dutch farmers, and the Hottentots. It was an uncomfortable possession, and when at the peace of Amiens in 1802 it was arranged that the Cape of Good Hope should be restored to Holland, English Ministers of State did not probably