"You come,"

there as the Dutch were doing with them. they said, "quite into the interior, selecting our best land, and never asking whether we like it;"—thus showing that they had made themselves accustomed to the calling of strangers at their point of land, and that they had not objected to such mere calling, because something had always been left behind; but that this going into the interior and taking from them their best land was quite a different thing. They understood the nature of pasture land very well, and argued that if the Dutchmen had many cattle there would be but little grass left for themselves. And so there arose a war.

The Hottentots themselves have not received, as Savages, a bad character. They are said to have possessed fidelity, attachment, and intelligence; to have been generally good to their children; to have believed in the immortality of the soul, and to have worshipped a god. The Hottentot possessed property and appreciated its value. He was not naturally cruel, and was prone rather to submit than to fight. The Bosjesman, or Bushman, was of a lower order, smaller in stature, more degraded in appearance, filthier in his habits, occasionally a cannibal eating his own children when driven by hunger, cruel, and useless. Even he was something better than the Australian aboriginal, but was very inferior to his near relative the Hottentot.

But the Hottentot, with all his virtues, was driven into rebellion. There was some fighting in which the natives of course were beaten, and rewards were offered, so much for a live Hottentot, and so much for a dead one. This went on till, in 1672, it was found expedient to purchase land from the natives. A contract was made in that year to prevent future cavilling, as was then alleged, between the Governor and one of the native

princes, by which the district of the Cape of Good Hope was ceded to the Dutch for a certain nominal price. The deed is signed with the marks of two Hottentot chiefs and with the names of two Dutchmen. The purchase was made simply as an easy way out of the difficulty. But after a very early period-1684—there was no further buying of land. "There was no longer an affectation of a desire on the part of the Dutch authorities," as we are told by Judge Watermeyer, "that native claims to land. should be respected." The land was then annexed by Europeans as convenience required.

In all this the Dutch of those days did very much as the English have done since. Of all the questions which a conscientious man has ever had to decide, this is one of the most difficult. The land clearly belongs to the inhabitants of it,-by as good a title as England belongs to the English or Holland to the Dutch. But the advantage of spreading population is so manifest, and the necessity of doing so has so clearly been indicated to us. by nature, that no man, let him be ever so conscientious, will say that throngs of human beings from the overpopulated civilized countries should refrain from spreading themselves over unoccupied countries or countries partially occupied by savage races. Such a doctrine would be monstrous, and could be held only by a fanatic in morality. And yet there always comes a crisis in which the stronger, the more civilized, and the Christian race is called upon to inflict a terrible injustice on the unoffending owner of the land. Attempts have been made to purchase every acre needed by the new comers,—very conspicuously in New Zealand. But such attempts never can do justice to the Savage. The savage man from his nature can understand nothing of the real value of the article to be sold. The price must be settled by the

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