nt of
restrictions, bigoted though devout, and inspired in all and through
all by an unconquerable love of independence. With manners they had
nothing to do, with progress still less. Isolation from the
civilised world, and contact with Bushmen, Hottentots, and Kaffirs,
kept them from advancing with the times. Their slaves outnumbered
themselves, and their treatment of these makes anything but
enlivening reading. From all accounts the Boer went about with the
Bible in one hand and the _sjambok_ in the other, instructing
himself assiduously with the Word, while asserting himself liberally
with the deed. Yet he was a first-rate sporting man, a shrewd
trafficker, and at times an energetic tiller of the soil. The early
settlements were Rondebosch, Stellenbosch, and Drakenstein, in the
valley of the Berg River. Here the Dutch community laboured, and
smoked, and married, multiplying itself with amazing rapidity, and
expanding well beyond the original limits.

Dutch domination at the Cape lasted for 143 years after the landing
of Van Riebeck, but gradually internal dissensions among the
settlers resulted in absolute revolt. Meanwhile the Dutch in Europe
had lost their political prestige, and the country was overrun by a
Prussian army commissioned to support the House of Orange. In 1793,
in a war against allied England and Holland, France gained the day,
and a Republic was set up under French protection, thereby rendering
Holland and her colonies of necessity antagonistic to Great Britain.
After this the fortunes of the Cape were fluctuating. In 1795
Admiral Elphinstone and General Craig brought about the surrender of
the colony to Great Britain. Later on it was returned to the
Batavian Republic at the Peace of Amiens, only to be afterwards
recaptured by Sir David Baird in 1806. Finally, in 1814, our claim
to the Cape and other Dutch colonies was recognised on payment of
the sum of L6,000,000 sterling.

Now for the first time began the real emigration of the British.
They settled at Bathurst, near Algoa Bay, but though their numbers
gradually swelled, they never equalled the number of the inhabitants
of Dutch origin.

At this time South Africa was an ideal place for the pioneer. The
scenery was magnificent. There were mountain gorges or kloofs,
roaring cataracts, vast plains, and verdant tracts of succulent
grasses. There was big game enough to delight the heart of a race of
Nimrods. Lions, elephants, hippopotami, rhinocer