k carried on by Robert
Moffat, and the success achieved; also to realise something of the
position of affairs when he first landed in South Africa.

Discovered by the Portuguese in 1486, it was not until the middle of the
seventeenth century that much was done in the way of European
colonisation. In 1652 the bold and mountainous promontory of the Cape
was taken possession of by the Dutch, and a settlement was founded on
the site of the present Cape Town. The earliest colonists were chiefly
Dutch and German farmers; who were joined a little later on by numbers
of French and Piedmontese Huguenots, driven from their native lands for
conscience' sake.

At this early period the whole of what is now designated the Colony, was
inhabited by Hottentots, a people lighter in colour than the Kafirs and
Bechwanas, having pale yellow-brown skins, symmetrical in form when
young, hardy, and having small hands and feet. They have nomadic
tendencies; and, in their uncivilised state, scarcely practise
agriculture. Their system of government is somewhat patriarchal; and
they live in "kraals," or villages, consisting of bee-hive shaped huts,
arranged in circular form. Their ideas of a Deity are extremely faint,
they possess little in the nature of religious ceremonies, but the power
of sorcerers among them is great. According to the locality occupied,
they are known as Hottentots, Namaquas, or Corannas.

As the European colonists increased in numbers, they gradually advanced
northward and eastward, either driving back the natives or subjugating
them as slaves to their service. In 1806 the colony passed into the
hands of the English, and, after a season of conflict, the Hottentots
within the British territory were emancipated. This act of justice took
place on 17th July, 1828.

In the early years of the present century, the natives of South Africa
comprised--besides the Hottentots, who occupied the southern portion of
the country, and were thinly scattered, to the north-west, in Great
Namaqualand--the Kafirs, who dwelt in the south-east, beyond the Fish
River; the Basutos, whose kraals were south of the Orange River; the
Bechwanas and kindred tribes to the north of that river; and far away to
the north-west, beyond Namaqualand, the Damara tribes, of whom but
little was known at that time. Besides these, there were the Bushmen, a
roving people, small in stature, and sunk to the lowest depths of
barbarism, hunted down by the Dutch farmers