ch settlement presents a singular contrast to
that of the Portuguese. During the first quarter of a century the few
settlers kept themselves within the narrow limits of the Cape peninsula.
In 1680 an outlying agricultural community was planted at Stellenbosch,
twenty-five miles from Cape Town, but not till the end of the century
was the first range of mountains crossed. Meantime the population began
to grow. In 1658 the first slaves were introduced,--West African
negroes,--a deplorable step, which has had the result of making the
South African whites averse to open-air manual work and of practically
condemning South Africa to be a country of black labour. Shortly
afterwards the Company began to bring in Asiatic convicts, mostly
Mohammedan Malays, from its territories in the East Indian Archipelago.
These men intermarried with the female slaves, and to a less extent with
Hottentot women, and from them a mixed coloured race has sprung up,
which forms a large part of the population of Cape Town and the
neighbouring districts. The influx of these inferior elements was
balanced by the arrival in 1689 of about three hundred French Huguenots,
a part of those who had taken refuge in Holland after the revocation of
the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV. They were persons of a high stamp,
more intelligent and educated than most of the previous settlers had
been, and they brought with them a strong attachment to their Protestant
faith and a love of liberty. From them many of the best colonial
families are sprung. At first they clung to their language, and sought
to form a distinct religious community; but they were ultimately
compelled to join the Dutch Reformed Church, and the use of French was
forbidden in official documents or religious services. Before the middle
of the eighteenth century that language had disappeared, and the
newcomers had practically amalgamated with their Dutch neighbours. The
Company's government was impartially intolerant, and did not until 1780
permit the establishment of a Lutheran church, although many German
Lutherans had settled in the country.

From the time when the settlers began to spread out from the coast into
the dry lands of the interior a great change came upon them, and what we
now call the distinctive South African type of character and habits
began to appear. The first immigrants were not, like some of the English
settlers in Virginia, men of good social position in their own country,
attached