government excepting their own patriarchal control. Their story hardly comes within the scope of this modest work; but it is indissolubly connected with the making of South Africa, and a brief sketch of their history may be permissible.

The exodus of the Boers, who were composed of farmers of not only Dutch but French and English origin, commenced with the Great Trek of 1836, and they spread out ever seeking freedom from restraint. They came into collision with the Zulus under Dingaan, by whom a number of them were treacherously massacred, but whom they finally severely defeated and Dingaan fled.

Dissensions arose amongst the Boers shortly after, and a number trekked on and established a separate settlement, with Potchefstroom as capital. Those who remained occupied Natal and established a Republic.

Here, however, they did not find peace, for Sir George Napier, in command of the British forces at the Cape, dispatched a contingent to drive them out. This contingent the Boers nearly annihilated.

A settler, Dick King, then made his memorable ride from Durban to Grahamstown, covering the distance of 375 miles in nine days, and reinforcements were sent up.

Natal was, in 1843, declared to be a British Colony, with the result that a fresh exodus of Boers occurred across the Drakensberg Mountains into Griqualand.

For forty years the Boers wandered, but wherever they tried to settle they were pressed on—being continually told that they could not shake off their allegiance, although no step was taken to reclaim them or the country they won.

So far from receiving protection from the Cape Government, the latter even armed the Griquas against the Boers, and sent a military force to the assistance of the natives. And so they were harried until they were allowed to establish their Republics of the Transvaal and Free State, until overtaken by the destiny which Providence had marked out for them.

In 1881 an attempt was made by Great Britain to annex the Transvaal, but after General Colley's defeat and death at Majuba the independence of the Transvaal was acknowledged under British suzerainty.

The western border of the Transvaal Republic marched on Bechuanaland and the Kalahari Desert, and in 1882 the Transvaal completed a convention with the Portuguese Government under which the former was granted a concession to build a railway from the capital, Pretoria, to Delagoa Bay on the east coast.

The delimited boundary of the Cape Colony was the Orange River, but as early as 1793 a Dutch expedition from the Cape took possession of Walfisch Bay, Angra Pequena, as well as Possession, Ichaboe, and other islands on the south-west coast in the name of the Dutch East India Company, while Namaqualand and Damaraland had been traversed from end to end by British and Dutch traders and explorers.

British statesmen, however, neglected the south-west, though the islands were annexed at different times between 1861 and 1867, and Walfisch Bay in 1878. In 1874 the islands were incorporated in the Cape Colony.

The mainland on the south-west, however, remained an open field as far as actual occupation went, in spite of its being tacitly acknowledged a British "sphere of influence."

Until the "scramble for Africa" no one would have regarded with anything but ridicule the idea that an enormous tract of country, comprising Great Namaqualand and Damaraland, would have been lost to Great Britain; yet British statesmen at home, feeling secure in the country's position, refused to encourage anything but a policy of gradual absorption.

In 1867 the Home Government was strongly urged by the Government of the Cape to annex Great Namaqualand and Damaraland, but declined to undertake the responsibility.

In the following year the residents of the territory, including numerous German missionaries, urged that the country might be declared British and be subject to British administration; but the proposal was met with disfavour.

In the year 1877 that great-minded Imperialist, Sir Bartle Frere, then Governor of the Cape of Good Hope, advised by the Executive Council at the Cape, made a strong recommendation that as a first step an Order in Council should be passed, empowering the Cape Parliament to legislate for the purpose of annexing the coast up to the Portuguese boundary; and that in the meanwhile no time should be lost in hoisting the British flag at Walfisch Bay. This latter step was assented to, and it was shortly afterwards carried into effect; but Sir Bartle Frere's larger proposals were negatived.

Sir Bartle Frere subsequently renewed his representations on the subject, but the Imperial Government continued of opinion that no action should be taken.[D]

The British Imperial Government was satisfied that there could be no possible danger in delay, and were disturbed at the unsettled state of the native territories of the Cape Colony and the recurrence of native disturbances which have been a prevailing element in the existence of the Colony.

The Imperial Government finally decided that it was unnecessary to extend their possessions beyond the then boundaries, that the Orange River should be maintained as the north-western boundary of the Cape Colony, and that the Government would give no encouragement to schemes for the extension of British jurisdiction over Great Namaqualand and Damaraland.

Up to 1883 the only assent to petitions from the Cape Government, from residents in Great Namaqualand and Damaraland, and from the natives of those territories, was for the annexation of the islands off the coast, and of Walfisch Bay and a very small portion of the country immediately surrounding it.

The danger of Germany stepping in was never disturbing to the minds of the British statesmen, and they were merely concerned with weighing the advantages of embracing the occasion.

German diplomacy had, however, been at work in its insidious way; and although active operations under Bismarck's policy of forming "Trade Colonies" were not undertaken by the German Government until well into 1884, the promoters and originators of the German Colonisation Society had been busy ever since the first conception of the Colonial idea in Germany.

During the years preceding 1884, indeed, representatives of the Bremen and Hamburg merchants had made many not unsuccessful efforts to worm themselves into the trading centres in Southern Africa.

Ambassadors of German commerce set out as pioneers of the new movement, and as early as August, 1883, the Standard newspaper published a communication from its special correspondent in Berlin—headed "The First German Colony"—reporting that a Bremen firm had "acquired" the Bay of Angra Pequena (Luderitzbucht) on the south-west coast of Africa.

The article proceeds that "the German Press, which was disappointed by the Reichstag last year (re the Samoa Bill), expresses great satisfaction at the consent of the German Government to protect the infant Colony and to allow the German flag to be hoisted over it. The semi-official Post declares that this is the most practicable kind of colonisation, because it avoids international difficulties. In spite of the statement ... that the German Government avoids giving any encouragement to immigration, the Post is convinced that if Germans will promote the increase of German manufacturing industry by founding commercial Colonies, they will not lack the powerful protection of