Towards the close of the 18th century Great Britain cast longing eyes at the Cape of Good Hope, as a victualling station for her ships on the way to India which could not remain much longer in the weak grasp of a Dutch company and must not fall into the hands of France. In 1795 the British Government despatched a strong expedition with the authority of the Prince of Orange and took possession of Cape Town, after a brief struggle with the local authorities. Free trade, with some preference for British goods, at once took the place of the grinding monopoly and vexatious restrictions of the old Dutch company; and various other liberal measures were enacted, which would have done much to reconcile the Dutch colonists to British rule were it not that, when England at the Peace of Amiens in 1803 restored the Cape of Good Hope to the Dutch Republic, there followed three years of direct Dutch rule under two most enlightened men, De Mist and Janssens, who did much to efface from the settlers’ remembrance the justly hated selfishness of the old Dutch East India Company. Therefore, when Great Britain resumed, in a manner intended to be permanent, the administration of Cape Colony in 1805, a still more decided opposition was shown to her forces than before; and even after the cession of this colony by Holland in 1814 there remained among the Dutch settlers a certain lukewarmness, and a disposition to find fault with the actions and motives of the Colonial Government and of the British people. In 1806, when Cape Colony passed definitely under British control, it had an area of about 125,000 square miles^[141]. The boundary on the East was the Great Fish river, and thence a curving line which ended at Plettenberg’s Beacon, about fifty miles south of the Orange river. The boundary on the north was an irregular line from Plettenberg’s Beacon (dipping far south in the middle) to the mouth of the Buffalo river (Little Namakwaland) on the Atlantic Ocean. The population of the colony (not counting the military forces) was about 26,000 Europeans (of whom 6,000 lived in Cape Town), about 30,000 Malay and negro slaves, some hundred thousand Hottentots and half-breeds, perhaps another hundred thousand Kafirs and a few thousand Bushmen. The industries and pursuits of the European settlers were limited to vine-growing, the raising of grain, and the care of large herds of cattle and sheep. The cattle were mostly the long-horned native cattle of the Hottentots, and the sheep the hairy, fat-tailed, domestic sheep of Africa. Ostrich farming was unknown, and although the Dutch commissioners, De Mist and Janssens, had begun to introduce merino sheep just before the expiration of their administration, wool had not yet figured amongst the exports.

The first beneficial effect of British rule was felt in the stemming of the tide of Kafir invasion. This race of Bantu negroes had during the previous century been pressing closer and closer on the extremity of South Africa from the northeast. The earliest branch of the Bantu to reach South Africa were the Herero, who invaded what is now known as Damaraland. But the desert and the Hottentots kept them from either reaching the Atlantic coast or penetrating any further south. Then came the Bechuana, who barely crossed the Orange river; and then, overriding these latter, latest of all in the field, the Zulu-Kafirs, who attempted to enter Cape Colony from the coast region bordering on the Indian Ocean. The first British-Kafir war took place in 1811-12, and ended in the Kafirs being driven eastward of the Sunday River, and further led to their expulsion from the Zuurveld (the modern district of Albany), to the west of the Great Fish river, which was then fixed as the Kafir boundary. In 1817 Lord Charles Somerset, the Governor of the Cape, visited the Zuurveld, and decided that the best obstacle in the way of repeated Kafir invasions would be to settle that district with a stout race of colonists. He therefore obtained a grant from the British Government of £5,000 to promote emigration to the Cape; and in 1820-21, 5,000 British emigrants landed in South Africa, 4,000 of whom were settled in the eastern districts, principally in the county of Albany. This settlement was at first a failure. Few if any of the settlers were skilled agriculturists; they were without any experience of life in a semi-tropical country; the cost of land transport pressed heavily on them; and the grants of land made to each individual were too small. The first few years Nature played her usual tricks; for Nature seems to hate the movement of species and the upsetting of her arrangements. Therefore she sent blight during three years, then floods for another season. The settlers fell into great distress, but in time things righted themselves. Some immigrants moved to the towns of the colony and obtained high wages as artisans; and others who held on to the Zuurveld at last attained prosperity by extending the area of land they occupied, and going in for sheep and cattle runs in preference to corn-growing. The Kafirs however had poured over the frontier in hordes under the leadership of Makana in 1817-18. They raided the Boer flocks and herds and attacked Grahamstown; and the second Kafir war which ensued ended in these warlike negroes being driven back to the east of the Chumi or Keiskamma river.

The immigrants of 1820 and 1821 created for the first time a strong British element in the population of Cape Colony. They were principally English in origin, but also included Scotch, Irish, and Welsh, though the Irish immigrants, who had settled in the western part of Cape Colony, did not prosper. Gradually, owing to the distribution of the new settlers, the eastern part of Cape Colony became English in race and language, as compared to the western and central parts, which remained principally Dutch. The X̓osa^[142] Kafir boundary having been shifted to the Keiskamma, the frontier district between that stream and the Great Fish river was at first regarded as a neutral land to be possessed by neither Kafir nor white man. Gradually, however, this system became impossible, and at last, in 1831, the Colonial Office gave its assent to grants of land being made in the ceded territory to respectable settlers. Unfortunately in this despatch a distinction was drawn between Englishmen and Hottentots on the one hand and the Dutch Boers on the other, and the latter were not permitted to obtain land in the new frontier district. This tactless and unjustified announcement, together with the attacks made on the Boers by the British missionaries, and the knowledge that the abolition of slavery was near at hand, made many of the Dutch settlers profoundly dissatisfied with the British Government and anxious to move beyond its control.

An unhappy incident had occurred sixteen years previously which left bitter memories behind. The British Governor had enrolled about 1811 a regiment of Hottentot soldiers under British officers. The Hottentots had many grievances to avenge, dating from the former rule of the Dutchmen; and these soldiers comported themselves with arrogance towards their former masters. Most unwisely they were used as policemen and sent now and again to arrest Dutch settlers who had broken the law. From one such incident arose in 1815 the riot over the arrest and death of the Bezuidenhout brothers in northern Albany, and the hanging at “Slagter’s Nek” of five of the rioters—an excessively severe punishment for which some writers have condemned Lord Charles Somerset as the originator of a race quarrel which lasted nearly a hundred years.

Till 1825 the Cape had been governed despotically by the Governor, but in that year an executive council of six members, all Government officials, was appointed to advise the Governor in his legislation. In 1828 two colonists were introduced into this council in place of two official members. But in 1833 the Cape received a regular constitution as a Crown colony with a legislative council in which the unofficial element was fairly represented. In 1827 the English language had been substituted for Dutch in courts of law (an additional cause of dissatisfaction to the Boers); but the administration of justice in that year was greatly improved by the appointment of a supreme court with judges appointed directly by the Crown, while the lower courts were entirely remodelled, and civil commissioners and resident magistrates were appointed. In 1822 the number of Europeans settled in South Africa was about 60,000. In 1828, owing to the growing importance of the Albany settlement, Cape Colony was divided into two provinces, the western and the eastern; and the latter was for a time governed with some degree of independence. By 1824 Cape Colony had taken what is now the southern limit of the Orange Free State as its northern boundary.

At this time there was a slave population in British South Africa of about 60,000, of whom less than half were Hottentots (who were rather serfs than slaves), and the remainder Malays introduced by the Dutch, and black negroes brought from Moçambique and from Angola. The British Government having abolished the slave trade in 1807, the further importation of slaves ceased; but there came into the colony a certain number of free negroes, who were rescued from the slave ships by cruisers, and landed in South Africa. In 1833 slavery was abolished. It was however enacted that, although the emancipation should come into effect on December 1st, 1834^[143], complete freedom should not be given to the slaves till December 1st, 1838; further, that the Imperial Government should pay compensation to the extent of 1¼ million pounds. As this compensation was saddled with various deductions and drawbacks, the slave-owners—chiefly Dutchmen—did not get fair value for their slaves, and therefore had further cause for grumbling.

At the end of 1834, shortly after one of the most distinguished of South African Governors, Sir Benjamin d’Urban, had arrived to take up his appointment, 12,000 armed Kafirs crossed the eastern border into the colony with a determined resolve to oust the Europeans from the newly settled districts. For nearly a fortnight the X̓osa clans under Makoma and Chali had it all their own way from Somerset East to Algoa Bay, killing many of the white men, burning their houses, destroying or carrying off their property, and turning a beautiful province into a desert. This raid was absolutely unprovoked, except in so far that for years the Kafirs had been nursing a grievance on account of their expulsion from the country west of the Keiskamma, which they themselves had not long before taken from the Hottentots. Prompt measures (the third Kafir war) were taken to repel this invasion and punish the X̓osa tribe. Colonel Smith—afterwards Governor Sir Harry Smith—mustered what forces were available, and drove the X̓osa Kafirs beyond the Keiskamma. Early in 1835 the British forces had reached the Kei river on a counter invasion of Kafirland. Sir Benjamin D’Urban dealt mercifully with the conquered Kafirs; very few even of the enemy were dispossessed of their homes, while those natives who had remained friendly were rewarded by grants of land. Beyond the Kei river Kareli the son and heir of Hintsa, chief of the Galeka clan (who had been killed while attempting to escape from imprisonment), was recognized as ruler over a section of the X̓osas; while in the new province, afterwards to be known as British Kaffraria, British residents were placed with the Kafir chiefs to advise them, and missionaries were encouraged to return to their work. Yet this settlement (statesmanlike and far-sighted in its details—which there is not space to give—as in its general outlines) was upset, and the prosperity of South Africa seriously damaged by the Secretary of War and the Colonies, Lord Glenelg^[144]; a sentimental doctrinaire, who had evolved from his inner consciousness an unreal South Africa in which Kafir raiders of oxen were noble-minded black kings, whom a harsh pro-consul was dispossessing from their ancestral territories. He not only upset all that was new in Sir Benjamin D’Urban’s arrangement, but even compelled the retrocession to the Kafirs of land which had long been occupied by white settlers, and further damaged the authority of the popular Governor of the Cape by erecting the eastern province into a separate governorship, over which he placed a Boer named Andries Stockenstrom. The immediate result of this reversal of Sir Benjamin D’Urban’s policy was ten years of intermittent war with the Kafirs (who took generosity of treatment for weakness), and grave dissatisfaction among those colonists of Dutch origin who had suffered from the Kafir raids. In fact, Lord Glenelg’s blunder proved the last straw that broke the back of Dutch tolerance of British rule; and in 1836 a number of the Dutch colonists (who had come to be known as the “Boers,” or farmers) trekked away from the limits of Cape Colony across the Orange river and the Vaal river, and south-eastwards into Natal. So far back as 1815 the Dutch farmers, as already related, had risen against the government of Lord Charles Somerset because it interfered with their summary treatment of the natives, and their rising had ended in the hanging of five of the rioters at Slagter’s Nek; but in modern historical works dealing with Cape Colony it is reiterated that the main cause of the shaking-off of British citizenship by so many Boer farmers was not the resentment over the Slagter’s Nek execution so much as Lord Glenelg’s reversal of D’Urban’s frontier settlement. The adventures of these Boers after leaving British territory I have dealt with in the chapter on Dutch Africa.

In 1823 a small enterprise under the leadership of Farewell and King, officers in the Royal Navy, started from Cape Town to explore the coast of Natal. They landed at Port Natal (now Durban), visited the Zulu king Chaka, and obtained from him in 1824 a grant of the port of Natal with 100 square miles of territory inland, and a coast-line of 35 miles. Other territories in what is now the modern colony of Natal were also obtained later on from the Zulu chief. The purchasers of these lands proclaimed them to be British territory. Although these adventurers were occasionally driven away by the violent wars and disturbances going on amongst the Zulus and Kafirs, they held on to their possessions; and in June 1834 Sir Benjamin D’Urban forwarded to the Colonial Office a petition from Cape Colony for the establishment of a definite government in Natal. This petition the fatuous Lord Glenelg declined on the score of expense. In 1835 the white element in Natal was increased by missionaries from America, and by Captain Allen Gardiner, a pioneer of missionary enterprise on behalf of the Church of England. These settlers drew up the plans of a regular township, built a church, christened their territory Victoria (in honour of the heir to the British throne), and proposed to call the town they were laying out Durban, after the energetic Governor of Cape Colony. In 1835 they petitioned that their territory might be made a colony, but again the Imperial Government refused, then, as for many years afterwards, preferring to postpone action until it was costly and fraught with bloodshed. The Dutch immigrants were allowed to form a republic in the interior of Natal. In July 1838 General Napier, acting no doubt on instructions from home, invited the British settlers in Natal to return to Cape Colony; but a few months afterwards he sent a small detachment of troops to keep order at the port, and again pressed the Home Government to declare Natal a British colony, though the following year the soldiers were withdrawn. This was taken by the Boers to be a tacit consent to the establishment of a vassal republic under British suzerainty. They would probably have had their way but for imprudent dealings on their part with natives placed under British protection. At the same time, a feeling began to grow that the United States of America were going to have political dealings with the territory of Natal (as another “Liberia”); while a vessel had come out from Holland, sent, it is true, by private persons, but seeming to convey a promise of Dutch alliance to the Burghers of Natal. British troops had again occupied Durban. In 1842 they were attacked by the Boers, who were eventually repulsed, and afterwards tendered their submission to the Queen’s authority. At length, in 1843, a Conservative ministry being in power, it was intimated that the settlers on the coast of Natal might be taken under British protection, with the eventual object of constituting Natal a self-governing colony, in which the Boers were to have a share proportionate to their numbers. After much negotiation, Natal became a British colony with a legislative council in 1843. The fighting Boers left the country and retired beyond the Orange river under a somewhat indefinite assurance that British rule would not follow them. The king of the Zulus received a recognition of his independence, and in return recognized the Tugela as the boundary of the British colony on the north-east. To the south, the territory of Natal was somewhat restricted, and the portion cut off from it became known as Pondoland, which remained an independent Kafir state till 1884; it was finally annexed to Cape Colony in 1894. In 1847 the mistake of Lord Glenelg was to some extent repaired under Governor Sir Harry Smith; and the eastern boundary of Cape Colony was once more advanced to the Kei river. This step was taken after a very serious Kafir war (the fourth, or “War of the Axe”) which broke out in 1846. In 1850, however, a war began again (the fifth, or “Sandile” war) with the restless X̓osa Kafirs. It extended far and wide, and was marked by not a few disasters; one being the loss at sea off Simon’s Bay of the troopship Birkenhead, which foundered with large reinforcements of troops on board, 400 soldiers and seamen being drowned. At length, in 1853, General Cathcart, who had succeeded Sir Harry Smith, captured all the strongholds of the Kafirs in the Amatola Mountains, and deported the Kafirs from that district, which subsequently became (from its settlement by Hottentot half-breeds) Grikwaland East^[145]. In this native uprising the Kafirs had been joined by over a thousand pure-blood Hottentots, dissatisfied with British treatment and wanting to create a “Hottentot republic.”

In 1852 the Sand River Convention was concluded, by which the independence of the Transvaal Boers was recognized; but the Orange River Sovereignty still remained under British control, and its difficulties with the Basuto compelled an intervention of the British forces. The invasion of mountainous Basutoland began with a drawn battle in which the Basuto held their own. They afterwards secured favourable terms of peace by sending in their submission. This incident discouraged the British Government, who decided to abandon the Orange River Sovereignty rather than be under any responsibility for its defence. Accordingly, independence was forced on the settlers, many of whom were Englishmen. Basutoland, after having frequently engaged in wars with the Orange Free State, and having to cede a portion of its territory to them, was finally taken under British protection in 1868. In 1871 it was annexed to the Cape, but, owing to the turbulence of its people and the mismanagement of the Colonial Government, it was transferred to direct Imperial administration in 1883.

During several years prior to 1849 the Imperial Government had been endeavouring to arrange for the despatch of British convicts to South Africa, as it was becoming inconvenient to maintain the penal establishments in Australia. Whenever the question came up the Cape Colonists protested against the idea. Nevertheless, in September 1849, a ship brought over from Bermuda a number of ticket-of-leave men to be landed at the Cape. The ship anchored in Simon’s Bay, but the colonists took strong measures to prevent the landing of the convicts. All were united to this end. The Governor met the dangerous situation with great wisdom. He kept the convicts on board ship until the order could be reconsidered in England. The Home Government, for a wonder, did not push the point to the raising of rebellion; the convicts were sent on to Van Diemen’s Land, while an Order-in-Council authorizing transportation to the Cape was revoked. By 1850 the prosperity of Cape Colony had become established. Its population, white and coloured, at that time reached a total of 220,000. The revenue at the same period stood at about £220,000 per annum, while the value of the colonial produce exported during that year was approximately £800,000. Wine was no longer the principal export, and even the export of grain had diminished; wool had taken the first place. In 1850 it represented 53 per cent. of the total exports. Hair from Angora goats, which had been introduced during the thirties, was beginning to take an important place in the list of exported products; and ostrich feathers (chiefly derived from the wild bird, however) were also an important item. Ostrich farming, which has now placed the ostrich—happily—on the list of inextinguishable domestic birds, did not come into vogue till the sixties, though the emigrant Boers at a much earlier date had been accustomed to hatch and rear young ostriches about their farms.

On the 23rd of May, 1850, the Government and Council of Cape Colony were authorized to prepare for the establishment of a representative government; and three years later this was established, a Colonial legislature being formed; but the ministry was to be responsible only to the Governor. Responsible government, similar in many respects to that which obtains in the daughter nations of Canada and Australasia, was brought into force in 1872.

In 1854 the great Sir George Grey became Governor of the Cape. He, even more than his predecessors, was anxious to build up against Kafir invasion on the East a wall of military colonists, who should be able to defend their flocks from raids without continually calling on the Colonial Government for intervention. After the Crimean War a means presented itself in the disbanding of the Foreign Legion, which Great Britain had recruited, and which consisted of German, Swiss, and Italian soldiers. After the conclusion of peace it was necessary to disband this force, and they were invited to volunteer for African colonization. The result was that 2300 Germans accepted the terms offered, and started for South Africa. They were settled in the Eastern Province. But trouble then began to arise from their being unmarried men, and Sir George Grey sought to remedy the defect by importing a large number of German women. The Imperial Government, however, thought that this would not be a politic step to take, to create a little Germany in British Africa. Finally the Cape Government sent on 1000 of the German bachelors to India, and the 1300 who remained behind found wives in the colony, and merged their own nationality in that of British subjects. Nevertheless, the introduction of these German settlers led to the going out of many emigrants from Germany for some years afterwards, and these settled in such numbers in independent Kaffraria that there seemed a danger at one time of their invoking German intervention.

In 1856 a terrible delusion took hold on the X̓osa Kafirs. They had endured a good deal of misery from the destruction of much of their cattle by an epidemic of rinderpest, and were in a mood to be influenced by the wild sayings of their witch doctors. One of these wizards, Umhlakazi, who had received a smattering of education at a mission school, arose and proclaimed a strange gospel. He announced that the dead and gone Kafir chiefs would return to earth with their followers, and bring with them a new race of cattle exempt from disease, and that following on this resurrection would come the triumph of the black man over the white. The prophet had heard of the Crimean War, and announced that the dead Kafir chiefs would bring with them many Russian soldiers and attack the British. But one thing was necessary to secure this millennium—the existing cattle and crops must be destroyed. A portion of the Kafir tribes believed this rubbish. Some of the chiefs even who knew better, and who smiled at the imposture, encouraged it, thinking that after taking these desperate measures their men would stick at nothing, and would really break down the British power. Therefore, most of the X̓osa Kafirs of the Galeka and Gaika clans, set to work to slaughter their oxen and cut down their corn; and all looked forward eagerly to the dawning of February 18, 1857, on which date the resurrection was to take place. Nothing happened, however; and the consequences of this hateful imposture were terrible. It is stated that 25,000 Kafirs died of starvation, and nearly 100,000 others left British Kaffraria and the territories beyond the Kei to seek another home. Some 40,000 of these Kafirs settled in Cape Colony, being taken into service there through the intervention of the Government; and from them, mixed with Hottentots and emancipated slaves, are descended the “Cape Boys,” who have since attracted attention by their value as soldiers in suppressing the Matebele revolt. Sir George Grey in 1858 was obliged to send a military force (the sixth Kafir war) against some of the Kafir tribes rendered desperate by destitution, and they were driven for a time into Pondoland; British Kaffraria being annexed to Cape Colony, and the Transkei being taken under British protection. This Transkei territory was subsequently repeopled, partly with Fingo^[146] Kafirs, and partly by the descendants of the Kafir tribes who were ruined by the teaching of the false prophets. In 1877 the Galeka, a clan of the X̓osa tribe, commenced fighting the Fingos. They were joined later by the Gaika, another X̕osa people, who had long been dwelling peaceably in the Eastern province, and during 1877 and 1878 the seventh and last Kafir war raged, ending inevitably in conquest and submission.

The British had taken from the Dutch in 1651 the little island of St Helena^[147] (in the Atlantic Ocean), the Dutch having previously occupied it in 1645. This island became of some value as a place of call for ships passing to and from India round the Cape. In 1815 it was selected as the place of banishment for the deposed Napoleon Bonaparte; and to make security doubly sure, the islands of Ascension, to the north, and Tristan d’Acunha, to the extreme south^[148], were occupied also about the same time, and have remained British ever since. Whereas Ascension has always been managed directly by the British Admiralty, St Helena was from 1673 until 1815, and from 1821 to 1834, governed by the East India Company. In 1834 it became a Crown Colony. Tristan d’Acunha was occupied by a British garrison from 1815 to 1821, of which three men remained behind voluntarily and with some shipwrecked sailors started the existing colony, which is a self-governing community.

St Helena was profoundly affected by the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. She lost nearly all the shipping which formerly sought her harbour, and three-quarters of her trade; but she is now beginning to recover prosperity to some degree as a valuable health resort, especially for the ships of the West African Squadron, and as a possible coaling station in time of war.

Cape Colony might also have suffered from the opening of the Suez Canal but that she was already beginning to build up an importance of her own, due to her exports of wool, hides, wine, and ostrich feathers. Moreover a happy discovery intervened which effectually guarded against any waning of interest in South Africa. In 1867 the first diamond was discovered near the Orange river, but it was not until 1870 that a large find of these precious stones was made near the site of modern Kimberley. This discovery of diamonds to the north of the Orange river, and in country of doubtful ownership, but claimed by the Orange Free State, drove the now awakened British Government to rather sharp practice. The diamond-bearing land was claimed by a Grikwa (Hottentot half-caste) chief named Waterboer. On the other hand, the Orange Free State asserted that it had acquired the greater part of the country from the original Grikwa owners; and the northern part of Diamondland was claimed by the Transvaal. This last claim was submitted to the arbitration of the Lieutenant-Governor of Natal, who awarded most of the diamond country to the Grikwa and Bechuana chiefs. These latter had really become the men of straw hiding the hand of the British Government. Finally, in 1871 Waterboer and other Grikwa chiefs ceded their rights to the British Government, who promptly erected the diamond country into a province under the name of Grikwaland West. The Orange Free State protested, and no doubt the action of the British Government was rather high-handed, and in rare contrast to the abnegatory policy usually pursued. Finally, the claims of the Orange Free State were settled by Lord Carnarvon, who in 1876 awarded to its government the sum of £90,000 in consideration of the abandonment of their contention.

In 1845 Natal had been annexed to Cape Colony, but later on in the same year it was given a separate administration, consisting of a Lieutenant-Governor and an executive Council; though in legal matters it still remained dependent on Cape Town. In 1848 a local Legislative Council was created, and finally in 1856 the colony was entirely severed from the Cape, and was endowed with a partially representative government. Some years previously the Governor of Cape Colony had been also created H.M. High Commissioner in South Africa, so that he might have power to represent the British Government outside the limits of Cape Colony. In this capacity therefore he continued to retain some authority over the government of Natal and its relations with the adjoining states. (The influence of the High Commissioner now extends over all South and Central Africa under the British flag, except, at present, the Protectorate of Nyasaland; in other words, over Rhodesia, the South African Union, Bechuanaland, Basutoland, and Swaziland.) The territory of Natal was not capable for some time of any great extension, being girt about with Boer states and negro tribes whose independence was to some extent guaranteed by the Imperial Government. But in 1866 it received back a small territory on the south (the county of Alfred), which was within the original limits claimed by the founders of Natal, but had been for a time handed over to a Pondo chief. The settled government of Natal and the kindly attitude of the British Colonial Government brought about the repeopling of that fertile country by Kafir tribes.

This “Garden of South Africa” had been almost depopulated by the Zulu kings, who had slaughtered something like 1,000,000 natives from first to last. Before the rise of the Zulu tribe, Natal or “Embo^[149]” had been a thickly populated country. Under white rule the native immigration and population increased so rapidly that when the colony was only nine years old it contained 113,000 Kafirs. The white colonists were of mixed origin, about one-third being the original Dutch settlers, while the remainder were either emigrants from Great Britain, Cape Colonials, or Germans. The German families mainly came from Bremen. At first the principal article of export was ivory, obtained from Zululand, where elephants still rioted in great numbers; but this was not to last long, for what with British sportsmen and Dutch hunters and the introduction of firearms amongst the natives, big game was rapidly exterminated. Then, during the fifties, the sugar cane and the cotton plant were introduced^[150], the export of sugar rising in 1872 to an annual value of £154,000. These semi-tropical plantations brought about a fresh want—that of patient, cheap, agricultural labourers. Unhappily, the black man, though so strong in body and so unaspiring in ideals, has as a rule a strong objection to continuous agricultural labour. His own needs are amply supplied by a few weeks’ tillage scattered throughout the year; and even this is generally performed by the women of the tribe, the men being free to fight, hunt, fish, tend cattle, and loaf. Therefore, the 100,000 odd black men of Natal^[151], though they made useful domestic servants and police, were of but little use in the plantations. As sugar cultivation was introduced from Mauritius, so with this introduction came naturally the idea of employing Indian kulis, already taking the place in the Mascarene Islands which was formerly occupied by negro slaves. In 1860 the first indentured kulis reached Natal from India, and by the end of 1875 12,000 natives of British India were established in Natal. A number of these had passed out of their indentures, and had become free settlers and petty traders. Nowadays the Indian population of Natal has risen to something like 142,000. From Natal these British Indians have crept into the Transvaal, into the Orange Free State, and even into Bechuanaland and Rhodesia. Many of them are employed on the Natal railways, and in the towns they form a thriving class of petty traders. Here and there they have mingled with the Kafirs, producing a rather fine-looking hybrid, similar in appearance to the black Portuguese on the Zambezi, who are descended from a cross between natives of Goa, in Portuguese India, and Zambezi Negroes. Added to the ordinary Kuli class are traders who belong partly to Tamul and other Dravidian races of South India and partly to coast tribes from Western India, mostly professing the Khoja faith. The Khojas are in a far-off way Muhammadans. The inhabitants of Natal have with great inaccuracy taken to calling these West Coast Indians “Arabs.”

This Indian element—already about 150,000 in number—is likely to have its effect on the history of Natal. It is strongly unpopular amongst the white colonists for selfish reasons. On the whole, it is not unpopular among the blacks, but the idea of an eventual fusion between Negro and Indian is not an agreeable one to contemplate from the colonist’s point of view, as it would create a race strong both mentally and physically, far outnumbering the whites, and likely to make a dangerous struggle for supremacy. On the other hand, from the Imperial point of view,—from what may be called the policy of the Black, White, and Yellow—it seems unjust that the King-Emperor’s Indian subjects should not be allowed to circulate as freely as those of his lieges who can claim European descent. Perhaps on the whole the solution which has been initiated in the British protectorates north of the Zambezi is the best—namely, that Indian immigration should be drawn rather to those countries which are administered on the same lines as India, than to the temperate regions south of the Zambezi, where the white man might be allowed to expand without let or hindrance.

The first railway worked in South Africa is said to have been a line connecting the town of Durban with the landing-place of its harbour, which was opened in 1860. But soon afterwards a railway began to start northwards from Cape Town to Paarl; and this was directed, with many zigzags and with a seeming aimlessness, towards the Karoo. The discovery of the diamond fields gave railway extension an objective, and Kimberley became the goal which was finally reached in 1885^[152]. In 1872 the Cape Government by Act of Parliament took over the existing railways in Cape Colony, which then only consisted of a total length of 64 miles. Soon afterwards an expenditure on railway extension of £5,000,000 was authorized. In Natal a Government railway was commenced in 1876 connecting Durban with the capital, Pietermaritzburg. This line now traverses the Colony to the Transvaal border and in another direction enters the Orange Free State.

The history of Natal has been comparatively peaceful and prosperous, as compared with the weary Kafir warfare of the Eastern Province of Cape Colony. But in 1873 the natives of Natal required a lesson. On its north-western frontier the Hlubi refugees from Zululand had been allowed to establish themselves under a chief of great importance, Langalibalele. His young men had gone to work in the Diamond fields of Kimberley, and had returned with guns, the introduction of which into the colony without registration was prohibited. Langalibalele, taking no notice of a summons to answer for this breach of the law, fled into Basutoland. Fortunately the Basuto gave him no support, and he was eventually captured and exiled for a time to Cape Colony. But this outbreak called attention to the great increase of the native population of Natal, and the unwisdom of allowing it any longer to remain under the government of irresponsible Kafir chiefs. Accordingly in 1875 Sir Garnet, afterwards Viscount, Wolseley was sent to Natal to report on the native question, and initiated changes which had the effect of bringing the natives more completely under the control of the Executive, and approximating them more towards the position of citizens of the colony.

All this time diamonds had been attracting many emigrants to South Africa, chiefly from Great Britain, but also from France and Germany. Among these emigrants were numerous Jews^[153] belonging to all three nationalities, who were naturally attracted to the diamond trade. The growing interest taken in South Africa owing to the discovery of diamonds had not only tended to make the British Government very particular as to the exact rights it possessed in the vicinity of the Dutch republics, but also led it to revive its claims to the south shore of Delagoa Bay. The Portuguese Government, foreseeing this, had commenced to reassert its right to that harbour in its boundary treaty with the Transvaal in 1869. In 1870-71 the British Government raised its claim in the manner I have already described in the chapter on Portuguese Africa. In 1872 Great Britain agreed to submit the question at issue to the arbitration of Marshal MacMahon, whose award, delivered in 1875, was wholly in favour of the Portuguese. But Great Britain had already secured from Portugal a promise, confirmed by a more recent convention, that she should be allowed the right of pre-emption over Delagoa Bay^[154]. During the fifties and sixties missionaries and traders had pushed due north across the Orange river, through Bechuanaland, to the Zambezi, and westward to Lake Ngami and Damaraland. In the sixties a good deal of trade was done in the last-mentioned country in ostrich feathers and ivory; and the Damara, who should more properly be known as the Ova-herero^[155], came under European influence. Wars arising between the Damara and the Hottentot Namakwa, and the complaints of the German missionaries at work in these countries, brought about the despatch of a commissioner (Mr W. C. Palgrave) to Damaraland by the Cape Government. He reported in 1876 in favour of extending British protection over Damaraland; but all that Downing Street would concede was the annexation of Walfish Bay. (Twelve little islets off the S. W. coast had been annexed in 1867, because they were leased to a guano-collecting company.) A little later another commissioner was despatched from the Cape to settle the intertribal quarrels north of the Orange river, and a further recommendation was sent home by the Governor; but Lord Kimberley, the new Colonial Secretary, definitely forbade the extension of any British influence over Namakwaland or Damaraland. In 1883 Germany directly questioned England as to whether she laid claim to territory north of the Orange river. An evasive reply was sent, in which delay was asked for so that the Cape Government could be consulted. Eventually the Germans were told that England laid claim to Walfish Bay and the Guano Islands only, but that the intervention of another Power between the Portuguese frontier and the Orange river would infringe legitimate British rights. The inaction of the British Government on this occasion seems in the present day, and by our modern lights, inconceivable. Literally the only reason they had in not politely declaring that South-West Africa was under British protection was the remote dread that they would have to protect German missionaries and traders.

Yet not only Downing Street in the greater degree but the Cape Government in the lesser was to blame for this inactivity. The Cape Government at that time was directed by ministers who were much under purely colonial influence, and who, discouraged by their failure to administer Basutoland, had no very strong desire to spend the money of the colony in annexing and administering a vast territory mainly desert. Besides, the idea of Germany becoming a colonial power was laughed at in those days in Government circles as an impossibility. At length all doubts were ended by the declaration of a German protectorate over South-West Africa in 1884.

In 1882 measures were passed in the Cape Parliament which gave equal rights throughout Cape Colony to the Dutch language. In the same year the “Afrikander Bond” was established, an institution with the avowed object of building up an Afrikander Dutch-speaking nation which should eventually be independent of the British flag. Its principal creators and supporters were Mr J. H. Hofmeyr of Cape Town, Mr Borckenhager of the Orange State, and Mr Reitz of the Transvaal. Measures for bringing about a federation of the British and Dutch states had failed (as will be subsequently narrated), and an annexation of the Transvaal had been reversed. British influence in South Africa seemed on the wane and the Dutch element in the ascendant.

British missionaries during the thirties and forties had crossed the Orange river and settled in Bechuanaland, a sterile plateau between the Namakwa and Kalahari deserts on the one hand, and the relatively well-watered regions of the Transvaal and Matebeleland on the other. By 1851, British sportsmen, roving afield after big game, and the great missionary-explorer Livingstone had reached the Zambezi, which till then was only known from the sea upwards for about 500 miles inland. Livingstone’s exploration of the Zambezi attracted the attention of the British Government, which at that time was more interested (from philanthropic motives) in acquiring territories in Tropical Africa than in extending its influence over more valuable regions enjoying a temperate climate. Livingstone was sent back as a consul to the mouth of the Zambezi in 1858 with a well-equipped expedition to explore Zambezia and discover the reported Lake Nyasa, then known as Lake Maravi. For five years his expedition traversed these countries, adding immensely to our geographical knowledge; but its members suffered terribly from ill-health. Although the Portuguese treated them with kindness and put no obstacle in their way, still Portuguese political susceptibilities were aroused. For this and other reasons, Livingstone was recalled, and his proposals in regard to Lake Nyasa quashed. Nevertheless, the seed had been sown, and produced a sparse crop of adventurers, elephant hunters, missionaries and traders, who found their way to Nyasaland. Livingstone himself resumed his explorations there (in 1866); and an expedition, under Lieutenant Edward Young, R.N., which was sent to obtain news of him (1868), kept the British in favourable remembrance amongst the natives. Finally, Livingstone’s death revived missionary enthusiasm; and two strong Scotch missions in 1875-6 occupied the Shiré Highlands and the west coast of Lake Nyasa, putting a steamer on that lake. Two years later the African Lakes Trading Company sprang from missionary loins, and the Universities’ Mission in 1881 advanced overland from Zanzibar to the east shore of Lake Nyasa.

In consequence of the increase of British interests in this quarter the British Government decided to establish a consulate for Lake Nyasa in 1883. Portuguese susceptibilities again became ruffled. Although no attempt had ever been made by Portugal to establish herself anywhere near Lake Nyasa, or even on the river Shiré, which connects that lake with the Zambezi and the sea, it was felt in Portugal that the growing British settlements in Nyasaland should be made to contribute to the revenue of Portuguese East Africa; and that, since through further extension they might force a way to the coast, it would be better that they should be brought under Portuguese control. Although the British Government was absolutely determined if possible not to assume direct responsibilities in Nyasaland, it was equally anxious that its subjects should be left a free hand, and not be fettered by Portuguese control. Therefore an attempt was made by Lord Granville (in the projected Congo Treaty of 1884) to define the sphere of Portuguese influence on the Shiré, so as to leave the greater part of that river and all Nyasaland outside the Portuguese dominions. Had that Congo Treaty been ratified, there would probably never have arisen the Nyasa Question with the Portuguese. But it was not ratified, and therefore Portugal was equally free with Great Britain to make the best use of her opportunities, which she did by means of several expeditions in the manner already described in Chapter IV. But nevertheless Nyasaland, including the Shiré Highlands, was declared to be a British Protectorate, based on treaties with native chiefs concluded by two consuls, (Sir) H. H. Johnston and John Buchanan; and the former, assisted by (Sir) Alfred Sharpe, further brought within the British sphere of influence the rest of “British Central Africa” from the central Zambezi to Lakes Tanganyika and Mweru and the frontier of the Congo Independent State. To this sphere of influence was shortly afterwards added the Barotse Kingdom, made known to us by Dr Livingstone and by the French Protestant missionaries. Treaties with Germany (1890) and Portugal (1891) having sanctioned these acquisitions north of the Zambezi, the administration of the new territory was divided between the Imperial Government—which decided to control the more organized territories round Lake Nyasa—and the newly-founded British South Africa Chartered Company. After 1895 the Chartered Company assumed the direct administration of its North Zambezian territories which are now known as Northern Rhodesia.

Since 1890 much has been effected in developing and making known these territories of British Central Africa, which are perhaps not sufficiently healthy in all parts or void of an indigenous population to permit of more than a restricted European colonization, though they are already becoming of great value as tropical “plantation” colonies and as mining districts, and will support an abundant native population. During the seven years of the existence of this British sphere north of the Zambezi the slave trade had to be met and conquered. Numerous Arabs from Zanzibar had established themselves in Nyasaland as sultans, and had Muhammadanized some of the tribes and infused into them a dislike to European domination. The countries west of Lake Nyasa were ravaged by the Angoni, a people of more or less Zulu descent, the remains of former Zulu invasions of Central Zambezia. In seven years, however, these enemies were all subdued by means of Sikh soldiers lent by the Indian Government, by the native levies that were drilled by the Sikhs, and by five gunboats, which were placed on the Zambezi, the Shiré, and on Lake Nyasa. The Right Hon. Cecil Rhodes began in 1893 his great scheme of connecting Cape Town with Cairo by a telegraph line. In five years he had at any rate connected Cape Town with Tanganyika through British Central Africa. The Shiré Highlands and much else of Nyasaland and Eastern Northern Rhodesia proved moderately favourable to the cultivation of coffee (which was originally introduced by Scottish missionaries and planters); but the product which will probably make the fortune of this part of Africa is cotton—as Livingstone predicted more than half a century ago. These countries possess other valuable resources in tobacco, maize, and timber, in minerals, and in ivory; and are well adapted for the growth of certain kinds of rubber. Through the middle of Northern Rhodesia the “Cape to Cairo” railway is now built with several branch lines; and regions unmapped and unknown when the first edition of this work was published are now familiar to many a sightseer and tourist, brought within a few days’ railway journey (across the Victoria Falls of the Zambezi) of Cape Town. The Shiré Highlands are connected by a railway with the Lower Zambezi, a line which will before long terminate at the port of Beira in South-East Africa and be extended northwards to Lake Nyasa. Large towns have sprung into existence in Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia; the native population has nearly doubled in numbers since 1890; and “British Central Africa” is well on the way to becoming one of the most prosperous portions of the British Empire.

During the 4th Earl of Carnarvon’s presence at the Colonial Office between 1874 and 1878 that statesman endeavoured to repeat in South Africa the success which had attended his consolidation of the North American colonies into one confederated Dominion. He sent out the historian Froude to represent him at the proposed conference of South African states. Already, Sir George Grey had tried hard to bring about this unification of South Africa under the British flag during the fifties; and in 1858 had pressed strongly upon the Imperial Parliament a scheme which would have well effected this desired end. For his pains he was recalled and sharply reprimanded, but, mainly owing to the influence of Queen Victoria, he was sent back to his governorship, though he was not allowed to carry out the far-reaching policy he had formulated. In Cape Colony the Federation Commission was appointed in 1872. But the always present, more or less bitter divergence of sympathies between the English and the Dutch-speaking settlers—a discord constantly discernible in the debates of the Cape Parliament—prevented any ripening of the federation idea; and Lord Carnarvon’s commissioner, Mr J. A. Froude, was snubbed for his pains by the Cape Dutch. Foiled in one direction, Lord Carnarvon sought to effect his end in another way. He sent out Sir Bartle Frere to be Governor and High Commissioner at the Cape. He had been chosen by Lord Carnarvon six months before as the statesman most capable of consolidating the South African Empire; “within two years it was hoped that he would be the first Governor-General of the South African Dominion.” The second step in what seemed to Lord Carnarvon to be the right direction was the annexation of the Transvaal. With this territory of about 120,000 square miles in extent, in British hands, there would only remain the Orange Free State as an obstacle to the unification of South Africa. The Transvaal as an independent state had between 1853 and 1877 come to grief. It was bankrupt, and it was powerless to subdue the powerful native tribes within its borders, some of whom had real wrongs to avenge. Moreover, it was threatened by Zulu invasion. It was therefore annexed by the British Commissioner, Sir Theophilus Shepstone, in the beginning of 1877.

Unfortunately, Sir Bartle Frere’s administration, after two and a half years of excellent work, was clouded by unmerited misfortune. The Zulu power to the east of Natal had been growing threateningly strong. At the beginning of the 19th century an obscure tribe of Kafirs known as the Ama-zulu rose into prominence under a chief named Chaka, who became a kind of negro Napoleon, and a bloodthirsty slaughterer of all who stood in his way^[156]. He and his chiefs included in their conquests all modern Natal and Zululand, much of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State, and Amatongaland up to Delagoa Bay^[157]. Chaka’s son, Dingane, though he most treacherously attacked the Boers, was fairly friendly in his relations with the British, and tolerated their establishment in Natal. In fact he seems to have allowed them to reorganize the territory of Natal which his father had almost depopulated. Owing to the founding of the Transvaal Republic and the Orange River Sovereignty in addition to the colony of Natal, the Zulus were henceforth shut up in a relatively small tract of South-east Africa represented by modern Zululand and Amatongaland; though the Amatonga were practically another people. Dingane was succeeded by Panda, and Panda by C̓echwayo (Cetewayo). The last-named chief perfected the system of a standing army of well-drilled bachelors. Anxious to find an outlet for his energies, he openly menaced the Transvaal, and was one of the causes of British intervention in the affairs of that republic. Shut off from this outlet, he seemed becoming dangerous; and, thinking it best to prick the boil before it burst, Sir Bartle Frere forced war on him by an ultimatum. The invasion of Zululand at the outset was not very wisely conducted, and led to a terrible disaster in which 800 British and over 400 native soldiers were cut to pieces at Isandhlwana; and subsequently, through mismanagement, the Prince Imperial of France, who had come out as a volunteer, was allowed to stray into danger, and be killed by the Zulus. After a time, however, Lord Chelmsford succeeded in completely conquering the country, and C̓echwayo was taken prisoner. Although Sir Bartle Frere was in no way answerable for these mistakes in a campaign which was eventually successful, his prestige was dimmed; and as the Liberal Government of 1880 was inclined to pursue a reactionary policy in Africa, Sir Bartle Frere was recalled.

The Boers, taking advantage of British discouragement and the change of government in England, rose and demanded their independence. It was refused by Mr Gladstone’s Administration, and troops were hastily sent out to subdue them, with the results detailed in Chapter VI. As to the after-history of Zululand, it may be briefly summarized as follows. The Boers were allowed to add a large slice of the country (“Vryheid” or the New Republic) to their reorganized State. C̓echwayo was reinstated as king, but soon died. The country was then divided into various native principalities; but Dinizulu, C̓echwayo’s son, fomented an insurrection and was exiled to St Helena. The country was then governed more or less as a British protectorate by Sir Marshall Clarke and in connection with the colony of Natal, the Governor of which was also made Governor of Zululand. In 1897 Zululand was incorporated with the colony of Natal. In 1887 British protection was extended over Amatongaland up to the Portuguese boundary, and in 1895 this strip of coast territory was taken under more direct administration. In 1902 the Vryheid territory of northern Zululand was withdrawn from the Transvaal and united once more with Zululand.

As was related in Chapter VI, the Dutch South African Republic, soon after recovering its independence, sought to invade and absorb Bechuanaland; but the expedition under Sir Charles Warren (1884-5) put an end to their hopes in that direction, and a clear path was made for the British northwards to the Zambezi. In the early seventies, explorations of men like Thomas Baines and Karl Mauch (a German explorer) had revealed the existence of gold in the countries between the Limpopo and the Zambezi, countries which had come under the sway of a Zulu king, Lobengula, son of Umsilikazi^[158]. Mr Cecil John Rhodes, an Englishman who had brought about the consolidation of the mines of Kimberley and had acquired great wealth and a position of political importance at the Cape, had interested himself firstly in the settlement of the Bechuana question with the Boers; and when Bechuanaland had been declared a British protectorate, his thoughts turned to the possibility of gold beyond; for the gold discoveries in the Transvaal were beginning to make a golden South Africa dawn on men’s imaginations. He despatched envoys to Lobengula, and secured from him the right to mine. Other individuals or syndicates had secured mining rights in that direction, but Mr Rhodes with patience and fair dealing bought up or absorbed these rights, and in 1888 began to think of obtaining a charter from the Imperial Government which would enable the Company he intended forming to govern South-Central Africa. At one time he seems to have thought that the De Beers diamond mining company should receive this charter and perform these functions; for, when he had framed the articles of association of the De Beers shareholders, he had inserted clauses enabling the Company to take up such an enterprise. But there were many reasons why this would not have worked well; and it was resolved to constitute an independent company to work Lobengula’s concession first, and to create another South African state afterwards. Already in 1888 the High Commissioner, Sir Hercules Robinson, had somewhat reluctantly extended a vague form of protection over Lobengula’s country; and it had been made clear to Germany that Great Britain would not submit to be cut off from the Zambezi. In the early summer of 1889 a charter was granted to the British South Africa Company, of which Mr Rhodes became and remained the practical administrator. Mr Rhodes’ ambitions then crossed the Zambezi, and he co-operated with Sir Harry Johnston in establishing British influence up to Tanganyika. For several years his Company afforded a subsidy to the administration of the British Central Africa Protectorate as well as to the territories under the Chartered Company’s own control. The African Lakes Trading Company^[159] was given financial support, and enabled to extend its operations to Tanganyika.

In 1891 Mr Rhodes commenced the organization of the East coast route from Mashonaland to the sea, and he and his friends practically subscribed the capital for the Beira Railway. Fort Salisbury and other settlements in Mashonaland and on the east of Matebeleland were founded between 1891 and 1893. In the last-named year the Matebele made an entirely unprovoked attack on the Company’s forces, but a counter-invasion, most ably directed by Dr (afterwards Sir Starr) Jameson, achieved a complete victory over the Matebele. King Lobengula fled, and died soon after he had crossed the Zambezi. His capital, Buluwayo, became the administrative capital of the Company’s possessions, to which the inclusive name of Rhodesia (Northern and Southern) was subsequently given. The development of Rhodesia proceeded apace. Mr Rhodes had since 1890 been Premier of Cape Colony; he was high in favour with the Dutch Party in South Africa; and he was fast becoming the actual, if not nominal Dictator of Africa, south of the Zambezi, when he made the fatal mistake of organizing a raid into the Transvaal (see page 287).

In the general disturbance which followed, the government of Southern Rhodesia became disorganized by a revolt of the Matebele in the spring of 1896. They were soon joined by their former slaves, the Mashona. The revolt was suppressed partly by hard fighting, and partly by direct negotiation between Mr Rhodes and the Matebele chiefs, Rhodes and a few companions going unarmed to meet the induna in the Matopo hills. But the Mashona continued fighting until 1897. Rhodes did much to atone for his one mistake by the enormous pecuniary sacrifices he made in pushing on the railways from Southern Rhodesia to Beira and the Zambezi, and in constructing the telegraph line from Mafeking to Tanganyika. There were signs that he was recovering to a considerable extent his influence in Cape Colony, and that he might yet play a great part in South Africa; but the terrible events of the great South African War of 1899-1902 interrupted the great work of development on which he had set his heart and ultimately caused his death.

In British South Africa momentous events took place after the summer of 1899. The trouble engendered between the British and Boers in South Africa by the policy of Paul Kruger and the Jameson Raid culminated in the great South African War of 1899-1902. As these episodes recede into history it has become clear to most seekers after truth that the Jameson Raid was brought about by the following trend of circumstances. Ever since 1884 there had been a revulsion of feeling on the part of even Liberal and liberal-minded politicians in Great Britain against the Boers of South Africa. Mr Gladstone’s restoration of their independence after the brief struggle of 1881 was esteemed a generous act. It gave the Boers of the Transvaal an opportunity to show what they could do in wise self-government under but the slightest control of their foreign relations by Great Britain. Three years afterwards the Boers of the Transvaal, in spite of treaty and other obligations, were invading Bechuanaland and attempting to cut off the British colonies to the south from any advance towards the Zambezi. It then began to be realized by the British public that the Boers, besides fighting very legitimately for their own independence in the Transvaal territory as well as in the Orange Free State, were aiming at something much greater—a domination over the whole of Africa south of the Zambezi. Both Liberal and Conservative administrations set themselves to resist this movement. At the close of the eighties Cecil Rhodes arose as an advocate for union between Boer and Briton in the common interests of the white man in South Africa. For a time he secured the suffrages of both; but the gold-mining industry became more and more powerful in the Transvaal and found the rule of a Boer Government irksome and obstructive. The mining industry set itself to influence public opinion in Britain and to organize in South Africa a movement against Boer independence. President Kruger played into the hands of the mining magnates by occasional breaches of his agreements with Britain. Among these was the famous “Drifts” question, by which Kruger in the summer of 1895 attempted to close access to the Transvaal from the rest of South Africa by any other routes than those of the Netherlands Railway, which was a privileged corporation. Mr Joseph Chamberlain, who had become Secretary of State for the Colonies in 1895, took up this question with vigour and found himself fully supported by the Dutch colonists in Cape Colony and Natal. It seemed as though there was to be war with the Transvaal, in which case, on this question of the Drifts, Great Britain would have been thoroughly supported by her Dutch-speaking subjects in South Africa. As part of the plan of campaign conceived in the case of war, was a movement from the British South Africa Company’s territory through Bechuanaland into the western and northern parts of the Transvaal; this in fact was the germ of the Jameson Raid.

Kruger gave way on the subject of the Drifts when he saw how united was the rest of South Africa against him; and it seemed to persons in authority in Great Britain as well as in South Africa that the great opportunity for solving the Boer question in South Africa had gone by. Insufficient measures were taken, or no measures at all were taken, to restrain the preparations of Dr Jameson (the Administrator of Rhodesia) for a descent on the Transvaal. Consequently the Jameson Raid took place—a most unfortunate occurrence, since it put Great Britain entirely in the wrong on a question where otherwise she could plead legitimate griefs and annoyances.

Sir Alfred (afterwards Viscount) Milner had been appointed in 1897 to succeed Lord Rosmead (Sir Hercules Robinson) as Governor of Cape Colony and High Commissioner of South Africa. Attempts were made between 1897 and the spring of 1899 to solve the South African problem peacefully by inducing the Boer Government of the South African Republic to grant the franchise to the “Outlanders” (foreigners) after a term of residence of a few years’ duration; but Kruger would accept no sufficiently short term to enfranchise those most agitating for a voice in the Transvaal administration. But the war that broke out in October 1899 was due immediately to an ultimatum from the Transvaal Government requiring Great Britain to cease any preparations for offence or defence on the Transvaal frontiers. The Orange Free State immediately made common cause with the Boers of the South African Republic, and a Boer invasion of Natal took place, to be followed by similar invasions of the eastern part of Cape Colony. The British were taken unprepared. Disaster followed disaster. Had the Boer leaders been wider in their knowledge and more daring, they might have taken possession of Natal and have gone far to wreck the British Empire in South Africa. But they delayed over the siege of Ladysmith, ably defended by Sir George White. British reinforcements on a large scale were sent to South Africa under the leadership of Lord (afterwards Earl) Roberts and Lord Kitchener. The British marched through the Orange Free State to Bloemfontein and Pretoria, and the Boers were finally expelled from Natal and Bechuanaland. It seemed as though, by the summer of 1900, the war was at an end; but after the flight of President Kruger, Boer activities revived in such a marvellous way that the world wondered at the tenacity of the struggle, and for nearly two years longer the Boer forces held out against the British, and made an effective occupation of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal impossible. The Boers in their turn, however, were worn out by the persistency of Viscount Kitchener and his ‘sweeping’ movements. In the summer of 1902 the Boer leaders asked for peace, and obtained it on terms highly honourable to themselves.

Cecil John Rhodes, the promoter of so much that was adventurous and history-making in British South Africa, died in March, 1902, the immediate cause of his death being, not political heart-break (though that was the cause of his weakened constitution), but vexation resulting from a law-suit affecting his private affairs. Dr Jameson, however, recovered from the check to his career which followed his unsuccessful raid. He set himself in a spirit of moderation and tolerance to grapple with the local questions and general interests of Cape Colony, of which country he became Premier in 1904, remaining for four years afterwards at the head of the Cape Ministry. In 1908-9 he was one of the representatives who discussed and settled the conditions of the South African Union. In 1911 he was knighted as Sir Starr Jameson, and in 1912 he retired from South African politics. President Kruger died in Holland in July 1904. In the same year his political opponent, Lord Milner—whose seven years’ work in South Africa, though it inspired many fierce contentions, yet cut through several Gordian knots—retired from the control of South African affairs to enter political life at home.

But the prosperity of South Africa did not at once revive with the conclusion of peace in 1902. It was found that the devastations of the three years’ war had reduced much of the Orange Free State, the eastern parts of Cape Colony, and above all, of the Transvaal to a desert, and time was required to repair the ravages to crops and agriculture and bring about the re-establishment of homes. So many of the inhabitants—Boers and Britons alike—had drifted towards the towns and there found it hard to maintain themselves under the extravagant cost of living; which seems to be at present an irremediable evil in South Africa, due to unwise fiscal laws, shipping combines, and railway rates. It was hoped that prosperity would return so soon as mining operations on the Rand could be resumed. But the local supply of unskilled labour proved to be insufficient for the enormous development of mining enterprise projected by individuals and companies. The labour problem is not yet completely solved. Some propose to meet it by drafts on the abundant negro population north of the Zambezi, these labourers being conveyed to and from South Africa under proper guarantees.guarantees. Others urge the throwing open of the land and the mines to white labour, so as to increase the European population of temperate South Africa. Many reasons have been put forward to combat the practicability of each scheme, either the increase of the black labour supply or the introduction of the white man in considerable numbers. Those in power in the period 1904-6 preferred to redress the balance by the importation under special restrictions of the Chinaman. This step was adversely criticized by the Liberal party in Great Britain, not because that party was inclined to deny that a share of African development might be allowed to the Asiatic, but on the ground that the conditions under which the indentured Chinamen were to serve in the South African mines were not only opposed to British ideas of freedom but were detrimental to health and morality. Their anticipations of the bad results which might accrue from the employment of Chinese labourers in compounds were fulfilled; and in 1906-8 the Chinese were gradually repatriated from the Rand (as the mining area of the Southern Transvaal is called). The great question of the participation of the Asiatic in the development of South Africa and East Africa depends on the determination of the white man and the black man to be self-sufficing for the development respectively of the tropical and temperate districts of that continent. The black man must be less lazy and the white man likewise, as well as less proud, if both together are to be justified in denying to the yellow man a share of the Dark Continent, either as a settler or a merchant. It is interesting, however, to note that the white population of Cape Colony showed a considerable increase between 1891 and 1904. In 1891 the population of European descent numbered 366,608. In 1904 it was stated at 579,741. In the Transvaal the white population rose to 300,225; in Natal to 97,109; in the Orange Free State to 143,419; in Rhodesia to 12,623; and in Basuto- and Bechuanaland to 1899. In British South Africa the coloured (mainly negro) population was nearly 5,500,000. In 1912, the total white population in British Africa, south of the Zambezi, was about 1,306,400, and the negro and negroid about 5,800,000. There were also about 192,000 Asiatics, chiefly in Natal; and these Asiatics consisted mainly of natives of Southern India (some 172,000), together with 15,000 Malays in Cape Colony, a few Chinese, Japanese, Arabs, and Syrians. North of the Zambezi, in Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland, there are about 2200 whites, 1000 Asiatics and nearly 2,000,000 negroes: a total population of about 9,300,000. The area of all British South and South Central Africa (including Walfish Bay and the islets off the south-west coast) is 1,148,619 square miles, extending from the frontiers of Angola and the Belgian Congo, Tanganyika and German East Africa to the coasts of Cape Colony and Natal—an Empire which is barely 100 years old, and which began in 1814^[160] with an area of 125,000 square miles, with a population of about 150,000, of whom some 26,000 were whites and the remainder Negroes, Hottentots, half-breeds, and Malays.

On May 31, 1902, the Peace of Vereeniging had brought the fratricidal South African war to a conclusion. Only four years afterwards the Liberal administration in Great Britain tried the bold experiment of granting responsible government to the Transvaal State by passing an act to that effect which came into force on January 1st, 1907. In the following year similar powers of self-government were bestowed on the Orange Free State (as it was eventually re-named). These concessions to the sturdy nationalism of the Boers were intended to pave the way for that long desired Union of South Africa. Negotiations were conducted between the statesmen of Cape Colony, Natal, the Orange Free State, and the Transvaal, which resulted in 1909 in an agreement and an Act of Union. This Act was ratified by the British Parliament and received the sanction of King Edward VII (who ever since his coming to the throne had striven earnestly to bring about peace in South Africa) on September 21, 1909. The Union of South Africa includes under one, central, South African Parliament at Pretoria, and one Governor-General, the states of Cape Colony (with British Bechuanaland and Walfish Bay), Natal, the Orange Free State, and the Transvaal. The native states of Basutoland, Swaziland, and Bechuanaland, and the territories of Southern and Northern Rhodesia and the Nyasaland Protectorate remain outside the Union for a variety of reasons most of which may not have a permanent value. But one of these reasons is the distrust which is felt in Great Britain as to the ability and fair-mindedness of the white population to act as the governors of the states above mentioned in which the negro population very greatly preponderates over the white, or which, as in Basutoland, Bechuanaland and Swaziland, have been more or less reserved for negro colonization and expansion. Cape Colony, it is true, has a negro population of nearly 1,700,000, contented and admirably governed for the most part, possessing a large proportion of the good land, and holding the franchise to the Cape Legislature on the same terms as white men. But the liberal-minded Cape Colony, in which one scarcely ever hears of native troubles or “Black perils,” is only one of the states composing the Union; and the others, notably the Transvaal, have shown themselves—the Transvaal still keeps up this evil reputation—unfair and harsh in their treatment of the black man. When the provisions of the Act of Union were laid before the British Parliament they were found to exclude any man of colour from the franchise^[161]. British ministers expressed regret at this illiberality, but passed the measure to end strife in other directions. Nevertheless the “Native question” will long continue to bar the way to a Greater South Africa, a vast confederation which shall extend from the Belgian Congo to the Southern Ocean. It is a question that is very complex, and one from which sentimentality, rash legislation, arbitrary pronouncements, and race prejudice must be carefully excluded. Had it been dealt with by far-sighted men like Sir George Grey in earlier times when the foundations of British South Africa were being laid, many causes of future trouble might have been eliminated. For instance some other solution of the Basuto claims might have been found than the handing over (fifty years ago) to the Basuto negroes 11,000 square miles of the finest mountain country of South Africa, a region intended by nature to have been the Empire state of that region. Basutoland is a beautiful mountain country, well watered, with fertile valleys and snow-crowned peaks. Owing to its cold climate it was rather shunned by the South African negroes until the ancestors of the Basuto were driven thither in the early 19th century to take refuge from the raiding Zulus. Had we offered the original ten to twenty thousand Basutos good locations on fertile land at lower levels when we first intervened to save them from Boer attacks (the Boers having intervened earlier still to save them from the Zulu hordes) they would have accepted. Now they are a well-armed people of nearly half a-million, no longer grateful to the white man, but the possible nucleus of a Black confederation. Their influence can only be stayed by the fair treatment of the Black man outside Basutoland, by the policy of Cape Town and not that of Johannesburg. The contentment of and the hold which education is getting over the million and a half of Kafirs in Cape Colony are valuable counter-agents to Basuto presumption and ambition, and a proof that our oldest colony in South Africa possesses statecraft.