western tracts, where Bechuanaland proper merges in the Kalahari Desert, and becomes now conterminous with German South-West Africa. Including these tracts, where still dwell some Bushmen and Hottentot halfbreeds, the Bechuana domain has a total area of about 250,000 square miles, with a population approximately estimated at 560,000, thus distributed between the Cape division and the Protectorate: CHAPTER VIII THE BOERS: COLONIAL TIMES-FORMATION OF CHARACTER Constituent Elements: Dutch, French, German-The First Importation of Slaves - The Half-Breeds Settlers O the question, Who are the Boers? the T° answer must be, They are a new race, the outcome of a blend of divers old elements of Caucasian stock transferred from Europe to South Africa during the second half of the seventeenth century, and there modified under the influences of a changed environment. In the study of the physical and mental characters of such a people, the first consideration must therefore be the origin of the old elements, and especially the proportion in which they are fused in one. All at present speak the Taal, a local variety of the Dutch language; and it might therefore be inferred that all are of Dutch descent. But here, as in so many other cases, language fails somewhat as a racial test. The inference is true enough, so far as regards the larger portion of the ingredients, who were beyond all question natives of Holland. But there were others, and those important, about whom the Taal now tells us nothing; nor does it throw any light on another not unimportant matter - the social classes from which the Dutch contingent itself was drawn. Fortunately, nearly all these points can be settled on historic evidence, and an appeal to authentic records shows plainly enough(1) that the great majority of the first arrivals were drawn from the lower grades of Dutch society, with whom were associated a large number of the riff-raff from every part of Western Europe, attracted to the Colony by agents and others known as "kidnappers," soldiers, seafaring folk, ne'er-do-wells, adventurers and others greatly predominating; (2) that these were joined later by Dutch immigrants of a better class, and, after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685), leavened by a considerable body of Huguenots representing all classes of French societyhence, although numerically inferior, greatly superior to the Dutch in most respects; (3) that the third ingredient was made up mainly of Germans, chiefly adventurers, soldiers, and peasants from Hesse, Swabia, and other rural districts, arriving in small bodies at various times. It is carefully to be noted that the Cape, left almost entirely to itself for over 150 years after its discovery by the Portuguese (1487), was not at first occupied by the Dutch East India Company with a view to colonisation. A few seafarers had landed from time to time, and in 1620 the English had even taken formal possession in the name of James I., without, however, taking any serious steps to settle in the district. Despite its convenient position on the highway to the Indies, it was again abandoned, and almost forgotten till attention was directed to the headland by the wreck of the Haarlem in Table Bay on the home voyage from the Indies in 1648. Then at last it was decided to occupy the Cape, not as a colony, but merely as a revictualling station for the Company's ships plying between Holland and their Eastern possessions. Effect was given to this resolution in 1652, when a naval expedition was sent out under Johan van Riebeck, with instructions to occupy the place, and erect a fort as a precaution against attacks either by the natives or by any passing vessel of the Portuguese or the English, with whom the Dutch were in those days almost constantly at war. The Cape was therefore, in the first instance, a military stronghold held by the Company mainly for trading and other purposes, without a thought of forming any settlements beyond the reach of the guns of the fort. On the contrary, all except the Company's servants were "warned off the premises," and severe measures were taken to prevent any outside intercourse with the surrounding Hottentot tribes, who were to be treated with all kindness and a |