and perhaps bore a share in the changes as they were made. The first thing an Englishman has to understand in the story of South Africa is the fact that the great and almost unnatural extension of our colonization,—unnatural when the small number of English emigrants who have gone there is considered,—has been produced by the continued desire of the Dutch farmers to take themselves out of the reach of English laws, and English feelings. The abolition of slavery was the great cause of this,—though not the only cause; and the abolition of slavery in British dominions is now only forty years old. Since that time Natal, the Transvaal, the Orange Free State, and Griqualand West have sprung into existence, and they were all, in the first instance, peopled by sturdy Dutchmen running away from the to them disgusting savour of Exeter Hall. They would encounter anything, go anywhere, rather than submit to British philanthropy. Then we have run after them with our philanthropy in our hands,—with such results as I have endeavoured to depict in these pages.
This is the first thing that we shall have to understand,—but as the mind comes to dwell on the subject it will not be the chief thing. It must be the first naturally. To an Englishman the Cape of Good Hope, and Natal, and now the Transvaal are British Colonies,—with a British history, short or long. The way in which we became possessed of these and the manner in which they have been ruled; the trouble or the glory which have come to us from them; the success of them or the failure in affording homes for our ever-increasing population;—these are the questions which must affect us first. But when we learn that in those South
