The Quarterly Review

ART. I.—1. Abstract of the Proceedings of the Board of Relief for the Destitute, &c. at the Cape of Good Hope. Cape Town. 2. Travels and Adventures in Eastern Africa, descriptive of the Zoolus, their Manners, Customs, &c. with a Sketch of Natal. By Nathaniel Isaacs. 2 Vols. London. 1836.

3. Narrative of a Journey to the Zoolu Country, in South Africa. By Captain Allen F. Gardiner, R.N. Undertaken in 1835. London. 1836.

THERE

was a time that the Cape of Good Hope, when in the hands of the Dutch, and, indeed, since its conquest by Great Britain, was considered a place of first-rate importance, both in itself, and by its position. It was held in such estimation as to determine the government of that day, at the general peace, to annex it permanently to the British crown; indeed, when that object was about to be accomplished, the late Henry Dundas (afterwards Lord Melville) declared, in the House of Commons, that the minister, who should dare to give it up, ought to lose his head—of such consequence, in a political point of view, was its retention considered to be by one of the longest-headed statesmen of his age. Independent, however, of the political advantages derivable from this half-way house between England and India, there is not perhaps, on the face of the globe, a spot which, taken altogether, can be deemed preferable to the Cape as a place of residence. Situated in a climate equally removed from oppressive heat and shivering cold-where the fig-tree, and the vine, and the orange luxuriate in the open air, requiring but little aid at the hand of man-where the atmosphere is almost always pure, clear, and dry,-it has been found so congenial with the feelings and pursuits of that amiable and accomplished scholar and philosopher, Sir John Herschell, that, hardly able to tear himself away, he is ready to say with Horace-(as indeed he has said, in other and stronger words)—

'Ille terrarum mihi præter omnes
Angulus ridet.'

Yet with all these enchantments, and notwithstanding its high political value, this southern angle of Africa has scarcely, of late years, excited a degree of interest equal to Botany Bay or New

Zealand,

Zealand. Our ministers did, it is true, soon after the conclusion of the war, send out at the public expense an ill-assorted cargo of emigrants, permitting them to locate themselves on the untenanted and unappropriated lands near the eastern boundary of the Colony-by far the most productive district, whether for grazing or for tillage, in the whole settlement; but labouring under the great disadvantage of being removed five or six hundred miles from the seat of government. It had also a further drawback, in being situated close to the frontiers of the Caffre country. Such proximity had constantly led, so long as the Dutch were the sole occupiers of the soil, to a mutual pilfering of cattle —a kind of black-mail business-the consequence of which was, not only a constant collision of interests, but now and then a murder on one side or the other, and the setting fire to huts and houses; but here the matter ended-conflicts of this kind being generally made up between the Dutch boors and the Caffres, without the interference of the governing powers on either side. The same sort of collision disturbed and distracted our emigrants of 1819-as the readers of Mr. Pringle's African Sketches will remember. It was hoped, however, that the influx of a more respectable and substantial class of British settlers than the first batch, whose numbers might be expected speedily to increase, and in fact did so, would put a stop to the incursions of the Caffres, by establishing a better understanding with this fine race of men-for such they are allowed to be by all travellers. A treaty, accordingly, was soon made with these people, who are by no means to be accounted savages, by which it was agreed, in order to preserve peace and friendship, that a neutral ground should be established between the Great Fish River (the British boundary) and the Keiskamma (the Caffre boundary); and as a security against either party's transgressing the limits, three small forts were erected, at intervals, down the centre of this neutral slip of land-Beaufort, Wiltshire, and Fredricksburgh.

Under these arrangements the inhabitants of the great eastern plain, called the Zuure Veldt, were rapidly advancing in wealth and prosperous circumstances. circumstances. Their herds and flocks increased, and the breed of both was improved by importations of the best kind; pasturage and tillage went hand in hand, towns and villages arose on the heretofore naked plains,-churches and school-houses were built,-and Graham's Town, near our frontier, had become the populous capital of this flourishing territory. Things went on thus prosperously until the end of the year 1834, when the colonists bordering close on the frontier, and scattered here and there in their single dwellings along the whole

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