good timber, and fit for any uses, they being tall and large. The savannahs are also clothed with kindly thick grass.

"The land animals of this country are lions, tigers, elephants, buffaloes, bullocks, deer, hogs, conies, &c. Here are also abundance of sea-horses. Buffaloes and bullocks only are kept tame, but the rest are wild. Elephants are so plentiful here that they feed together in great troops, one hundred or one hundred and fifty in company. Mornings and evenings they are seen grazing in the savannahs, but in the heat of the day they retire to the woods, and they are very peaceable if not molested.

"Deer are very numerous here also. They feed quietly in the savannahs, among the tame cattle, for they are seldom disturbed by the natives.

"Here are fowls of divers sorts; some such as we have in England, viz.— duck and teal, both tame and wild, and plenty of cocks and hens; besides abundance of wild birds, wholly unknown to us. Here are a sort of large

fowls, as big as a peacock, which have very fine coloured feathers. They are very rare and shy. There are others like curlews, but bigger. The flesh of these is black, yet sweet and wholesome meat.

The sea and rivers also do abound in fish of divers sorts, yet the natives do but seldom endeavour to take any, except tortoises, and that is chiefly when they come ashore in the night, to lay their eggs; though they have also another odd way which they sometimes make use of to catch turtle or tortoises. They have a living sucking fish, (or remora,) and fastening a couple of strings to it, (one at the head, and another at the tail,) they let the sucking fish down into the water, on the turtle ground, among the half-grown or young turtle, and when they find that the fish hath fastened himself to the back of a turtle, as he will soon do, they then draw him and the turtle up together.

The natives of this country are but of middle stature, yet have very good limbs; the colour of their skin is black; their hair crisped, they are oval visaged; their noses neither flat nor high, but very well proportioned; their teeth are white; and their aspect altogether graceful.

They are nimble people, but very lazy, which probably is for want of commerce. Their chief employment is husbandry. They have a great many bulls and cows, which they carefully look after; for every man knows his own, though they run all promiscuously together in their savannahs; yet they have pens near their own houses, where they make them gentle, and bring them to the pail. They have Guinea corn, which is their bread; and a small sort of grain, no bigger than a mustard seed, with which they make their drink.

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Here are no arts or trades professed by them, but eyery one makes for himself such necessaries as need or ornament requires; the men keeping to their employment, and the women to theirs. The men build houses, hunt, plant, and do what is to be done abroad; and the women milk the cows, dress the victuals, &c., and manage all matters within doors. Their houses are not great or richly furnished, but they are made close and well thatched, that neither winds nor weather can hurt them.

The men go

They wear but few clothes, and those extraordinary mean. in a manner naked, their only garb being a small piece of cloth, made with silk grass or moho rind, and wrought in form of a small apron. At the upper corners, it has two straps to tie round their waists, and the lower end being finely fringed with the same, hangs down to their knees. The women have only short petticoats, which reach from the waist to the knee. When it rains, they cover their bodies with a simple cow's hide thrown over their shoulders, like a blanket.

"The common subsistance of these people is bread made of Guinea corn,

beef, fish, milk, ducks, hens, eggs, &c. They also drink milk often to quench their thirst, and this sometimes when it is sweet, but commonly they let it get sour first. Besides milk, which is the common drink, they make a beer sort from the Guinea corn, purposely to be merry with; and when they meet upon such occasions, the men make themselves extraordinary fine, with feathers stuck in their caps very thick. They make use of the long feathers of cock's tails, and none else.

'Besides these head ornaments, they wear a piece of cow hide, made like a tail, and it is fastened behind them as a tail, reaching from their waist to the ground. This piece of hide is about six inches broad, and each side of it is adorned with little iron rings of their own making. When thus attired, their heads a little intoxicated, and the music playing, they will skip about merrily and shake their tails to some purpose, but they are very innocent in their mirth.

Every man may have as many wives as he can purchase and maintain; and without buying, here are none to be had; neither is there any other commodity to be bought or sold but women. Young virgins are disposed of by their fathers, brothers, or other nearest male relations. The price is according to the beauty of the damsel.

They have no money in this country, but give cows in exchange for wives; and therefore he is the richest man that has most daughters or sisters, as he is sure to get cattle enough.

"They make merry when they take their wives: but the bride cries all her wedding-day. They live together in small villages, and the oldest man go. verns the rest: for all that live together in one village are a-kin, and therefore willingly submit to his government.

“They are very just, and extraordinarily civil to strangers. This was remarkably experienced by two English Seamen that lived among them five years: their ship was cast away on the coast, and the rest of their consorts marched to the river of Delasor; but they staid here till Capt. Rogers came hither and took them away with him; they had gained the language of the country; and the natives freely gave them wives and cows too. They were beloved by all the people; and so much reverenced, that their words were taken as laws. And when they came away, many of the boys cried because they would not take them with them."

In Hamilton's account of the East Indies, he gives an account of an overland journey in 1683, from Dalagoa to the Cape, and of the intermediate country, Natal included. He says, The natural fertility of those countries makes the inhabitants lazy, indolent, imbecile, and simple. Their rivers are abundantly stored with good fish and water fowl, besides manatus, or sea cows, and crocodiles; their woods with large trees, wild cattle, and deer, elephants, rhinoceroses, lions, tigers, wolves, foxes for game; and many sorts of fowls and birds, with ostriches.'

In 1686 a Dutch vessel was wrecked on this coast; an event which led to the purchase of the Natal country by the Dutch East India Company, and on which purchase the present right of the English to that territory, as representatives of the Dutch government, by conquest and cession, is imagined to be founded.

The crew of the wrecked vessel, out of the old materials, and such as could be obtained of native growth, at last constructed a vessel fifty feet long, fourteen wide, and two masts, and called the Natal packet. They shipped some provisions of ground meal, two or three tons of corn, two or three hundred fowls, about one thousand pounds of salted and smoked beef, with twenty goats, one hundred and fifty pumpkins, seventeen half leggers (of which

eleven were made there,) of water, and all purchased for the copper and beads of the English, which also sufficed to pay the natives for their labour.

According to a declaration made by the ten shipwrecked officers and sailors of the ship Stavenisse, 2nd March, 1687,-" They sailed on the 17th February, 1687, without chart or compass, after they had resided a year and a half at Natal, and left there four Englishmen and one Frenchman, who thought it better and more advantageous to them to remain there, than trust themselves to the uncertain waves of the sea and of fortune."

On the 18th April following, (1687,) the Council at the Cape record the safe arrival of these bold adventurers. It sets forth:

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The captain of that vessel, William Knyff, landed here, in a very miserable condition, on the 1st March, from Terra de Natal, in a small vessel, built there by himself, three of his officers, seven of his crew, and nine shipwrecked Englishmen. They found the country very fruitful and populous, and the natives friendly, compassionate, obliging, strong, and ingenious, armed with only one assegai; obedient and submissive to their king or chief; living in communities in huts made of branches wrought through with rushes and long grass, and roofed like haystacks in Holland. In manners, dress, and behaviour, they are much more orderly than the Cape Hottentots. The women attend to cultivation, the men herd and milk the cows. They do not eat poultry, because they feed on filth, still less do they eat eggs, and it makes them sick to see Europeans eat them. For a copper arm ring, or a common neck ring, of the thickness of a tobacco pipe, they sell a fat cow or ox of six hundred pounds weight, more or less. For a similar ring, they gave as much corn as would fill an ordinary meal-tub; from which corn they make very well-tasted and nourishing bread, and brew beer, both small and strong, which is not unpleasant in taste, and which they keep in earthen vessels. They eat, besides, a certain bean, in size and taste not unlike the European horse-bean; and also some roots worse flavoured than sweet potatoes. They have tobacco, and smoke it. By good management, its quality might be improved. Of fruits, they have only a kind of unknown prune and coloquintidas.

"There are elephants of an incredible size, and in such numbers, that fifty or sixty are seen together; wild buffaloes, hogs, cats, sea cows, geese, ducks, and other birds.

"Further declaring nothing, except that in less than twelve days, they being eleven Dutch and nine English, landed here from Terra de Natal."

This arrival from Natal naturally excited the attention of the Dutch government. The deposition was clear and satisfactory, respecting the value of the locality, and on the 6th March, (only four days after her arrival,) the Council resolved "That the Natal Packet should be bought from the English, and her cargo, in order that further examination may be made of that country; that the forty-seven men left there by the Stavenisse may be sought for, and that the five Englishmen left there by the Natal Packet, may be brought hither, in order, by these means, to deprive European potentates of the possession of those countries."

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Such was the resolve of the Dutch government, and on the 18th April following, (1687,) the Governor and Council wrote as follows to the Dutch Chamber: Some Englishmen had travelled about fifty milen inland, and found metallic ores among the natives, and the art of smelting them: not indeed gold or silver, though the English say that the chief Ingoose wore a bracelet which was much heavier than the copper neck rings; from which circumstance they conjectured it to be gold. The country is very populous and fertile, abounding in oxen, cows, goats, as also in elephants, buffaloes,

hartebeests, and other tame and wild animals. The inhabitants are ingenious, docile, and obliging; and for a copper bracelet they will not refuse to carry a weight of fifty or a hundred pounds, a distance of three or four days' journey, over hill and dale.

"Having found the vessel was about twenty-five tons burthen, well built, and sailed well, we bought her of the English for four hundred florins; for after we have put a few knees, &c., into her, she will last as many years. We bought the residue of their meat for three stivers per pound, and the corn at six guilders per muid. The Commander will have the grain sown, to ascertain if it will grow, as it makes very nutritious bread, and is thought fit for making beer."

Part of the dispatch respecting the value of the East Coast of Africa, appears to have been so important as to have been omitted in the copy of the records. The value of this colony the old Governor Van Der Still, appears to have thoroughly appreciated; and yet for forty years since the Cape colony has been ceded to us, the government had done nothing to develope the resources of Natal by adopting it as a British colony.

The Natal Packet being purchased, the government appear to have had her well cleaned and launched on the 4th October, 1687, soon thereafter to make the determined voyage.

The Resolutions of 24th October, contained orders" to select a site for a fort, and not only to purchase the ports and adjacent territory, but any place where any mineral was to be found."

Petrus de Galardi was ordered "to keep a minute journal of all proceedings, and to collect full information of the manners and customs of the people, &c. using all proper caution not to make those people stubborn, or averse to us, by shewing too great covetousness, for they are otherwise very obliging, kind, and mild. And notwithstanding their pleasing address, hospitality, and liberality, you will maintain a strict watch and good discipline, and be always on your guard against sudden attacks. It is particularly directed that Divine service is to be performed morning and evening, that there be no excess of wine, &c., the source of all evil, and the cause of loss of time, health, office, and respect. Above all, take care that no one injures any of the natives, on pain of the severest punishment. For the attainment of the desired result of these negociations, it is only required that during your stay at Terra de Natal, you preserve a courteous, honest, just, chaste, and kind, but at the time, a dignified, demeanour; not suffering the slightest annoyance to be given to any of the natives by our people, but trying to attach them to us by every kind of civility, and asking them what kinds of merchandize they can supply to the Company, and how much of each kind annually." How different this anxiety to trade with Natal, compared with the discouragement presented by the English Government until the year 1846.

Another article of the instructions to the commander of this expedition is, to buy from Ingese, the chief, for the Honble. Company, the Bay of Natal and adjacent country, for beads, copper, cutlery, or what might please the people, to the value of 20,000 guilders, (about £1790,) of which the particulars were not to be mentioned in the deed to be signed by the chief, Ingese, and his nearest relatives." The result of the voyage, and the negociation, is thus given in the Governor's dispatch. On the 4th December, 1688, the Noord arrived before the Bay of Natal, which she safely entered the following day, and after embarking the residue of the crew of the Stavenisse, and solemnly purchasing that Bay, with some surrounding land, from the king and chiefs of those parts, for some merchandize, consisting of copper arm and neck-rings, and other articles, on behalf of the Honorable Company, (whose

marks were set up in various places,) and proper attention being paid to every thing, they sailed on the 11th January, 1689,"

Extract from the log-book of the galliot Noord, on a voyage from the Cape to Dalagoa river, 5th January, 1689.

At 4 p.m. being high water, we passed into Natal Bay; the natives towed us along with a lead line, until one one-third myl within the entrance, where we anchored in four and a half fathoms; in the evening, I, your quartermaster William, accompanied the boatswain and boy of the Stavenisse to their lodging, where we found six very fine cattle. After fastening one for slaughter next dey, I next went with the others to a krall, and eat some milk and bread of the new corn. We found these people very civil and kind, but without the least fear of God. 7th,―This morning the natives came to the opposite bank, with milk, bread, and pumpkins to barter. We got about a quart of milk for six or seven beads; and for eight or nine, six or seven pumpkins; so that these natives prefer beads to food: for we bought about half a pound of bread for five or six beads. 16th,-This morning I went with the mate and the boy of the Stavenisse to the north side of the Bay, and about two milen along the beach. We found it very steep, but all clear sand, without rocks. About two milen from the point where the vessel lay, we found a small river, which discharges itself into the sea, but is not navigable, as the channel is very narrow. Going about a myl up this river, we found fresh water, and good people, who at once gave us milk for beads; then we struck directly across the country for the vessel, guided by three or four natives, singing as they went. Our party, who had been eight days out, returned to-day: the mineralogist brought some stones, with some red glittering sand stone. They had been about twenty four or twenty five mylen to the north of the galliot, to the flat hills which we could see from the vessel. These hills are level on the top, with fine grass, but uninhabited. 20th,-I went to the opposite shore to barter; there were about one hundred natives with milk, beans and poultry, so that I bought about a sack of beans, a half aum of milk, ten or twelve fowls, and sixteen pumpkins. 23rd,—At daylight, weighed anchor and made sail. In sailing out of the opening you must steer for the north point of land, keeping close along the east bank, though not nearer than twelve feet, for with ten feet the galliot touched, though slightly. If the house (1689) is kept in a line with the outward point of land, that which is seen from a distance, the furthest land bearing N.N.E., you are then in the right channel, with two fathoms; and when the open sea is seen between the south shore and the great rocks, you are then outside, in three fathoms."

The Noord reached Natal on the 5th January, 1689, and sent a long report of the settlement to the Governor and Council, who, thereupon sent the following dispatch to the States General of Holland, than which nothing could possibly more attest its fertility.

One may travel six or nine hundred miles through the country without any fear of men, provided you go naked, and without any iron or copper, for these things give inducement to those who possess them.

Neither need one be in any apprehension about meat and drink, as they have in every village a house of entertainment for travellers, where these are not only lodged but fed also.

"In an extent of fifteen miles travelled by your servants along the coast to the depth of about thirty miles inland and through five kingdoms, they found no standing waters, but many rivers, with plenty of fish and full of sea-cows.

There are many dense forests with short stemmed trees: but at the Bay of Natal, are two forests each fully a mile square with tall straight and thick trees