II.

ORDINARY EVENTS DURING THE ADMINISTRATION OF GOVERNOR WILLEM ADRIAAN VAN DER STEL.

[Sidenote: Governor Willem Adriaan van der Stel.]

Willem Adriaan--or Wilhem Adriaen as he wrote his given name--van der Stel, councillor extraordinary of Netherlands India and governor of the Cape Colony and its dependency the island of Mauritius, had resided here for several years after his arrival with his father in October 1679, and had held different situations in the public service, so that he was well acquainted with the condition of the country. In the proceedings of the council of policy he is mentioned on the 16th of December 1680 as receiving the appointments of secretary of the orphan chamber and of the matrimonial court, on the 19th of April 1682 as having acted as issuer of stores and as being then promoted to be a book-keeper, and on the 26th of December 1682 as being issuer of stores and then promoted to be treasurer.[53] After a sojourn here of several years he returned to Amsterdam, but the exact date of his removal is unknown. He was accompanied to South Africa when he became governor by his wife, Maria de Haase by name, and several children.

Notwithstanding the pains taken by the late governor to promote tree-planting, there was a scarcity of timber and fuel at the Cape. It was a difficult matter to supply the ships with firewood. Some skippers reported that in passing by two islands, named Dina and Marseveen, in latitude 41° or 42° south, and about four hundred sea miles from the Cape, they had observed fine forests, which they suggested should be examined. The master of the galiot _Wezel_ was thereupon instructed to proceed to the locality indicated, to inspect the forests carefully, and ascertain what quantity of timber was to be had. The _Wezel_ sailed from Table Bay on the 31st of March 1699, but returned on the 13th of May with a report that the search for the islands had been fruitless.

[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]

The governor had instructions from the directors to attend more carefully to arboriculture than had yet been done, and they complained that if a sufficient number of trees had been planted in earlier years there would be no necessity to send timber from Europe for housebuilding purposes and no want of fuel for the ships. These instructions he carried out, and during the first winter after his arrival twenty thousand young oaks were planted in the kloofs at Stellenbosch and Drakenstein, where the native forests had been exhausted, and over ten thousand were set out in the Cape peninsula. In the winter of 1701 a further supply was sent to Stellenbosch from the nursery in Table Valley, and the landdrost was instructed to have them planted along the streets.

On the 23rd of November 1699 the governor with a party of attendants set out on a tour of inspection of the settlement. He visited Stellenbosch, Drakenstein, and the farms about the Tigerberg, where he found some persons to whom no ground had yet been allotted. The country was inhabited by Europeans, though thinly, nearly as far as the present village of Hermon. Small Hottentot kraals were scattered about, of which the occupants were found to be very poor and very lazy.

Keeping down the Berg river, the range of mountains on the right was reported to be tenanted by Bushmen, who were in the habit of descending from their fastnesses and plundering the burghers and Hottentots below. The range was on this account known as the Obiqua mountains. The governor crossed over at a place since termed the Roodezand pass, just beyond the gorge through which the Little Berg river flows, and entered the valley now called the Tulbagh basin.

[Sidenote: Description of the Tulbagh Basin.]

Though not greatly elevated, this basin is in the second of the steps by which the mainland of South Africa rises from the ocean to the central plain. If a cane with a large round head be laid upon soft ground, the mark will give an idea of its form. The hollow caused by the head of the cane will represent the basin, the long narrow groove will indicate the valley between the Obiqua mountains and a parallel range ten or eleven kilometres farther inland. The Breede river has its source in the third terrace, and, rushing down a gorge in the interior range, now called Michell’s pass, flows south-eastward through the valley. Close to Michell’s pass the mountain retires, but shortly sweeps round and joins the Obiqua range, the keystone of the arch thus formed being the Great Winterhoek, two thousand and eighty-five metres in height, the loftiest peak visible from Capetown.

It was the basin thus enclosed that the governor and his party entered. It was found to be drained by the Little Berg river and its numerous tributary rills, whose waters escape through a gorge in the Obiqua mountains, and flow north-westward. The watershed between the Breede and Little Berg rivers is merely a gentle swell in the surface of the ground. At the foot of Michell’s pass, at the present day, a mill-race is led out of the Breede and turned into the Little Berg, and thus a few shovelsful of earth can divert water from the Indian to the Atlantic Ocean.

The basin excels all other parts of South Africa in the variety and beauty of its wild flowers, which in early spring almost conceal the ground. It was too late in the season for the governor’s party to see it at its best, still the visitors were charmed with its appearance. Very few Hottentots were found. In the recesses of the mountains were forests of magnificent trees, and although the timber could not be removed to the Cape, it would be of great use to residents. Immigrants were arriving in every fleet from the Netherlands, so the governor resolved to form a settlement in the valley, where cattle breeding could be carried on to advantage. Agriculture, except to supply the wants of residents, could not be pursued with profit, owing to the difficulty of transport. The governor named the basin the Land of Waveren, in honour of a family of position in Amsterdam. The range of mountains enclosing the valley on the inland side and stretching away as far as the eye could reach, as yet without a name, he called the Witsenberg, after the justly-esteemed burgomaster Nicolaas Witsen of Amsterdam. The land of Waveren has long since become the Tulbagh basin, but one may be allowed to hope that the Witsenberg will always be known by the honoured name it has borne since 1699.

[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]

Several burghers who had been living at Drakenstein were now permitted to graze their cattle at Riebeek’s Kasteel, and on the 31st of July 1700 some recent immigrants from Europe were sent to occupy the land of Waveren. As it was the rainy season, the families of the immigrants remained at the Cape until rough cottages could be put up for their accommodation. At the same time a corporal and six soldiers were sent to form a military post in the valley for the protection of the colonists. This post was termed the Waveren outstation, and was maintained for many years. On the 16th of October several additional families were forwarded to the new district to obtain a living as graziers.

For a time after his arrival the Company’s garden in Table Valley was kept by the new governor in the same state of cultivation as that in which his father left it. To its former attractions he added a museum--chiefly of skeletons and stuffed animals--and a small menagerie of wild animals of the country, to which purposes one of the enclosed spaces at the upper end was devoted. Near the centre of the garden he erected a lodge for the reception of distinguished visitors and for his own recreation, which building by enlargement and alterations in later years became the governor’s town residence.

[Sidenote: Illegal Cattle Trade.]

As the garden in Capetown was thus reduced in size, and that at Rondebosch did not produce as large a quantity of vegetables and fruit as was required for the hospital, the garrison, and the ships, in the winter of 1700 Governor Willem Adriaan van der Stel caused a new one to be laid out a short distance beyond Rustenburg, and spent much money in its ornamentation. As originally planned, this garden and the plantations attached to it covered forty morgen of ground; but in course of time from twenty to thirty morgen more were added to it. A superintendent was stationed here with assistants and a strong party of slaves, by whose labour the place soon became exceedingly attractive. In this garden, which bore the name of Newlands, a small lodge was erected, which grew half a century later into the favourite country residence of the governors.

Ever since 1658 trade between the burghers and the Hottentots was strictly forbidden. The chief object was to prevent any act that might bring on a collision with the nomadic people or irritate them in any way. In opposition to the law, however, parties of deserters and other persons of loose character carried on a cattle trade, and were often guilty of conduct that cannot be distinguished from robbery. Governor Simon van der Stel thought to check this by threatening more severe punishment, and on the 19th of October 1697 he issued a placaat in which the barter of cattle from Hottentots was prohibited, under penalty of whipping, branding, banishment, and confiscation of property.

The directors disapproved of this. They wished to encourage the colonists, and for that purpose they had already, on the 14th of July 1695, issued instructions that their own farming operations should be gradually discontinued, and that the cultivation of the vine and wheat together with the rearing of cattle should be left entirely to the burghers. They were now disposed to allow the colonists to purchase cattle from the Hottentots and fatten them for sale to such persons as would contract to supply the hospital, the garrison, and the ships with beef and mutton. They therefore annulled the placaat, and on the 27th of June 1699 issued instructions that the cattle trade should be thrown open, care being taken that the Hottentots suffered no ill-treatment in connection with it. Servants of the Company having seats in the council of policy or in the court of justice were excluded from this trade, and forbidden to supply meat for the public service.[54]

[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]

This order reached Capetown by the flute _De Boer_ on the 24th of November, but the governor, who paid little regard to the instructions of the directors when they clashed with his own interests, did not make it known at the time. After long delay tenders were called for, and in February 1700 the burgher Henning Huising entered into a contract to supply the garrison, hospital, and Company’s fleets with beef and mutton at 5½d. a kilogramme, he to have the use of the Company’s slaughter houses, and as a cattle run the whole of the district of Groenekloof that was not occupied by Hottentots. The contract was signed provisionally for ten years, but the directors reduced it to five. With this transaction the Company designed to relinquish sending out expeditions to purchase cattle, as had been the custom for nearly half a century; and henceforth it was only when working oxen were needed in greater numbers than the burghers could supply that military bartering

## parties went out. By a placaat of the council of policy presided over by

the commissioner Wouter Valckenier, on the 28th of February 1700 the trade was thrown open to the burghers, with such restrictions as were considered necessary to prevent its abuse.

[Sidenote: Training of the Colonists.]

From this date cattle-breeding became a favourite pursuit with yearly increasing numbers or colonists. There was as much to be made by it as by agriculture, and it was attended with less expense and less anxiety. The government gave permission to applicants to use land for grazing purposes at some defined locality north or north-east of Stellenbosch, but if the pasture failed or did not prove as good as was anticipated, the occupiers did not hesitate to seek other and better places. East of the Hottentots-Holland mountains permission was not given to the burghers in general to graze oxen and sheep until after the governor’s recall in 1707, as he kept the pastures there as far as the Ziekenhuis in one direction and Zoetendal’s Vlei in another for his own use and that of one of his brothers. In defiance of the instructions or the 27th of June 1699 and of the avowed policy of the Company at the time, he himself was rapidly becoming a cattle farmer on a very extensive scale.

Many men and women were thus undergoing a special training for pushing their way deeper into the continent. They were learning to relish a diet of little else than animal food, and to use the flesh of game largely in order to spare their flocks and herds. They were becoming accustomed also to live in tent waggons for months together, so that the want of houses soon ceased to be regarded as a matter of much hardship by these dwellers in the wilds. They were acquiring a fondness for the healthy life of the open country, with its freedom from care and restraint, and its simple pleasures. For the town, with its government officials and law agents and tradesmen and speculators of many kinds always seeking to take advantage of their simplicity, they acquired such a dislike that they never visited it when they could avoid doing so. They took with them no other books than the bible and the psalms in metre, so their children came to regard education in secular subjects as entirely unnecessary. In self-reliance, however, they were receiving the most complete training possible. The tastes and habits which were thus formed were transmitted to their offspring, and in a few generations there was a body of frontiersmen adapted, as no other Europeans ever were, for

## acting as the pioneers of civilisation in such a country as South

Africa.

[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]

To encourage the cattle breeders, no rent for ground was charged until 1714, and no other tax than the one for district purposes was laid upon their stock. A little experience proved that occasional change of pasture was advantageous in the rearing of oxen and sheep, and the authorities made no objection to the graziers going yearly for three or four months to a tract of land far from that on which they lived at other times. This grew into a custom for each one to select as winter grazing ground a particular part of the karoo on the third terrace upward from the sea, his right to which was respected by all the others, though it was not directly recognised by the government.

With the enlargement of the settlement, fresh troubles arose with the Bushmen. In March 1701 a band of those people drove off forty head of cattle from Gerrit Cloete’s farm at Riebeek’s Kasteel. A commando of ten soldiers and thirty burghers was sent after the depredators, but was unable to find them. A temporary military post was then established at Vogelvlei, at the foot of the Obiqua mountains.

This protection soon proved insufficient. In April Gerrit Cloete was again robbed, and eleven head of cattle were lifted from the Waveren post. A commando of twelve soldiers and fifty burghers was then organised to clear the country of Bushmen, but did not succeed in effecting its object. It was hardly disbanded when one hundred and thirty-seven head of cattle were lifted within sight of the Vogelvlei post. Upon this a reinforcement of six mounted soldiers was sent to each of the two posts already occupied, and twelve men were stationed at Riebeek’s Kasteel.

[Sidenote: Strife with the Bushmen.]

The Goringhaiqua and Cochoqua Hottentots now tendered their services to assist the Europeans against the Bushmen, and requested that the captain Kees, who was then living at Groenekloof, might be recognised as their leader in the expedition. But it was discovered that Kees, who had suffered severely from the Bushmen, had already joined a commando of Gerrit Cloete’s friends, and that the joint force was scouring the Obiqua mountains. On receipt of this information, the governor sent instructions to the landdrost of Stellenbosch to have Cloete arrested and brought to trial for waging war without leave, and to ascertain and send in the names of those who had joined him in the expedition.

The prosecution fell through, and the governor thought it best after this to send out only parties of soldiers against the robbers. In September one of these parties recovered a hundred and twenty head of cattle belonging partly to burghers and partly to Hottentots; but in the following month more than two hundred head belonging to the contractor Henning Huising were lifted at Groenekloof, and a patrol of thirty-five soldiers was obliged to fall back from Piketberg, where the Bushmen made a resolute stand.

In November a sergeant and ten men were sent to form a permanent military post at Groenekloof. In the land of Waveren forty head of cattle, mostly belonging to Etienne Terreblanche, were seized by Bushmen, and one of the soldiers who tried to recover them was killed. Two hundred and seventy-four head belonging to Hottentot kraals at Riebeek’s Kasteel were driven off, but a party of soldiers followed the robbers to Twenty-four Rivers, and retook most of the spoil. In trying to afford protection, no distinction was made by the government between burghers and Hottentots, the officers at the outposts being instructed to do their utmost to recover cattle stolen by Bushmen and deliver them to their proper owners, whoever these might be.

[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]

In 1702 the military patrols were kept busy on behalf of the Hottentots, for no complaints of depredations were made by burghers. A large number of cattle were recovered and restored to various kraals, and so many Bushmen were shot that those who were left seem to have been terrified. At any rate they gave less trouble during the next few years, though occasionally it was considered necessary to chastise them. The sergeants and corporals in command of the outposts were directed to endeavour to induce the Bushmen to keep the peace. When those wild people committed depredations they were to be followed up and punished, but under no circumstances were they to be attacked without provocation. The ruthless nature of the warfare pursued by the Bushmen was exemplified in February 1702, when a Hottentot captain came to the castle and reported that they had killed five of his wives and every one of his children.

There is little else on record concerning the Hottentots at this period. Some of them made such complaints of the rapacity and violence of burgher trading parties that the council of policy provisionally suspended the liberty of free barter, and, owing to the governor’s representations, in 1703 the assembly of seventeen withdrew the privilege. Commercial intercourse between the two races was again made illegal, and the European graziers were chiefly depended upon to provide as many cattle as were needed.

In September 1704 several Namaqua captains visited the Cape, when an agreement of friendship was made with them. This tribe, like the others with which the Europeans had come in contact, at once accepted as a matter of course the position of vassals. This was shown in October 1705, when three Namaqua captains came to the castle for the purpose of requesting the governor to confirm their authority. They were kindly treated, their request was complied with, and they left carrying with them presents of beads and other trifles and copper-headed canes upon which the new names given to them--Plato, Jason, and Vulcan--were inscribed. Thenceforth they were termed allies of the honourable Company. The number of captains mentioned as having applied for staffs is an indication that the tribes were now more broken up than formerly. Sometimes a clan requested the appointment of a regent, as its hereditary captain was a minor. There are instances of clans applying for a brother of a deceased captain to be appointed in his stead, but in such cases they always gave as a reason that the dead chief had left no children. Feuds between clans of the same tribe caused frequent disturbances, though these same clans usually acted together against the adjoining tribe.

[Sidenote: Ecclesiastical Matters.]

After the removal in 1694 of the reverend Pierre Simond to Drakenstein, there was no resident clergyman at Stellenbosch for nearly six years. Once in three months the clergyman of the Cape visited the vacant church and administered the sacraments, and occasionally Mr. Simond attended for the same purpose. On the remaining Sundays the sick-comforter conducted the services. At length the assembly of seventeen appointed the reverend Hercules van Loon, who had once been acting clergyman of the Cape, resident clergyman of Stellenbosch. He arrived from the Netherlands on the 11th of April 1700.

In April 1678 the foundation of a church in Table Valley had been laid, but with that the work had ceased. For another quarter of a century services were conducted in a large hall within the castle. But in course of time the poor funds accumulated to a considerable amount, and the consistory then consented to apply a sum equal to £2,200 of our money to the erection of the building. As the original plan was now considered too small, it was enlarged, and a new foundation stone was laid by the governor on the 28th of December 1700. By the close of the year 1703 the edifice was finished, except the tower. The first service in it was held on the 6th of January 1704, the reverend Petrus Kalden being the preacher. Of the building then constructed the tower and one of the end walls still remain, the last forming part of the eastern wall of the present church.

[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]

At Drakenstein service was conducted sometimes in the front room of a farmer’s house, sometimes in a large barn, or under a screen, there being as yet no church building. There was a French clergyman, who was assisted by a French sick-comforter. In April 1700 a sick-comforter and schoolmaster was first appointed for the Dutch portion of the congregation, that had previously been neglected. An able and zealous man named Jacobus de Groot, who was returning from India to Europe, was detained here for the purpose.

The reverend Mr. Simond had prepared a new version in metre of the psalms of David, which he was desirous of submitting to a synod of the French churches, as great interest had been taken in the work by the Huguenots in Europe. He therefore tendered his resignation, to the regret of the Drakenstein people, and requested permission to return to the Netherlands. The assembly of seventeen consented to his request, on condition of his remaining until the arrival of the reverend Hendrik Bek, whom they appointed to succeed him. Mr. Bek reached the Cape in April 1702, and was installed at Drakenstein a few weeks later.

There was a desire on the part of the directors that in the families of the Huguenot immigrants the French language should be superseded by the Dutch as speedily as possible. It was only a question of time, for the proportion of French-speaking people was too small compared with those of Dutch and German descent for their language to remain long in use in the mixed community. To expedite its decay the new clergyman was directed to conduct the public services in Dutch, though he had been selected because he was conversant with French and could therefore admonish, comfort, and pray with the aged Huguenots who understood no other tongue. Instructions were at the same time sent out that the school children were to be taught to read and write Dutch only. The sick-comforter Paul Roux was not prevented, however, from ministering to the Huguenots of any age in whichever tongue was most familiar to them.

[Sidenote: Ecclesiastical Matters.]

This arrangement created much dissatisfaction. The French immigrants sent in a memorial requesting that Mr. Bek should be instructed to preach in their language once a fortnight. They stated that they comprised over a hundred adults, not more than twenty-five of whom understood sufficient Dutch to gather the meaning of a sermon. There was also even a larger number of children of their nationality. The council of policy recommended the memorial to the favourable consideration of the assembly of seventeen; but before action could be taken upon it, Mr. Bek requested to be removed to Stellenbosch as successor to Mr. Van Loon, who died by his own hand on the 27th of June 1704. The directors then appointed the reverend Engelbertus Franciscus le Boucq[55] clergyman of Drakenstein, and gave instructions that upon his arrival from Batavia Mr. Bek should be transferred to Stellenbosch. They gave the council of policy permission to allow the French language to be used alternately with the Dutch in the church services at Drakenstein, if it should seem advisable to do so.

[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]

The newly appointed minister did not reach the Cape until the 30th of March 1707. Mr. Bek then took charge of the Stellenbosch congregation, which had been for nearly three years without a clergyman, except once in three months when he had preached and administered the sacraments. Mr. Le Boucq should have taken up the duties in the parish to which he had been appointed, but instead of doing so, he got into difficulties at the Cape, as will be related in another chapter, and Drakenstein was for several years without a resident clergyman.

In the evening of the 3rd of April 1702 the outward bound ship _Meresteyn_, an Indiaman of the first class, ran ashore on Jutten Island, and in less than an hour broke into little pieces. Her skipper was endeavouring to reach Saldanha Bay, and the ship was in a heavy surf before any one on board suspected danger. The majority of her crew were lost, as also were two women and five children passengers for the Cape. Ninety-nine persons managed to reach the shore.

In March 1702 a marauding party, consisting of forty-five white men and the same number of Hottentots, whose deeds were afterwards prominently brought to light, left Stellenbosch, and remained away seven months. They travelled eastward until they reached the neighbourhood of the Fish river, where at daylight one morning they were attacked unexpectedly and without provocation by a band of Xosa warriors who were fugitives from their own country and were living in friendship with the Hottentots. The assailants were beaten off, followed up, and when they turned and made another stand, were defeated again, losing many men. One European was killed. The party then commenced a career of robbery, excusing their acts to themselves under the plea that they were undertaken in retaliation. They fell upon the Gonaquas and other Hottentot hordes, shot many of them, and drove off their cattle.

The perpetrators of these scandalous acts were not brought to justice. In after years when the governor and the colonists were at variance, and each party was endeavouring to blacken the reputation of the other, the governor stated that they were in league with the colonists and were too numerous to be punished without ruining half the settlement. This statement was, however, indignantly contradicted by the most respectable burghers, who asserted that the marauding Europeans were miscreants without families or homes, being chiefly fugitives from justice and men of loose character who had been imprudently discharged from the Company’s service. The burghers maintained that they ought to have been punished, and that the real reason why they were not prosecuted was that the governor’s agents had obtained cattle for him in the same manner, which would be brought to light at a trial. The names of the forty-five white men who formed the robber band are given. Forty of them are quite unknown in South Africa at the present day, and the remaining five are of that class that cannot be distinguished with certainty, so that the statements of the burghers are strongly borne out.

[Sidenote: Expedition to Natal.]

Owing chiefly to the scarcity of timber and fuel, in 1705 it was resolved to send an expedition to Natal and the adjoining coast, to make an inspection of the country and particularly of the forests there. The schooner _Centaurus_, which had been built at Natal in 1686-7, principally of timber growing on the shore of the inlet, was a proof that the wood was valuable, for she had been in use nearly fourteen years before needing repair. The galiot _Postlooper_ was made ready for the expedition. Her master, Theunis van der Schelling, had visited Natal when he was mate of the _Noord_ in 1689 and 1690, and therefore knew the harbour. He was instructed to make a thorough exploration of the forests, and to frame a chart of the coast. A sailor who was expert in drawing pictures was sent to take sketches of the scenery.

The _Postlooper_ sailed from Table Bay on the 20th of November 1705. She reached Natal on the 29th of December, and found the bar so silted up that she could only cross at high water. There were not so many cattle in the neighbourhood as there had been sixteen years before. Wood still remained on the shores of the inlet in considerable quantities.

[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]

In December 1689 a purchase of the inlet and surrounding land had been made from the chief then living at Port Natal, and had been recorded in a formal contract, two copies of which had been drawn up. The one kept by the Dutch officers was lost when the _Noord_ was wrecked in January 1690, and the master of the _Postlooper_ had therefore received instructions to endeavour to procure the other, that had been left with the chief, in order that a notarial copy might be made. The chief who sold the ground was dead, and his son was now the head of the tribe or clan, whichever it may have been. Upon Skipper Van der Schelling making inquiry of him concerning the document, the chief stated that he knew nothing about it, and supposed it had been buried with his father’s other effects. It was evident that he did not recognise the sale as binding upon him or his people.

At Natal an Englishman was found who gave his name as Vaughan Goodwin, and who stated that he was a native of London. He had two wives and several children. His story was that he arrived in February 1699 in a vessel named the _Fidele_, and with two others had been left behind by Captain Stadis, who intended to form a settlement there. They were to purchase ivory from the blacks, for which purpose goods had been left with them, and were to keep possession of the place until Captain Stadis should return, which he promised them would certainly be within three years; but he had not yet made his appearance. In 1700 the blacks some distance inland had killed the other white men on account of their having become robbers.

The life which Goodwin was leading seemed so attractive to two of the _Postlooper’s_ crew that they ran away from the vessel. When crossing the bar in leaving Natal the galiot lurched, and the tiller struck the skipper in the chest and hurt him so badly that he became unfit for duty. There was no one on board who could take his place, so the vessel returned to the Cape without any further attempt at exploration being made. She dropped anchor again in Table Bay on the 8th of March 1706.

[Sidenote: Failure to introduce Woolled Sheep.]

The directors were desirous of procuring sheep’s wool from South Africa, as some samples sent to Europe were pronounced of excellent quality. They were of opinion that if it could be produced at seventeen pence halfpenny a kilogramme, they would be able to make a good profit from it, and the colonists would have another reliable source of income. Instructions were sent to the government to have this industry taken in hand by the burghers. But it was not a pursuit that commended itself to South African farmers at that time. Although a good many European sheep had been imported in former years, there were very few of pure breed left, nearly all having been crossed with the large tailed animal. It was commonly believed that woolled sheep were more subject to scab than others, and the havoc created by that disease was so great that the farmers were in constant dread of it. Then there was the expense of separate herds. Further the carcase of the woolled sheep was not so valuable as that of the other, so that the graziers who bred for slaughter could not be induced even to make experiments.

In 1700 the government sent home one hundred and twenty-nine kilogrammes of wool shorn from sheep belonging to the Company. This was received with favour, but instead of increasing, the quantity fell off in succeeding years. In 1703 one small bale was all that could be obtained. It realised about thirty-two pence English money a kilogramme on the market in Amsterdam. In 1704 a very small quantity was procured, in 1705 none at all, and in 1706 fifty-two kilogrammes. In the meantime the governor took the matter in hand as a private speculation. He collected all the wool-bearing sheep in the settlement at a farm of his own, wrote to Europe for rams and ewes of good breed and to Java for some Persian sheep, and was about to give the industry a fair trial when he was recalled.

[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]

The governor had previously endeavoured to encourage the production of silk. He made experiments with the white mulberry, which was found to grow and thrive well, but the silkworms which he obtained from imported eggs all died. He then gave up the trial, being of opinion that the mulberry was in leaf at the wrong season of the year for worms from the south of Europe.

A less important but more successful experiment made by this governor was placing partridges and pheasants on Robben Island to breed.

From 1698 to 1705 the seasons were very unfavourable for farming, and no wheat could be exported. In 1700 it became necessary to import rice from Java, as there was not sufficient grain in the country for the consumption of the people and the supply of fresh bread to the crews of ships. In 1705 the long drought broke up, and the crops were very good; but as the wheat was being reaped heavy rains set in and greatly damaged it. There was, however, a surplus above the requirements of the country, and in 1706 exportation was resumed, and fourteen hundred muids were sent to Batavia.

The population of the colony was at this time increasing rapidly. The families of the burghers were generally large, they married at an early age, and no young women remained single. From Europe every year a few settlers were received. A custom had come into vogue of allowing soldiers and convalescent sailors to engage for short periods as servants to burghers, their wages and cost of maintenance being thus saved to the Company, while they were at hand in case of need. From a hundred to a hundred and fifty of the garrison and seamen were commonly out at service. A great many slaves were being introduced from Madagascar and Mozambique.

[Sidenote: Condition of Affairs in India.]

The bad seasons tended to produce a spirit of restlessness among the farming population, which was increased by the conduct of the principal officers of the government. Between Willem Adriaan van der Stel and the colonists of South Africa there was not the slightest feeling of sympathy, nor could there be between men who had a difficulty in making more than a frugal livelihood and a governor who was unscrupulous in his manner of acquiring wealth, and who regarded their interests as entirely subordinate to his own. In all the official documents of the period during which he was at the head of affairs, and the quantity is great, there is not a single expression like “our own Netherlanders” of his father. He requested the directors, indeed, to send out industrious Zeeland farmers and no more French cadets, but the sentence displays as little affection for the one as for the other.

The condition of things in the country districts was one of discontent, mingled with indignation towards the governor and some others, the reasons for which will presently be explained. In Capetown it was different. The people there could more easily be kept in restraint, and were less affected by the causes which at this time tended to produce intense dissatisfaction among the farmers. Those causes were not trifling ones, as will be seen in the following pages.

The East India Company had now been a century in existence, and the honesty and rectitude of conduct which distinguished its officials in early times were no longer noticeable except in a very few instances. Its mode of paying its servants, largely by perquisites, had tended to create a spirit of greed, and most of them were actuated more by the desire of acquiring wealth with which to retire than of advancing the interests of the association that employed them. To such an extent was private trading carried on in the East that the Company feared its utter ruin would be the result. There were even instances of Indian produce being sent to Europe in its own ships, and transferred to smuggling vessels off the coast of Holland, when it was landed and sold stealthily at rates with which the legitimate trade could not compete.

[Sidenote: Historical Sketches.]

In November 1699 the directors found it necessary to instruct the governor-general and council of India to appoint two of the ablest men they could find to proceed to the various stations and check the abuses. They were to be empowered to dismiss from the service all of the Company’s officials who should be found guilty of abusing their trust, and to confiscate summarily all goods found in their possession which they were not entitled to have according to the regulations. They did not then imagine that the man whom they had recently appointed governor of the Cape settlement would in coming years prove to be the foremost of all the offenders in this respect.