at once slackened.

We may add that two German traders settled on the coast of Pondoland,
south of Natal; and in August 1885 the statesmen of Berlin put forth
feelers to Whitehall with a view to a German Protectorate of that coast.
They met with a decisive repulse[445].

[Footnote 445: Cape Colony, Papers on Pondoland, 1887, pp. 1, 41. For
the progress of German South-West Africa and East Africa, see Parl.
Papers, Germany, Nos. 474, 528, 2790.]

Meanwhile, the dead-set made by Germany, France, and Russia against
British interests in the years 1883-85 had borne fruit in a way little
expected by those Powers, but fully consonant with previous experience.
It awakened British statesmen from their apathy, and led them to adopt
measures of unwonted vigour. The year 1885 saw French plans in
Indo-China checked by the annexation of Burmah. German designs in South
Africa undoubtedly quickened the resolve of the Gladstone Ministry to
save Bechuanaland for the British Empire.

It is impossible here to launch upon the troublous sea of Boer politics,
especially as the conflict naturally resulting from two irreconcilable
sets of ideas outlasted the century with which this work is concerned.
We can therefore only state that filibustering bands of Boers had raided
parts of Bechuanaland, and seemed about to close the trade-route
northwards to the Zambesi. This alone would have been a serious bar to
the prosperity of Cape Colony; but the loyalists had lost their
confidence in the British Government since the events of 1880, while a
large party in the Cape Ministry, including at that time Mr. Cecil
Rhodes, seemed willing to abet the Boers in all their proceedings. A
Boer deputation went to England in the autumn of 1883, and succeeded in
cajoling Lord Derby into a very remarkable surrender. Among other
things, he conceded to them an important strip of land west of the River
Harts[446].

[Footnote 446: For the negotiations and the Convention of February 27,
1884, see Papers relating to the South African Republic, 1887.]

Far from satisfying them, this act encouraged some of their more
restless spirits to set up two republics named Stellaland and Goshen.
There, however, they met a tough antagonist, John Mackenzie. That
devoted missionary, after long acquaintance with Boers and Bechuanas,
saw how serious would be the loss to the native tribes and to the cause
of civilisation if the raiders were allowed to hold the routes to the
interior