rofessed
Christianity did not exceed a few thousands, and of these the large
majority were at least half Kafir in blood. It became plain that such
life and force as the nation once possessed had, at any rate in Africa,
died out, and that if ever the continent was to be developed it would
not be by the race that had first explored it. Here, therefore, we may
leave the eastern coast and the feeble settlers who shivered with ague
in its swamps, and turn our eyes to the far south, where a new and more
vigorous race began, a century and a half after the time of Vasco da
Gama, to lay the foundations of a new dominion.

The first Teutonic people that entered the African continent were the
Vandals in the fifth century. They came across the Straits of Gibraltar
as conquerors, but they soon established a powerful fleet and acquired a
maritime empire in the western Mediterranean. The second band of Teutons
to enter were the Dutch. They were already a sea power active in the far
East, whither they had been led by their war with Spain. But it was not
as conquerors that they came, nor even as settlers intending to build up
a colonial community. They came to establish a place of call for their
vessels trading to India, where fresh water and vegetables might be
obtained for their crews, who suffered terribly from scurvy on the
voyage of six months or more from the Netherlands to the ports of
Farther India. From the early years of the seventeenth century both
Dutch and English vessels had been in the habit of putting in to Table
Bay to refit and get fresh water. Indeed, in 1620 two English commanders
had landed there and proclaimed the sovereignty of King James I, though
their action was not ratified either by the king or by the English East
India Company. In 1648 a shipwrecked Dutch crew spent six months in
Table Valley, behind the spot where Cape Town now stands, and having
some seeds with them, planted vegetables and got a good crop. They
represented on their return to Holland the advantages of the spot, and
in 1652 three vessels despatched by the Dutch East India Company
disembarked a body of settlers, under the command of Jan van Riebeek,
who were directed to build a fort and hospital, and, above all, to raise
vegetables and obtain from the Hottentots supplies of fresh meat for
passing ships. It is from these small beginnings of a kitchen-garden
that Dutch and British dominion in South Africa has grown up.

The history of this Dut