ch their ceaseless
strife with the Bushmen enjoined. Being all accustomed to the use of
arms, they formed war-parties, which from time to time attacked and
rooted out the Bushmen from a disturbed area; and the government
recognized these military needs and methods by appointing
field-commandants to each district, and subordinate officers, called
field-cornets, to each sub-district. These functionaries have become the
basis of the system of local government among the South African Dutch,
and the war-bands, called commandos, have played a great part in the
subsequent military history of the country.

The eastward progress of expansion presently brought the settlers into
contact with more formidable foes in the Bantu tribes, who dwelt beyond
the Great Fish River. In 1779 some Kafir clans of the Kosa race crossed
that river and drove off the cattle off the farmers to the west of it,
and a war, the first of many fiercely fought Kafir wars, followed, which
ended in the victory of the colonists.

All this while the Colony had been ruled by the Dutch East India Company
through a governor and council, appointed by the directors in Holland,
and responsible to them only--a system roughly similar to that which the
English established in India during the eighteenth century. The
administration was better or worse according to the character and
capacity of the governor for the time being, but it was on the whole
unpopular with the colonists, not merely because they were excluded from
all share in it (except to some small extent in the courts of justice),
but also because the Company kept in its own hands a monopoly of the
trade, and managed trade with a view to its own commercial interests
rather than to those of the community. Thus discontent grew, and this
discontent was one of the causes which led to the dispersion of the
people into the wilderness, whose remoteness secured to them a practical
freedom. In 1779 disaffection had been so much stimulated by the
maladministration of a weak governor, and by the news of the revolt of
the American colonies against Great Britain, that delegates were sent to
Holland to demand redress for their commercial and other grievances, as
well as a share in the government of the Colony. The Company was by this
time in financial straits, and less powerful with the States-general of
the Netherlands than it had formerly been. Long negotiations followed,
reforms were promised, and at last, in 1792, two c