instructions from home, invited the British settlers in Natal to return to Cape Colony; but a few months afterwards he sent a small detachment of troops to keep order at the port, and again pressed the Home Government to declare Natal a British colony, though the following year the soldiers were withdrawn. This was taken by the Boers to be a tacit consent to the establishment of a vassal republic under British suzerainty. They would probably have had their way but for imprudent dealings on their part with natives placed under British protection. At the same time, a feeling began to grow that the United States of America were going to have political dealings with the territory of Natal (as another “Liberia”); while a vessel had come out from Holland, sent, it is true, by private persons, but seeming to convey a promise of Dutch alliance to the Burghers of Natal. British troops had again occupied Durban. In 1842 they were attacked by the Boers, who were eventually repulsed, and afterwards tendered their submission to the Queen’s authority. At length, in 1843, a Conservative ministry being in power, it was intimated that the settlers on the coast of Natal might be taken under British protection, with the eventual object of constituting Natal a self-governing colony, in which the Boers were to have a share proportionate to their numbers. After much negotiation, Natal became a British colony with a legislative council in 1843. The fighting Boers left the country and retired beyond the Orange river under a somewhat indefinite assurance that British rule would not follow them. The king of the Zulus received a recognition of his independence, and in return recognized the Tugela as the boundary of the British colony on the north-east. To the south, the territory of Natal was somewhat restricted, and the portion cut off from it became known as Pondoland, which remained an independent Kafir state till 1884; it was finally annexed to Cape Colony in 1894. In 1847 the mistake of Lord Glenelg was to some extent repaired under Governor Sir Harry Smith; and the eastern boundary of Cape Colony was once more advanced to the Kei river. This step was taken after a very serious Kafir war (the _fourth_, or “War of the Axe”) which broke out in 1846. In 1850, however, a war began again (the _fifth_, or “Sandile” war) with the restless X̓osa Kafirs. It extended far and wide, and was marked by not a few disasters; one being the loss at sea off Simon’s Bay of the troopship _Birkenhead_, which foundered with large reinforcements of troops on board, 400 soldiers and seamen being drowned. At length, in 1853, General Cathcart, who had succeeded Sir Harry Smith, captured all the strongholds of the Kafirs in the Amatola Mountains, and deported the Kafirs from that district, which subsequently