This “Garden of South Africa” had been almost depopulated by the Zulu kings, who had slaughtered something like 1,000,000 natives from first to last. Before the rise of the Zulu tribe, Natal or “Embo[149]” had been a thickly populated country. Under white rule the native immigration and population increased so rapidly that when the colony was only nine years old it contained 113,000 Kafirs. The white colonists were of mixed origin, about one-third being the original Dutch settlers, while the remainder were either emigrants from Great Britain, Cape Colonials, or Germans. The German families mainly came from Bremen. At first the principal article of export was ivory, obtained from Zululand, where elephants still rioted in great numbers; but this was not to last long, for what with British sportsmen and Dutch hunters and the introduction of firearms amongst the natives, big game was rapidly exterminated. Then, during the fifties, the sugar cane and the cotton plant were introduced[150], the export of sugar rising in 1872 to an annual value of £154,000. These semi-tropical plantations brought about a fresh want—that of patient, cheap, agricultural labourers. Unhappily, the black man, though so strong in body and so unaspiring in ideals, has as a rule a strong objection to continuous agricultural labour. His own needs are amply supplied by a few weeks’ tillage scattered throughout the year; and even this is generally performed by the women of the tribe, the men being free to fight, hunt, fish, tend cattle, and loaf. Therefore, the 100,000 odd black men of Natal[151], though they made useful domestic servants and police, were of but little use in the plantations. As sugar cultivation was introduced from Mauritius, so with this introduction came naturally the idea of employing Indian kulis, already taking the place in the Mascarene Islands which was formerly occupied by negro slaves. In 1860 the first indentured kulis reached Natal from India, and by the end of 1875 12,000 natives of British India were established in Natal. A number of these had passed out of their indentures, and had become free settlers and petty traders. Nowadays the Indian population of Natal has risen to something like 142,000. From Natal these British Indians have crept into the Transvaal, into the Orange Free State, and even into Bechuanaland and Rhodesia. Many of them are employed on the Natal railways, and in the towns they form a thriving class of petty traders. Here and there they have mingled with the Kafirs, producing a rather fine-looking hybrid, similar in appearance to the black Portuguese on the Zambezi, who are descended from a cross between natives of Goa, in Portuguese India, and Zambezi Negroes. Added to the ordinary Kuli class are traders who belong partly to