When the first colonists arrived, there were, as has been seen, but few aboriginal inhabitants, so few that nothing in the shape of formal government could exist. Gradually, however, refugees from Zululand and various parts of Natal proper began to attach themselves to the British settlers. And so, by 1835, the population at Port Natal had grown to about 4,000. Capt. Allen F. Gardiner, R.N., who arrived in the year referred to, accordingly found it necessary to enter into a treaty with Dingana (May, 1835) in the name of the settlers at Port Natal, wherein the latter engaged themselves "for the future never to receive or harbour any deserters from the Zulu country ... and to use every endeavour to secure and return to the King every such individual endeavouring to find an asylum among them."[20] In the following year, the British Government appointed Gardiner, at his own request, a Justice of the Peace, without, however, providing for the execution of the powers so conferred. The result was a protest on the part of the pioneers, and an immediate and complete failure by Gardiner to assert his authority.[21] A petition from the residents to the effect that Natal, to which they had given the name of "Victoria" in honour of our late revered Queen, then Princess, should be recognized "as a Colony of the British Empire," met with no encouragement from the Imperial Government. And so it happened that practically no regular government existed when the Boers arrived in 1837-39. The relations between the voortrekkers and the Zulus have been already touched on. Although, with the defeat and death of Dingana, the menace of the Zulu power had been temporarily removed, the installation of his brother Mpande as Paramount Chief meant a continuance of the military and tribal systems, though in a modified degree. The Boers governed on somewhat similar lines such aboriginals as they found already in the country, or those who, since the arrival of the Boers, had fled there from across the Tugela.[22] No reservations were at that time set apart for the occupation of the Natives, the Boer custom being to treat them as squatters when living on lands occupied by Europeans, and require them to render service in lieu of paying rent.[23] No equality as between Europeans and Natives was permitted. Had Boer administration continued in Natal, steps would probably have been taken to prohibit further ingress of refugees; such as were unprepared to serve would, probably, have been refused an asylum and compelled to return to Zululand or to the district between Umkomanzi and Umzimkulu Rivers, if not still further south.[24] As it was, in 1843, when that administration came to an end, there were between 40,000 and 50,000 refugees in Natal (exclusive of some 5,000 or 6,000 original inhabitants), notwithstanding the treaty above referred to.[25] The British settlers at the Port, however, looked upon themselves as