The exodus of the Boers, who were composed of farmers of not only Dutch but French and English origin, commenced with the Great Trek of 1836, and they spread out ever seeking freedom from restraint. They came into collision with the Zulus under Dingaan, by whom a number of them were treacherously massacred, but whom they finally severely defeated and Dingaan fled. Dissensions arose amongst the Boers shortly after, and a number trekked on and established a separate settlement, with Potchefstroom as capital. Those who remained occupied Natal and established a Republic. Here, however, they did not find peace, for Sir George Napier, in command of the British forces at the Cape, dispatched a contingent to drive them out. This contingent the Boers nearly annihilated. A settler, Dick King, then made his memorable ride from Durban to Grahamstown, covering the distance of 375 miles in nine days, and reinforcements were sent up. Natal was, in 1843, declared to be a British Colony, with the result that a fresh exodus of Boers occurred across the Drakensberg Mountains into Griqualand. For forty years the Boers wandered, but wherever they tried to settle they were pressed on--being continually told that they could not shake off their allegiance, although no step was taken to reclaim them or the country they won. So far from receiving protection from the Cape Government, the latter even armed the Griquas against the Boers, and sent a military force to the assistance of the natives. And so they were harried until they were allowed to establish their Republics of the Transvaal and Free State, until overtaken by the destiny which Providence had marked out for them. In 1881 an attempt was made by Great Britain to annex the Transvaal, but after General Colley's defeat and death at Majuba the independence of the Transvaal was acknowledged under British suzerainty. The western border of the Transvaal Republic marched on Bechuanaland and the Kalahari Desert, and in 1882 the Transvaal completed a convention with the Portuguese Government under which the former was granted a concession to build a railway from the capital, Pretoria, to Delagoa Bay on the east coast. The delimited boundary of the Cape Colony was the Orange River, but as early as 1793 a Dutch expedition from the Cape took possession of Walfisch Bay, Angra Pequena, as well as Possession, Ichaboe, and other islands on the south-west coast in the name of the Dutch East India Company, while Namaqualand and Damaraland had been traversed from end to end by British and Dutch traders and explorers. British statesmen, however, neglected the south-west, though the islands were annexed at different times between 1861 and 1867, and Walfisch Bay in 1878. In 1874 the islands were incorporated in the Cape Colony. The mainland on the south-west, however, remained an open field as far as actual occupation went, in spite of its being tacitly acknowledged a British "sphere of influence."