A great deal in the way of improvement in cultivation still remains to be done, but it may be truly said that the island has fought its way into the front ranks of sugar-producing countries. With its natural advantages of climate and soil, the enormous possibilities of irrigation and development of water power, the accessibility of an unlimited supply of Asiatic labor, and the markets of India, Africa and Australia at its doors, there is ample justification of high hopes for the future. Yearly output of sugar, exclusive of local consumption, since 1895: 1895 143,000 tons 1896 153,000 ” 1897 124,000 ” 1898 183,000 ” 1899 161,000 ” 1900 190,000 ” 1901 155,000 ” 1902 142,000 ” 1903 218,000 ” 1904 142,101 ” 1905 188,364 ” 1906 220,000 ” 1907 170,000 ” 1908 205,758 ” 1909 244,597 ” 1910 226,099 ” 1911 164,260 ” 1912 206,497 ” 1913 249,800 ” 1914 277,164 ” 1915 215,528 ” 1916 220,000 ”[89] NATAL On Christmas day, 1497, Vasco da Gama, then on a voyage to India, sighted the entrance to what is now Durban harbor, and named the country Terra Natalis. This maritime province of the British Union of South Africa lies approximately between 27 degrees and 31 degrees south latitude and 29 degrees and 33 degrees east longitude. On the southeast it is bounded by the Indian ocean, on the southwest by the Cape province and Basutoland, on the northwest by the Orange Free State and on the north and northeast by the Transvaal and Portuguese East Africa. Its coast line is 376 miles long and its area is 35,371 square miles. It is divided into two parts, Natal proper and Zululand, the former comprising 24,910 square miles and the latter 10,461 square miles. In 1908 the population, including that of Zululand, was 1,206,386, of whom 91,443 were European, 998,264 natives and 116,679 Asiatics. The surface of the country is of terrace formation. The coast strip south of Durban is quite narrow, but north of that point it becomes wider and more level. Ranges of hills roll back to the first plateau, which is about 2000 feet above the sea. The second plateau rises sharply between 4000 and 5000 feet and extends to the Drakensberg mountains, whose base is from 6000 to 7000 feet in elevation, and in which all the rivers of Natal, except the coast streams, have their source.