To this claim there was certainly one exception. The treatment of the Swaziland question during these years was a distinct evasion of responsibility on the part of both High Commissioner and the Imperial Government, and appears to have been better suited to the earlier fifties than to the developments of the eighties. It was, however, a fitting sequel to events such as the somewhat indifferent agreement of the British Government, in the days of Lord Granville's weak administration of the Foreign Office, to the German acquisition of Damaraland and North Namaqualand on the western coast--for no other apparent reason than to have some territory contiguous to that of Great Britain. Fortunately, the vigorous protests of the Cape Government prevented Walfisch Bay--the only useful harbor on the shores of all that parched and arid region--from being given up to the same Power. The Swazis were a branch of the Zulu race, and their territory bordered the Transvaal to the north-west, and Tongaland and the Delagoa Bay region to the south-east. Its acquisition meant that only Portuguese territory would lie between the Boer country and the great harbor at Lorenzo Marques. But apart from the immense strategic importance of the country--afterwards so strongly realized--it was the duty of the British Government to have in this case withstood the covetous designs of the Transvaal. [Sidenote: Swazis Appeal to England] Protected by the terms of the Convention of 1884, when their practical independence was guaranteed, and appreciating the policy by which the infant Boer republics of Stellaland and Goshen had been suppressed in Bechuanaland by the Warren expedition, the Swazis naturally looked to England for support when they found numerous individual Boers settling amongst them and preparing for further and more active aggression. In 1886 and 1887 the Swazi Chief appealed to the British Government for the establishment of a formal protectorate; but was refused on the ground that the Convention of 1884 by guarding their independence practically prevented Great Britain from taking such a step. For years prior to this period the Swazis had been friendly to the British, and had stood by them in war and peace. Promises of consideration were given, but nothing was done. The fact of the matter is that the Afrikander party in Cape Colony wanted to help the Transvaal to a seaport, and from some motive of conciliation, or strange error of judgment, Sir Hercules Robinson shared, or appeared to share, the same sentiment. So far as this point was concerned, the protectorate established over St. Lucia Bay and Tongaland neutralized the evil of the subsequent acquisition of Swaziland by the persistent Boers, but nothing can ever compensate the loyal and friendly Swazis of that time for their apparent desertion through the final refusal of the British Government--after a discussion with a delegation of Chiefs in 1894--to