The progress latterly visible in Natal dates from the close of the Zulu war of 1879. Prior to that time the discovery of the Kimberley diamond fields had drawn away many of its more active spirits and, afterwards, the shadow of Cetywayo for some time loomed large upon the eastern border. After that cloud was dispelled the Transvaal War took place, and in 1886 the phenomenal growth of the Witwatersrand gold mines again drew away from the English population. As a whole, however, the people of the Colony have been very comfortable in their circumstances, and the bulk of the white settlers, outside of the villages, occupy large and prosperous cattle farms in which little of the soil is cultivated, and where the work is largely performed by coloured labourers. Sugar and tea plantations are, however, growing in numbers of late years. Politically, the Colony was governed directly from London during the years immediately following its British occupation in 1842 and latterly its Governor has had a curiously complicated position in relation to the Colonial Office and the High Commissioner for South Africa who dwells at Cape Town and acts as Governor of Cape Colony. [Sidenote: Self-Government given to the Whites] In 1893, with some hesitation and natural doubtfulness, the 15,000 adult white males of Natal were given self-government with almost complete control over hundreds of thousands of natives. There is now a Cabinet of five members, a House of Assembly and Legislative Council--the former elected for four years and the latter appointed by the Governor for ten years. It is greatly to the credit of these new institutions and the electorate generally that no trouble has occurred with the surrounding Zulus; that the law is easily enforced and thoroughly respected; and that the loyalty of the tribes has been pronounced and sincere. But in 1876 this latter condition had hardly begun to develop, the natives were still a source of fear and natural suspicion, the Zulu impis of Cetywayo were darkly threatening, and the country was held back from settlement and progress by the encircling shadow of savage life. In the year 1877 Sir Bartle Frere, as Cape Governor and High Commissioner, had received a genial and not uncommon welcome to South Africa by a Kaffir war on the eastern frontier where two Kosa chiefs, Sandilli and Kreli, had revolted. Owing to the prompt action and wise measures taken the area of disturbance was limited and Cape Colony saved from those horrors of savage border warfare to which it had been so accustomed in the past. Satisfied with the result, Sir Bartle Frere turned to the northeast and found himself face to face with the menacing Zulu question and with the growth of a native power which had been practically encouraged by British policy to develop itself along the frontier of Natal.