Europeans 21,746. Slaves 25,754. Hottentots 14,447. But the peace of Amiens was delusive, and there was soon war between England and France. Then again Great Britain felt the necessity of taking the Cape, and proceeded to do so on this occasion without any semblance of Dutch authority. At that time whatever belonged to Holland was almost certain to fall into the hands of France. In 1805, while the battle of Austerlitz was making Napoleon a hero on land, and Trafalgar was proving the heroism of England on the seas, Sir David Baird was sent with half a dozen regiments to expel, not the Dutch, but the Dutch Governor and the Dutch soldiers from the Cape. This he did easily, having encountered some slender resistance; and thus in 1806, on the 19th January, after a century and a half of Dutch rule, the Cape of Good Hope became a British Colony. It should perhaps be stated that on the restoration of the Cape to Holland the dominion was not given back to the Dutch East India Company, but was maintained by the Government at the Hague. The immediate consequence of this was a great improvement in the laws, and a considerable relaxation of tyranny. Of this we of course had the full benefit, as we entered in upon our work with the idea of maintaining in most things the Dutch system. CHAPTER III. ENGLISH HISTORY. I have to say that I feel almost ashamed of the headings given to these initiatory chapters of my book as I certainly am not qualified to write a history of South Africa. Nor, were I able to do so, could it be done in a few pages. And, again, it has already been done and that so recently that there is not as yet need for further work of the kind. But it is not possible to make intelligible the present condition of any land without some reference to its antecedents. And as it is my object to give my reader an idea of the country as I saw it I am obliged to tell something of what I myself found it necessary to learn before I could understand that which I heard and saw. When I left England I had some notion more or less correct as to Hottentots, Bushmen, Kafirs, and Zulus. Since that my mind has gradually become permeated with Basutos, Griquas, Bechuanas, Amapondos, Suazies, Gaikas, Galekas, and various other native races,--who are supposed to have disturbed our serenity in South Africa, but whose serenity we must also have disturbed very much,--till it has become impossible to look at the picture without realizing something of the identity of those people. I do not expect to bring any readers to do that. I perhaps have been filling my mind with the subject for as many months as the ordinary reader will take hours in turning over these pages. But still I must ask him to go back a little with me, or, as I go on, I shall find myself writing as though I presumed that things were known to him, as to which if he have learned much, it may be unnecessary that he should look at my book at all.