The history of Griqualand West does not go back to a distant antiquity, but it is one which has given rise to a singularly large amount of controversy and hot feeling, and has been debated at home with more than usual animation and more than usual acerbity. In the course of last year (1877) the “Quarterly” and the “Edinburgh Reviews” warmed themselves in a contest respecting the Hottentot Waterboer and his West Griquas, and the other Hottentot Adam Kok and his East Griquas, till South African sparks were flying which reminded one of the glorious days of Sidney Smith and Wilson Croker. Such writings are anonymous, and though one knows in a certain sense who were the authors, in another sense one is ignorant of anything except that an old-fashioned battle was carried on about Kok and Waterboer in our two highly esteemed and reverend Quarterlies. But as the conduct, not only of our Colonial Office, but of Great Britain as an administrator of Colonies, was at stake,--as on one side it was stated that an egregious wrong had been done from questionable motives, and on the other that perfect state-craft and perfect wisdom had been combined in the happy manner in which Griqualand West with its diamonds had become British territory, I thought it might be of interest to endeavour to get at the truth when I was on the spot. But I have to own that I have failed in the attempt to find any exact truth or to ascertain what abstract justice would have demanded. In order to get at a semblance of truth and justice in the matter it has to be presumed that a Hottentot Chief has understood the exact nature of a treaty and the power of a treaty with the accuracy of an accomplished European diplomate; and it has to be presumed also that the Hottentot’s right to execute a treaty binding his tribe or nation is as well defined and as firmly founded as that of a Minister of a great nation who has the throne of his Sovereign and the constitutional omnipotence of his country’s parliament at his back. In our many dealings with native tribes we have repeatedly had to make treaties. These treaties we have endeavoured to define, have endeavoured to explain; but it has always been with the conviction that they can be trusted only to a certain very limited extent.