Reflecting upon all these recent explorations and discoveries in Africa, how different would be a bird’s eye view of that continent now from what it was when Dr. Livingstone first went ashore at Cape Town! The extreme southern portion of the continent is under the dominion of Great Britain. On the east and northeast are Natal and the Boer republics of Orange River and Trans-Vaal. Here, of course, we find a people not unlike the peasantry of Europe, with towns and cities and farms and manufactures and commerce. The political institutions are liberal, and popular education supported by the state, is becoming general. The original inhabitants of this region were the Hottentots, a race bearing more resemblance to the Mongols than to the negroes, having broad foreheads, high cheek bones, oblique eyes, thin beards, and a yellow complexion. They are of a docile disposition, and quick intellectual perception. They were possessed of vast herds of cattle and large flocks of sheep, but were enslaved by the Dutch. Emancipated in 1833 by England, they are still found all over this region--still enslaved by the Boers in their so-called republics--and in small bodies here and there to a great distance in the interior. The Caffres, who inhabit the eastern portion of South Africa north of the British possessions, and form a large proportion of the population of the northern part of Cape Colony, are described by Livingstone as “tall, muscular, and well made; they are shrewd, energetic, and brave; altogether they merit the character given them by military authorities of being magnificent savages! Their splendid physical development and form of skull show that, but for the black skin and woolly hair, they would take rank among the foremost Europeans.” Near the east coast of Africa the Caffres are brown or copper-colored. Their government is patriarchal, a petty chief presiding over each kraal or village, who is tributary to a higher chief, and these higher chiefs owe allegiance to the great chief, with whom they form the National Council. They live by hunting and raising cattle. Their women attend to the agriculture. They have no notion of a Supreme Being, but are exceedingly superstitious in respect to witches, spirits, and the shades of their ancestors. The missionary labors of more than forty years have made no perceptible impression upon this stalwart race except those who live under the British Colonial government, and these have only been partially won over to civilization. Caffre women are described as superior in beauty to the other native races of South Africa. Then, and farther to the left, still looking northward, we have the Bushmen, who are described by Livingstone as true nomads. Then we come to the Griquas, an independent people north of the Orange river. By Griquas is meant any mixed race sprung from natives and Europeans. These are of Dutch extraction through association with Hottentot and Bushwomen. Many of these have adopted Christianity. The