A great trek to the north for the occupation of Mashonaland was projected but never carried out. To the south Zululand was now open, and into it went a number of adventurers as trekkers, followed, a little later, by others who took service under one of the warring native chiefs. When these took steps to set up a government of their own in the northern districts of Zululand the British authorities interfered and restricted their claim to a small territory of about three thousand square miles, which enjoyed an independent existence as the New Republic from 1886 to 1888, when it was annexed by the Transvaal. Other bands of Africanders raided parts of Bechuanaland, to the west, taking forcible possession of territory or obtaining grants of land by devices not always honorable. These intimidated the native chiefs into an acknowledgment of their authority and established two small republics, Stella and Goshen, to the north of Kimberley. These proceedings opened the eyes of the British government to the policy upon which the South African Republic had entered—to annex Bechuanaland and close the way of British communication with regions still farther north in which the nation had become interested. To check these designs in time, a military expedition under Sir Charles Warren entered Bechuanaland toward the end of 1884, expelled the Africanders without bloodshed, and proclaimed the whole region a crown colony under the name of British Bechuanaland. This territory was annexed to Cape Colony in 1895. In 1885 a British protectorate was established over a still more northerly region, covering the whole country as far as the borders of Matabeleland. In 1888 the British hold was made yet more secure by a treaty with the king of the Matabele, Lo Bengula, by which he bound himself to cede no territory to, and to make no treaty with, any foreign power without the approval of the British High Commissioner. The raising of the British flag at St. Lucia Bay, on the Indian Ocean, in 1884, and a treaty with the Tonga tribes, binding them to make no treaties with any other power than the English, completed the hold of the British crown on the eastern coast line up to the southern border of the Portuguese possessions.