British South Africa, which occupies the entire southern horn of the African continent, from the southern coast to the Zambesi River, and from the Indian Ocean on the east to the Atlantic on the west, has a population of about 6,500,000 people, fully five-sixths of whom are of Negro extraction, the other one-sixth being of European--British and Boer. It is a "southern black belt" in every sense of the term, and its Negro or Negroid inhabitants belong to the subdivision of the race to which ethnologists have given the name "Bantu," a native African word meaning "the people." Their origin is unknown, and no authentic history of their racial and tribal movements is available. All that is known of their past is what has been gleaned by surmise and deduction from the condition in which they were found by missionaries and traders making their way into South Africa. A nomadic, patriarchally governed people--polygamists, ancestor-worshipers, tillers of the soil, sheep-raisers, raiders upon neighboring tribes--such were the primitive Bantu. Let the reader substitute "Bantu" for "Germani" in Tacitus's classic description, or for "Britons" in any accurate portrayal of the manners and customs of the early inhabitants of the British Isles, and he will catch the true _spirit_ of life as it was among the primitive Bantu before the advent of the European missionary and trader. The missionary, first as civilizer and educator, later as protagonist of the political rights of the Bantu, has been a potent factor in their development. "To the Bantu, perhaps more than to any other people," says Mr. S. M. Molema, himself a member of that race, "the missionaries have stood for civilization, Christianization and education."[2] Niggardly and inadequate governmental appropriations for common schools have been supplemented by missionary funds, and in many cases missionary funds alone have supported and are still supporting native schools. "In short, every educated member of the Bantu race, no matter how great or small his education may be, is directly or indirectly a product of the mission school."[3] This fact should be borne in mind whenever one considers the relations which exist between the native and the government. The Bantu feel that the missionary, and not the government, is responsible for their enlightenment, and it is to the missionary that their gratitude is poured out.