Though accurate statistics of the proportion of English and Dutch-speaking inhabitants in the various South African states cannot be obtained, it is probable that in British and Dutch South Africa there were, in 1899, 400,000 Englishmen or men of English descent, 500,000 Dutch, and 3,500,000 Indians, Malays, Hottentots, and natives of the various Kaffir tribes. In Cape Colony and the Orange Free State of the white races the Dutch preponderated; in the Transvaal, Natal, and Rhodesia, the British. Instinct should have united the white peoples, for, dwelling amidst a vast number of Bantus, warlike by nature and intelligent above the common run of negro, both white peoples were face to face with a common danger--a danger which the many fierce struggles with the great tribes of the Zulus, Matabele, and Basutos, had in the past proved to be a very real and ever-present one. Here were the very conditions which should have produced peace and amity--two kindred white races of the same faith, and almost of the same blood, confronted by hourly peril from the blacks. Why, then, was it that Englishmen and Dutchmen could not dwell in peace? Hereafter we shall have to follow the whole sad story out in detail; in this place it may suffice briefly to recapitulate the most essential facts. [Illustration: OLD DUTCH HOUSE IN PAPENDORP IN WHICH THE CAPITULATION OF THE CAPE FROM HOLLAND TO GREAT BRITAIN WAS SIGNED IN 1806.] [Illustration: PRETORIA NACHTMAAL. Four times a year the country Boers come into Pretoria for Nachtmaal (Holy Communion). They outspan their waggons on the Church Square, camp out for a week with their wives and families, and do their shopping for the ensuing three months.] [Illustration: BATTLEFIELD OF BRONKHORST SPRUIT. The scene of the battle between the Boers and the English in 1881, when a detachment of the 94th regiment was surprised by a party of the enemy in ambush and nearly annihilated.] [Sidenote: Early History of Cape Colony.] [Sidenote: 1709-1833.] _Early History of Cape Colony._] Capetown was first occupied by the Dutch East India Company in 1652 as a naval station on the road to India. At first it was only a military post; five years later a dozen men were allowed to settle outside the limits of the Dutch fortress, buying and selling under most stringent regulations laid down by the Company. The Dutch forcibly took the land from the Hottentots where they could not obtain its cession for a consideration. Gradually they increased in numbers and spread inland; at the close of the seventeenth century they were reinforced by a number of Huguenots, exiled from France on account of their religion, and for the most part men of high birth and noble character. The new comers attempted to keep their tongue and identity, but in 1709 the Dutch Company forbade all use of French in official communications, and the language rapidly became obsolete.