Natal

Agriculture.

The coast belt is sharply marked off from the rest of the country. It produces sugar, bananas, pineapples, citrus fruit, etc. Practically all the cane grown is of the Uba variety. In 1926 there were 231,967 ac. under this crop, and the production of sugar for the year 1925-26, was 239,851 tons (i.e., of 2,000 lb.). The industry now satisfies the requirements of the South African market, and has a surplus for export. Among the by-products are molasses, used for cattle feeding, and also exported, motor spirit, produced from the molasses, methylated spirits, ether and wax. Rather more than 3,00o ac. in the Kearsney-Stanger area are devoted to tea growing. In 1925-26 the production of green leaf was 4,000,00o lb., of manufactured tea 852,799 lb. The industry shows little sign of growing. The rest of Natal is devoted to mixed farming, with increasing stress ' being laid on dairying. Maize thrives particularly well in the Midlands, but little of this grain is exported, because it is often sold by the white farmers to the natives, whose own food produc tion is insufficient. Between 2,000 and 6,000 ft. the Australian black wattle is grown, especially in the mist belts along the escarp ments. From the bark an extract is made which is used in tanning. The poles supply the mines with pit props, and the towns with much of their domestic fuel. There is a wattle belt, fairly well defined in the midlands of Natal, through the middle of which runs the Richmond-Pietermaritz burg-Greytown-Krantzkop r ail way. The wattle plantations cover 220,000 ac., and in 1926 the quan tity of bark exported from the country was over 90,00o tons, Great Britain, Belgium, Germany and Japan being the chief cus tomers. Wattle extract is also exported. Cotton growing appears to have passed the experimental stage. It is being grown in some of the northern and eastern districts of Natal and in Zululand. In 1925-26, 41,000 ac. were being cultivated for this crop. The growing of tobacco has been stimulated by the introduction of a preferential tariff for Empire tobacco in Great Britain in 1925.

The chief mineral produced in the country is coal. Many of the deposits have been metamorphosed by the intrusion of dolerite, but large quantities are available for exploitation. The chief coalfield is in the Klip River and Newcastle districts, centring about Dundee. Mines are also active in the Vryheid and Utrecht districts. The expense of the long railway journey to the coast, on the average about 24o m., is partially counterbalanced by the nearness of the coal to the surface. In 1926 the output was over five million tons. At Waschbank the following by-products are being produced : tar, sulphate of ammonia, light creosote oil and naphtha. Tar is also being made.

Education.

For higher education see UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA. The direction of public education, other than higher education, rests with the Provincial Education Department, sub ject to the control of the provincial administration. At its head is the superintendent of education. The department has direct management of primary and of some secondary schools, and makes grants to various private schools, which maintain the same standard as the Government schools. Fees are charged for pupils in the secondary schools. Special schools are provided for native, coloured and Indian children. Attendance is compulsory

for children between 7 and 15, who live within the three-mile limit. A Government training college for teachers is situated in Pietermaritzburg. In the latter city there is also a technical institute, and in Durban a technical college. In addition to the Government schools, there are several good schools in the prov ince, both for boys and girls, which are modelled on the English public school. An agricultural college, connected with a Govern ment experimental farm, was opened in 1906 at Cedara, m. from Pietermaritzburg.

To meet some of the requirements of the non-European popu lation, there were, in 1925, 492 State and State-aided schools for natives, 52 for Asiatics, and 22 for other non-Europeans. These were attended by 31,247 natives, 8,520 Asiatics and 2,025 coloured pupils. (See also SOUTH AFRICA, UNION OF.) (R. U. S.) Vasco da Gama on his voyage to India sighted the bluff at the entrance to the bay now forming the harbour of Durban on Christmas Day 1497 and named the country Terra Natalis. Da Gama made no landing here and, like the rest of South Africa, Natal was neglected by the Portuguese, whose nearest settlement was at Delagoa bay. The first detailed accounts of the country were received from mariners. In 1684 an English ship put into Port Natal (as the bay came to be known) and purchased ivory from the natives, who, however, refused to deal in slaves. In May 1685 another English ship the "Good Hope" was wrecked in crossing the bar at Port Natal and in Feb. 1686 the "Stave nisse," a Dutch East Indiaman, was wrecked a little farther south. Survivors of both vessels lived for nearly a year at Port Natal and there built a boat in which they made the voyage to Cape Town in twelve days. They brought with them three tons of ivory. This fact and their reports of the immense herds of ele phants which roamed the bush led Simon van der Stell, then governor at Cape Town to despatch (1689) the ship "Noord" to Port Natal, with instructions to her commander to open up a trade in ivory and to acquire possession of the bay. The bay was "purchased" from the chief of the Amatuli tribe, for about .15o worth of goods. No settlement was then made and in 1705 the son of the chief repudiated the bargain. In 1721 the Cape Government did form a settlement at the bay, but it was soon afterwards abandoned. Thereafter for nearly a hundred years Natal was again neglected by white men.

From the records of the 17th and 18th centuries it is apparent that the people then inhabiting Natal were Bantu-negroes of the Kafir (Ama Xosa) branch. The most numerous and most power ful tribe appeared to be the Abambo, while the Amatuli occupied a considerable part of the coast-land. These Kafirs seem to have been more given to agriculture and more peaceful than their neighbours in Caffraria and Cape Colony. But the quiet of the country was destroyed by the inroads of Chaka, the chief of the Zulus (see ZULULAND). Chaka between 1818 and 182o ravaged the whole of what is now known as Natal, and after beating his foes in battle, butchered the women, children and old men, in corporating the young men in his impis. The population was greatly reduced and large areas left without a single inhabitant. By right of conquest Chaka became undisputed master of the country.