Constitution of the Union of South Africa

- Pioneers.—More, perhaps, than to any other man the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope and of South Africa as a settling ground for Europeans is due to the great Portuguese pioneer Henry the Navigator. By him a school of pilots was trained and accurate charts and maps collected which made possible the voyages of Bartholomew Diaz in 1487 and Vasco da Gama ten years later. These two great navigators made known to the world the Cape of Storms, so-named by Diaz, but rechristened the Cape of Good Hope by John II. of Portugal. This discovery inspired in Camoens one of his most celebrated passages in the Lusiad, where he introduces the looming Table Mountain:— Of such portentous bulk was this Colossus That I may tell thee (and not tell amiss) Of that of Rhodes it might supply the loss (One of the world's seven wonders).

The Portuguese, however, never took kindly to the southern shores of Africa in their voyages to India, especially after an affray with the Hottentots of Table bay in 151o, when one of their viceroys, Almeida, lost his life. They preferred the roadsteads they discovered on the Mozambique coast as harbours of rest and refreshment for their exhausted crews, finding the Bantus of that district more civilized and amenable. When, towards the end of Elizabeth's reign, the Dutch and English began to intrude on the Portuguese monopoly of the Indian trade, both in turn made a trial of the Cape peninsula as a half-way station where their mer chantmen could break the six months' voyage to the east. In 162o two English captains formally took possession of Table bay on behalf of King James : but this action was not ratified, and the English company found in 1651 a port of refuge in St. Helena.

By the middle of the 17th century the Dutch East India Com pany had gone far ahead of their English rivals. Until the Eng lish conquest of St. Helena they had used that island as their chief stage on the way to the East ; but from 1616 their ships had made a practice of putting into Table bay to get fresh water and any fresh meat that could be obtained from the natives, while a primitive form of post office had been established under an in scribed stone, where passing Indiamen collected or deposited letters. In 1648 Leendert Jansz and Nicholas Proot had been ship wrecked in Table bay with the crew of the Haarlem and for five months, till they were picked up by a returning ship, had estab lished friendly relations with the natives, who brought them sheep, cattle and sowing vegetables, which throve amazingly. They presented a report advocating the Table valley as a vegetable garden and storehouse for the East India fleets. The company decided to establish such a station. Three ships were to take out material for building, seeds and implements, and 7o men were to form a settlement at the Cape of Good Hope.

Jan van Riebeek.

To command the expedition the directors chose Jan van Riebeek (b. a ship's surgeon, who landed on April 7, 1652. His letters and journal during his ten years' com mand show ability. The site chosen for the fort was near a swamp where hippopotamuses then wallowed and where Church Square, Cape Town, now stands. The Hottentots were shy c f bringing in cattle for sale, and, when they had brought it, developed the habit of stealing it back again ; the settlers grumbled, as new settlers do. The directors of the East India Company were troubled at the expense of the settlement, and 'after three years wished to reduce the number of their servants there to 5o, although, as van Riebeek pointed out, the least amount of work re quired for the settlement to perform its functions at all could barely be done by i 20 ; and, perhaps the hardest trial of all, any commander of a passing fleet belonging to the company super seded van Riebeek during his stay in the Bay, while foreign ships, especially French and English, were a constant source of anxiety.

Small wonder that van Riebeek himself was at times discour aged and in 1655 begged to be promoted to some more honourable post. Nevertheless, during the ten years that he remained his energy was unabated. He despatched expeditions to explore the interior; employed a yacht to good purpose in investigating the coast; encouraged a lucrative seal fishery; built a jetty to facili tate the provisioning of passing ships, and extended the company's area of cultivation as far as Rondebosch, where he built a great storehouse, Groot Schuur.

Van der Stel.

Van Riebeek left the infant colony in May 1662, after giving ample instructions to his successor Zacharias Wagenaar, who founded the present Castle on Jan. 2, 1666. Simon van der Stel, Commander and then Governor from 1679 to 1699, was the second founder of the Cape. Unlike van Riebeek, he was of good family; he loved pomp and circumstance, and elected to end his days in the country, after handing over his office to his son. Van der Stel penetrated with a hundred persons to the copper mines of Namaqualand; another party explored eastwards beyond Oudtshorn, and maritime expeditions were sent round the coast as far as the bay of Natal, which was purchased from the natives in 1689. He also extended the settlement to Stellenbosch, Draken stein, and beyond Wellington. This extension was rendered possi ble by the arrival of Huguenot families fleeing from Louis XIV., and by the immigration of young girls from the Dutch Orphan Chamber and of Dutch families organized by the company's supreme Council of Seventeen.