THE DECADENCE OF GREAT GAME 301 



contributed perhaps more than any other cause to 

 the opening up of the interior. The frontier Boer 

 of the middle of this century called all the country 

 north of the Orange River '* onze veldt," " our 

 country," and declared that no other white men 

 should enter it. But the missionaries, the traders, 

 and above all the hunters, have been too much for 

 them. 



Of late years the gold-seekers have, too, been 

 pressing northward, and, thanks chiefly to these 

 pioneers, the hunters, the traders, and the gold- 

 diggers. Central South Africa is at the present day 

 an English and not a Dutch dependency. 



The wonderful courage and energy of the early 

 hunters contributed also, in a very great degree, 

 to the respect and admiration in which the English- 

 man has been held by the black man. In nearly 

 every instance these early explorers were men of 

 perfect truth, honesty, and fairness, from whom the 

 natives quickly formed an excellent impression of 

 the English character. Since the invasion of the 

 interior in recent years by a swarm of mixed nation- 

 alities, the estimate of the white man has been a 

 good deal depreciated; yet it may be said with 

 some satisfaction that in nearly every instance the 

 word of the Englishman is still accepted as his bond 

 — good always for money or its equivalent — among 

 the native races throughout Southern Africa. For 



