MRS MARY ROSS COOPER ON NATAL AND ITS FLORA. 228 
NATAL AND ITS FLORA. 
By Mrs Mary Ross Cooper, L.L.A. 
(Read 2nd June 1898.) 
Iy the following paper the writer does not, by any means, 
profess to give an elaborate or exhaustive account of the 
flora of Natal. On the contrary, she only desires to describe 
the most characteristic plants which she observed during 
her residence in that colony. 
Natal is a comparatively young English colony, for, 
although it was first sighted and discovered by Vasco da 
Gama so long ago as Christmas day 1497—hence the 
name Natal—it was not finally proclaimed an English 
colony till 1843, fifty-five years ago. For about two 
hundred years after its discovery, almost nothing seems 
to have been heard of it, but in 1690 the Dutch, the then 
masters of the Cape, which is a much older colony, pur- 
chased the Bay of Natal from the natives for trading 
purposes. They soon relinquished it, possibly owing to 
the difficulty of finding an entrance over the sand-bar in 
the beautiful, land-locked harbour. [This bar has, un- 
fortunately, ever since been a formidable impediment to 
the entrance of ships; and, although distinguished engineers 
have been consulted, and able men have succeeded each 
other as resident harbour engineers, the problem of success- 
fully dealing with it has not yet been solved.] 
Until after 1820, the natives—Kafirs—may be said to 
have had the country all to themselves. In 1824, however, 
a little band of Englishmen, under Lieutenant Farewell, came 
from the Cape—which was by this time an English colony— 
and they came to stay. But although they may be re- 
garded as the precursors and pioneers of the ultimate 
masters of the soil, it must be said that the colonisation 
of not only Natal, but the Orange Free State, and the 
Transvaal as well, was mainly owing to the exodus from the 
Cape Colony of the Dutch Boers in 1834-1837. This 
