CAPE OF GOOD HOPE. 195 



districts there is a civil magistrate, called the landrost, who with six 

 hemraaden, or a council of country burghers, is vested with powers 

 to regulate the police of his district, superintend the affairs of go- 

 vernment, adjust litigations, and determine petty causes. Their de- 

 cisions, however, are subject to an appeal to the court of justice in 

 Cape-town, in which the basis of the proceedings is the Roman or 

 civil law. 



The southern extremity of Africa was discovered by the Portu- 

 guese navigator Bartholomew Diaz, in 1493, who gave it the name of 

 Cabo Tormentoso, or the cape of storms, from the boisterous weather 

 which he met with near it; but Emanuel, king of Portugal, on the 

 return of Diaz, changed its name to that of the Cape of Good Hope, 

 from the hope he entertained of finding beyond it a passage to India. 

 This hope was fulfilled by Vasco de Gama, who, having doubled this 

 cape on the 20th of November, 1497, proceeded to India, and landed 

 at Calicut on the 22d of May, 1498. The Portuguese, however, made 

 no settlement in this part of Africa, nearer to the Cape, than the 

 banks of the Rio Infante, now the Great Fish-river which is 600 miles 

 distant from it. In 1600 the Dutch first visited it, but for many years 

 only touched at it in their voyages to and from the East Indies, to 

 supply themselves with water and fresh provisions. At length, in 

 1650, a surgeon of one of their India ships, named Van Riebek, point- 

 ed out to the directors of the Dutch East India company the great 

 advantages which would be derived from establishing a settlement at 

 this place. The company adopted his plan, and sent out four ships 

 under his command to commence the settlement he had advised. 

 With some presents of brass, toys, beads, tobacco, and brandy, he 

 purchased of the natives permission to build a fort and form a settle- 

 ment in their country ; and from that time the Cape remained in 

 the undisturbed possession of the Dutch, during the space of nearly 

 150 years, till it surrendered by capitulation to the British arms, un- 

 der general Alured Clark, and admiral sir George Keith Elphinstone, 

 on the 16th of September, 1795. It was restored to the Dutch by the 

 treaty of Amiens, but again taken by the English, after the renewal 

 of hostilities, and still remains in their possession. 



