SOUTHERN AFRICA. 249 
Their original intention was to limit their possessions to the 
Cape peninsula, and the two bays that are separated by the 
isthmus ; considering it only, as it had hitherto been, as a 
place for refreshing and refitting their ships. But tlie num- 
ber of settlers that crept in, from time to time, made it neces- 
sary to cross the isthmus, and, by presents and promises, to 
obtain from the natives the cession of a tract of land to which 
they gave the name of Hottentot's Holland. Having dis- 
covered that the predoininant passion of this feeble people 
was the love of spirituous liquors and tobacco, and that pieces 
of iron and o-lass beads were considered among; the first ne- 
cessities, they negociated for whole tracts of land with these 
pernicious drugs and paltry baubles. A cask of brandy was 
the price of a whole district, and nine inches in length of an 
iron hoop the purchase of a fat ox. The natives, however, 
it would seem, had no idea of resigning, for ever, to a foreign 
nation, the ground that was necessary for feeding their own 
cattle ; but conceived it could only be intended for tempo- 
rary use, and that, in time, their visitors would depart from 
the country as other Europeans had liitherto done for the last 
century and an half ; but, when they observed them building 
houses and fortifications, sowing and planting the ground, and 
rearing their own cattle, they began to be jealous of the en- 
croachments of their new neighbours, and commenced hosti- 
lities with a view to expel them. These hostilities terminated, 
as is usual in such cases, in the further extension of the Dutch 
settlement, and in an increase of troops and colonists from 
Europe. 
Still, however, the Dutch East India Company endeavoured 
to limit the Cape to the original design of a port for refreshing 
VOL. II. K K 
