The English flag was first seen in Table Bay in
1591. On the decline of the Portuguese power the
Dutch established themselves in the East, and they
early saw the importance of the Cape as a port of
call and refreshment, it being regarded as two-thirds
of the distance from Amsterdam to Batavia. They
did not colonise it until 1652, when the Dutch East
India Company ordered Jacob van Biebeck, with a
small party of soldiers and colonists, to form a settle-
ment there, something in the nature of a military
outpost. These colonists gradually drove the
Hottentots back and took their territory. The early
settlers, though under Dutch rule, were not wholly
Dutch, but were made up also of Flemings, Grermans,
Poles, and Portuguese, mostly of a low class. A few
of the best, and those mainly Dutch, formed a
Council to assist the chief officer in the manage-
ment of the colony. In 1686 the little conmiunity
received an important addition in a number of
French refugees who had left their country on the
revocation of the Edict of Nantes. This Huguenot
inmiigration may still be traced in South Africa in
many ways — Joubert and Du Plessis, for instance,
are old Huguenot names. The colony now grew,
gradually extending its borders and increasing its
population. Cattle-breeding was found to pay, and
became an important industry. The children and
grandchildren of the Dutch, Germans, French,
and other nationalities became trek boeren — that is,



LADY ANinB BABNABD'8 LBTTEB8 41

wandering farmers — and with their nomadic life they
adopted unsettled and lawless habits.
