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 with whom a similar "protection" treaty had been negotiated, removed a German flag he had found there and taken it to his capital of Hoornkranz. The war dragged on until August, 1892, when Witbooi and his Herero antagonist patched up their differences. The Hottentot chief persistently declined, however, to treat with the Germans and refused to allow German settlers in his country. The Germans thereupon decided to attack him. He was surprised in his stronghold and many of his followers killed, but he himself succeeded in escaping. Two years later, after a vain attempt to come to terms without further fighting, the Germans again moved against Witbooi. Their case against him was that he would not acknowledge German suzerainty and was perpetually raiding his neighbours. Witbooi inflicted further severe losses on the Germans before finally submitting in 1894. From then onwards, until the General Rebellion in 1905, he fought on the side of the Germans against the Hereros and against other Hottentot communities, which were subdued between 1895 and 1903 with as little or as much justification as is habitual in the majority of these African conflicts. Each side accused the other of atrocities, probably with truth. The fact that the Germans found themselves virtually without native support of any kind and were, indeed, confronted with the active enmity of the Hottentots when the general Herero uprising occurred, although the two races had been engaged in internecine warfare for decades, is the best proof of the detestation in which their rule was held.

A general peace with the Hottentots was arrived at in 1906. By that time, if the early German estimates of the Hottentot population were approximately accurate, their communities had become greatly reduced. Although the decrease in their numbers may have been partially attributable to their perennial affrays with the Hereros, the prolonged struggle with the Germans must undoubtedly be regarded as the principal contributory cause. Palgrave estimated them in 1877 at 18,350, Governor Leutwein and Captain Schwabe at 20,000 in 1894, while the German official census taken in 1911 gives a total of only 9,781.

The fate of the Hereros has now to be narrated. In 1894 Major Leutwein replaced von François. Owing to the peculiar combination of circumstances narrated above,