Typographic Conventions
The reader's attention is directed to certain conventions that have been consistently maintained throughout this book, intended to facilitate the understanding of the many categories of text.
The extracts in small print (double column) following the yearly headlines and between items are translated from the manuscript Diaries (Dagregisters, ‘DR’), occasionally supplemented by translations of the Resolutions of the Council of Policy (the Governing body at the Cape), and of Letters between this, the Council of the Indies in Batavia, and the ‘Lords XVII’ in Holland, the Directors of the Dutch East-India Company; from memoirs of departing Governors for their successors and Instructions of visiting Commissioners; almost all these documents being in the Cape Archives. The extracts are not intended to give a history of the Cape, but should be read as a background to the accounts printed, and therefore as some indication of their reliability: for this purpose the entry ‘DR’ in square brackets is to be read as ‘Confirmed by the Diary entry for this date’; but ‘DR 10/3’ as ‘But the Diary has this for March 10’ (of the current year unless otherwise stated).
With very few exceptions, my own introductions to the quoted extracts and explanatory notes are set in italics; and the quoted extracts are in roman (upright) type.
R.R-H.
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