in the middle of the veldt, without a road or anything to guide me. The chief would not believe my statement. To have resisted would have been folly, as I could do very little against a hundred Kaffirs. All the women and children kept to their huts, the men assembled quite in a nude state, except a small cloth in front, and were armed with assagais and knobkerries. When I was leaving, they came demanding some tobacco; I told them they should have none; if they had behaved well, I would have given them plenty.
Finding these Kaffirs had been so badly used by the Boers, and not knowing the English, they insulted every white man that came into their country; and having heard very bad accounts of the people at Taung and the villages around from the same cause, I determined, when the guard left me, to strike across the country and give them a wide berth, otherwise I might be detained again. Two years after, when visiting this kraal, the chief, when he found out who I was, told me he was very sorry he had turned me away.
After proceeding several miles we came to a single hut where a Bushman lived, looking after a few goats, who directed me what course to take. Giving him a little tobacco I proceeded a few miles to a thick forest of trees, close to a pan of water, where I outspanned for the night. At many of these pans, and when travelling over the country, I would pick up flint implements that were lying exposed on the surface. On some of the large rocks in out-of-the-way places, carvings of a variety of animals, snakes, and men are occasionally stumbled upon in the stone “koptjies,” quite artistic in execution. The instrument must have been of good steel to make any impression on the hard stone. I do not think they are the work of Bushmen, as some suppose, but those who once occupied this country in search of gold many hundred years ago, as there is such extensive evidence in this country, in the old pits remaining, of former workings.
December 4th.—Shot a fine hartebeest early in the morning from the saddle, and after breakfast started with waggon, following a track partly overgrown with bush, over an undulating country, sometimes through a thorn country and Kameel-doorn trees, where thousands of game were literally covering the open plains in every direction as far as the eye could see. Blue wildebeest, blesbok and springbok, quaggas and many other kinds; there was one drove of quaggas, at least a thousand, crossing the path I was travelling, only a few hundred yards in front, going at full speed, a beautiful sight.
Outspanning in the evening near a large pond, we disturbed, as we approached, several hundred ducks, which kept us employed until dark in adding to our larder. In the morning the Namaqua partridge in coveys of twenty to a hundred came to water. They are the size of a dove; the time to shoot them is when they are settling at the edge of the water and when they rise; in two shots I killed fifty-four; they are called also sand-grouse.
The next day I passed through a pretty country, well-wooded and low hills, noted as the lion veldt; therefore I treked on to get clear of the bush before night, and came to a very large brak pan, at least four miles in circumference, called Great Chue Pan. On the bank was a small spring of good water, and an open country, where we remained the night. The oxen were let loose, and the horse knee-haltered to feed, before making them fast for the night to the trektow, my invariable custom, to prevent their straying; the loss of your oxen is almost death to the traveller. They were feeding some distance from my camp, when they were seen in full gallop coming to the waggon, and did not stop until close home; we knew they were frightened by lions. At night, soon after dark, we heard the roar of several, in the direction where the oxen had been feeding. We made them fast round the waggon, and close in front collected wood for fires, which we kept up all night; and all of us on the watch with rifles, for they never ceased their roar, sometimes very near, but being very dark and cloudy I could not see them.
As a book of reference, describing the physical geography of South Central Africa, it is necessary in the first instance to give the several river systems or basins comprised within this region; and, secondly, to give the results of my explorations, not in consecutive journeys, but in a detailed description of each separate region visited from time to time, as I had frequent occasion to travel over the same ground for the purpose of completing my labours, so that no portion of any region should be left unexplored. For when such an immense area of nearly 2,000,000 square miles has to be visited, to survey the whole necessitates frequent visits to the same district, to be able to reach those parts beyond. Consequently I have passed through all this region many times.
Chapter Five.
On Griqualand West, the Griquas, Korannas, Bushmen, and Diamond-Fields.
Previous to the annexation of this country by the British Government, it was occupied by various tribes under petty chiefs, ruling each their separate kraals, the banks of the Vaal and Orange rivers being the most thickly populated districts. So far back as 1820 there were mission stations established at Griqua Town and Campbell, by the Rev.—Campbell, and Anderson and others. The country at that time was peopled by Korannas, Bushmen, Bechuanas, and Griquas, under the chiefs Choodeep, Keidebio, Siffonel, and Sebedare; the two latter were Bechuanas of the Baralong family, who had large kraals and many people. Soon after the country was overrun by hordes of Kaffirs living more to the east of what is now the Transvaal, of various tribes, some of the chiefs being the Bapedi, Makatee or Mantatees, afterwards called Basutu or Musutu, under Moshesh, whose habits and customs in war were similar to the Zulus—their weapons, the assagai and long oval shield, the shield of the Bechuana being square, hollowed out on the four sides.
(These Mantatees are so-called from the name of their queen, who was the widow of a petty chief and elected queen. The Kaffirs had a fancy for a queen, and the tribe became very powerful. At last she was deposed by her prime minister, Moshesh. She fled to Natal, and died there in obscurity. Moshesh had 20,000 horsemen, and gave us more trouble than any other chief. At last the Boers of the Orange River Free State wore him down.)
Soon after, the Rev. Robert Moffat and the Rev. — Campbell established the mission station at Kuruman, which was made the headquarters of the London Missionary Society in Bechuanaland, forty miles beyond the northern boundary of Griqualand West; and, at the same time, two other stations on the north and north-west of the latter station, Baclairis and Matelong; and, subsequently, the German mission was established at Pniel, on the banks of the Vaal, about fourteen miles to the north, where Kimberley now stands, and a missionary is now doing duty there.
At Griqua Town the mission house is in ruins, the church is still kept up, and the missionary from Kuruman goes over and holds service. At Campbell the mission house and church are both in ruins. Upper Campbell, which is a mile to the north of Lower Campbell, on the top of a range of hills called Campbell Randt, has only a few houses occupied by Griquas; a Mr Bartlett occupies the farm. Another mission station, established after Lower Campbell, was at Lekatlong, near the junction of the Harts and Vaal rivers, by the same London Society, under the Rev. Mr Ashton, but the church and house are in ruins. Mr Ashton lives now at Barkly, and goes over occasionally to hold service. It was a large Bechuana station under the chief Jantje, who has now removed with his people to Masupa, beyond the northern boundary of Griqualand West.
The Griquas many years ago settled down on both sides of the Vaal. Adam Kok settled at Normansland, on the borders of Natal, with his people. Andries Waterboer settled with his people at Griqua Town, occupying the whole of the western division of Griqualand West, dividing it into farms; and at the death of Andries, his son, Nicholas Waterboer, became chief, and it was with him the British Government arranged to annex the country to the British Empire in 1871.
Waterboer lived in a nice house, well furnished, and the family live as respectably as any Boer family. I was invited to a dance one evening by Waterboer, when the élite of the families were invited. All the fashionable dances were correctly and well performed to the music of the harmonium, which one of his sons played; his daughters were well-behaved,
