by other Plants—­ Vines—­Animals—­The Boers as Farmers—­Migration of Springbucks—­ Wariness of Animals—­The Orange River—­Territory of the Griquas and Bechuanas—­The Griquas—­The Chief Waterboer—­His wise and energetic Government—­His Fidelity—­Ill-considered Measures of the Colonial Government in regard to Supplies of Gunpowder—­Success of the Missionaries among the Griquas and Bechuanas—­Manifest Improvement of the native Character—­Dress of the Natives—­A full-dress Costume—­A Native’s Description of the Natives—­Articles of Commerce in the Country of the Bechuanas—­Their Unwillingness to learn, and Readiness to criticise.

Having sent my family home to England, I started in the beginning of June, 1852, on my last journey from Cape Town.  This journey extended from the southern extremity of the continent to St. Paul de Loando, the capital of Angola, on the west coast, and thence across South Central Africa in an oblique direction to Kilimane (Quilimane) in Eastern Africa.  I proceeded in the usual conveyance of the country, the heavy, lumbering Cape wagon drawn by ten oxen, and was accompanied by two Christian Bechuanas from Kuruman—­than whom I never saw better servants any where—­by two Bakwain men, and two young girls, who, having come as nurses with our children to the Cape, were returning to their home at Kolobeng.  Wagon-traveling in Africa has been so often described that I need say no more than that it is a prolonged system of picnicking, excellent for the health, and agreeable to those who are not over-fastidious about trifles, and who delight in being in the open air.

Our route to the north lay near the centre of the cone-shaped mass of land which constitutes the promontory of the Cape.  If we suppose this cone to be divided into three zones or longitudinal bands, we find each presenting distinct peculiarities of climate, physical appearance and population.  These are more marked beyond than within the colony.  At some points one district seems to be continued in and to merge into the other, but the general dissimilarity warrants the division, as an aid to memory.  The eastern zone is often furnished with mountains, well wooded with evergreen succulent trees, on which neither fire nor droughts can have the smallest effect (’Strelitzia’, ‘Zamia horrida’, ’Portulacaria afra’, ‘Schotia speciosa’, ‘Euphorbias’, and ’Aloes arborescens’); and its seaboard gorges are clad with gigantic timber.  It is also comparatively well watered with streams and flowing rivers.  The annual supply of rain is considerable, and the inhabitants (Caffres or Zulus) are tall, muscular, and well made; they are shrewd, energetic, and brave; altogether they merit the character given them by military authorities, of being “magnificent savages”.  Their splendid physical development and form of skull show that, but for the black skin and woolly hair, they would take rank among the foremost Europeans.