15. THE KORANAS

(a) The Koranas at the Cape.

(b) The Koranas of the great valley of the Orange river.

(c) The Korana Clans of the Middle Veld.

(d) Their Migrations along the Valley of the 'Gij-'Gariep and towards the North.

In commencing our examination of the traditions which have been preserved among the Korana clans, we soon discover that they have been able to preserve a more consecutive history than that known of any other branch of the Hottentot race. It is for this reason therefore that its study sheds a clearer and more definite light upon the early migrations of these nomadic hordes than is to be obtained from any other source, and it cannot be doubted but that this elucidation of their wanderings furnishes a key to those of many others.

The earliest traditions of their race were secured by Mr. Kallenberg, for many years a missionary at the Pniel station on the Vaal, which was established especially for the benefit of these people. He was fortunate enough to obtain them from the old people of the tribe who were looked upon as the repositories and guardians of their tribal lore. He says that the traditions of these Koranas are very clear upon the point that their forefathers came from the far north-east interior, where they had dwelt in a land which, from its abundance of water and every good thing requisite for a pastoral people, was described as being almost an earthly paradise. This description seems to point to the great lake country of Central Africa. They knew nothing of how long their remote ancestors had remained there. From the descriptions given, it would appear that they were driven thence about the end of the fourteenth or beginning of the fifteenth century by tribes which they describe as Bachoana, a stronger race of men than themselves, armed with the bow and battleaxe, and who were themselves pressing down from the north and driving the weaker Hottentot tribes before them as they advanced.

The fugitive tribes fled towards the setting sun, and continued their flight until their progress in that direction was checked by the great waters in front of them, when they turned towards the south, following the shore of the great waters, which always remained on the right hand. The country through which they passed was either unoccupied, or inhabited only by enormous herds of game and scattered tribes of primitive Bushmen. Thus they slowly migrated along the coast-line until they reached the Cape districts, where they settled and lived for some generations.

Such then are the Koran a traditions with regard to the migrations of their forefathers, and such doubtless was the line of migration of all the other Hottentot tribes of which we have treated. As we are now confining our research more especially to the Korana branch of that race, we will for greater explicitness pursue our inquiry under the five following heads, viz. —

(a) The Koranas at the Cape,

(b) The Koranas of the great valley of the Orange river,

(c) The clans of the Middle Veld,

(d) Their migrations along the valley of the 'Gij 'Gariep or Vaal and towards the north,

(e) Their migrations to the eastward in the basins of the Orange and Caledon rivers.

(a) The Koranas at the Cape.

All the traditions of this tribe unhesitatingly affirm that their forefathers were at one time settled in the present Cape district, and that they took their title from a chief named 'Kora. With the knowledge of this fact in our possession, we cannot help suspecting that the orthography of Van Riebeek in his rendering of Hottentot proper names was incorrect, and that 'Kora and not 'Gora was the word which ought to have been used, and which we have advisedly adopted in a previous section when writing of the 'Gorachoqua and the kindred tribe of Cochoqua, which from Korana tradition would appear to be merely, as we have suggested, subdivisions of one and the same tribe. These Cape traditions of theirs carry them back not only to the time of the Dutch occupation, but also to some of the visits of the Portuguese.

With regard to their great chief 'Kora, they state that he was the first one with whom the Europeans who settled there made a treaty. The strangers, however, soon began to encroach upon the lands of the natives, and war followed as a natural consequence. 'Kora was then alive. It is not known whether he was slain in battle or not, but it is known that he died young. He left as a successor a son called Eikomo. He also had to defend his territory against the daily encroachments of the new colonists, but he could not long resist them, and he was ultimately driven back to the Brak river.

From that place he went still farther north, until he arrived amongst a numerous tribe of Bushmen who were wandering on the banks of the 'Gariep. Here he entered into a treaty with these people, and settled in the country. Doubtless in this retreat he avoided traversing the country occupied by the Namaqua, the old rivals of his tribe, and in that case would first strike the river between its mouth and the falls.

It was from this point that the Korana clans began to separate and spread themselves, some continuing along the river-valley, others migrating into the Middle Veld, near the present Richmond and Victoria West, where they remained until they appear to have lost all tradition about the Great river.

The early history of the Dutch settlement furnishes some interesting coincidences, which tend to prove the correctness of these tribal traditions. Thus the Koranas give a pedigree of six generations between 'Kora and a chief living in 1836, a period of one hundred and eighty-four years after the landing of Van Riebeek, a length of time which would be about equivalent to the six generations indicated. In 1659 Van Riebeek, having made a distribution of land among the Dutch colonists, the Hottentots and they were involved in war. In 1669 peace was concluded, and the Dutch were permitted to occupy a piece of land stretching three miles along the shore. And in 1673 they were again at war with the Hottentots.

Mr. Backhouse also obtained confirmatory evidence upon this point from a source independent of that from which the above traditionary testimony was obtained. Some of the members of a Korana clan living at Mira-Matchu informed him that the great tribe of the Koranas took its name from 'Kora, an ancient chief under whom they had formerly lived, and that they had descended from a people who inhabited the Cape when the Dutch first took possession of that part of the country. The unanimity of these traditions seems thoroughly to substantiate the points now under examination, and to establish as historical facts, as firmly as such facts can be established upon native testimony, that the Koranas derived their appellation from a chief named 'Kora, and that their ancestors formed part of the group of tribes which in the days of Van Riebefek occupied the country around Table and Saldanha bays.

(b) The Koranas of the great valley of the Orange river.

It is worthy of remark that almost in every instance the names assigned to the various rivers and mountains by the natives were more lucid and distinctive, and therefore less likely to lead to erroneous ideas with regard to the several localities indicated, than those bestowed upon them by their more civilised successors. Thus instead of the entire stream being called by one name, that portion of the Orange river between its mouth and its junction with the Vaal was designated by the former the 'Gariep, the river or great river, in contradistinction to the 'Gij-'Gariep, the yellow river or Vaal, and the 'Nu-'Gariep, the black river or Orange. In speaking therefore of the Koranas of the Orange river, it is the first portion of this great water system, or as we have styled it, the great valley of the Orange river, of which we now speak, and of the Korana tribes which emigrated in that direction.

The backward condition in which many of these Koranas were with regard to a knowledge of metals, even to a very recent period, is not generally known. A considerable number, however, of the migratory clans of the early Koranas equally with the Bushmen were unacquainted with the use of iron, and employed pieces of sharpened bone, flint, and crystal as points with which to tip their arrows. They also used pieces of split reed as knives for the purpose of cutting their meat ; moreover, these Koranas were also unacquainted with the use of poison to render their arrows more efficacious and fatal, until they acquired this knowledge from the Bushmen, from whom they first obtained their supplies, but who for a long period retained the secret of its manufacture ; and it was only after fraternising with the Bushmen of the 'Gariep for many years that they discovered the method of mixing it for themselves.N Even to as late a period as 1823 all the Korana clans of the 'Gariep were still armed only with their ancient bows and poisoned arrows. Thus it was that such men as Africaander, Barends, and the Koks became in early days, by the possession of firearms, so formidable, and rose to such importance in the estimation of the surrounding natives.

Notes: Evidence of 'Goggum' Toovenaar, an old Korana interpreter, upwards of eighty years of age, who was born on the banks of the Taba-Tae-boep, or Kat river, running into the 'Gariep or Great Orange river.

A number of these old-fashioned Korana clans appear to have clung more especially to the tract of country immediately above and below the great falls of the 'Gariep. They continued here so tenaciously that this section of them might well have been called the Koranas of the Falls, until the ruthless forays of Africaander drove them higher up the river. These falls are at a spot where the entire volume of the waters of the great river precipitates itself over a ledge into a yawning abyss several hundred feet in depth. They were graphically described by the traveller Thompson as early as the year 1823. These falls possess features of so grand a description that even the Koranas were impressed with a superstitious dread concerning them.

The great waterfall was surrounded by dangerous precipices, where the whole volume of the river was compressed into a channel not more than fifty yards in breadth, whence it descended at an angle of nearly forty-five degrees, and rushing tumultuously through a black and crooked chasm, among rocks of a frightful depth, escaped in a torrent of foam. This, however, was only the prelude, the commencement of the scene. Continuing its way through this deep chasm for about a mile, the entire body of water, confined to a bed of scarcely one hundred feet in breadth, descends at once in a magnificent cascade fully four hundred feet in depth.

The grandeur and sublimity of this scene, however, made little impression upon the Koranas. To them its surroundings only clothed it, amid the gloom of evening, with supernatural terrors., Fortunately, these acted upon the minds of their enemies as well as their own, so that it became a kind of guardian spirit to them ;, while the fastnesses and dens of the surrounding woods and rocks became their strongholds and places of asylum when too closely pressed by their pursuers.

The clans which remained wandering upon the banks of the river were the more insignificant ones of the main tribe ; all the leading branches appear to have migrated to the Middle Veld at a very early period. Of these smaller river clans, none of their history has been preserved from the time of their first migration northward until the commencement of the troublous times which agitated, at the beginning of the present century, the native world of South Africa. The deplorable condition to which they were reduced shortly after that time we shall more fully enter upon when treating of the freebooter Africaander and his exploits.

We will now, before proceeding with the account of the migrations of these people, attempt to draw such a picture of their social economy and character as may give additional life and reality to our study of their further movements, remembering that the description of the habits and customs of one of their clans is a description equally applicable to all, and that in the early portion of the nineteenth century these were the same conditions of life as those which had been handed down to them from their remote ancestors. For long ages they had evidently been an unprogressive race, and what they were in 1800 was but a reflection of what they had been previously, and what they would almost certainly be in the days which were to follow.

The countenances of the Koranas exhibited a total absence of mind, combined with an indescribable habit of drowsiness. The women were complete sovereigns over the cows and milk. Their children seemed playful and active, but in their progress to manhood they lost this disposition. As a rule they lived in separate kraals, each independent of the other, in each of which they had a captain or chief, but his power was only nominal. The rank was hereditary, but the richest man, or he who possessed the greatest number of cattle, had always the greatest influence in the community.

With regard to their cattle, it was the duty of the boys to watch them during the day, unless there was danger of an attack from enemies, when the young men assisted. The cattle were considered so much the property of the husband and wife that the former could not dispose of any of them without the consent of the latter. The women milked the cows, and some of the cattle were killed entirely for their use ; the men had nothing to do with the disposal of the flesh, but the husband in his turn had a similar privilege. In the first case only women partook, in the latter only men. The instance was rare when men and women ate of the same ox or cow.

They had no rite of circumcision like the Bachoana and Kaffirs, but when a boy entered upon the state of manhood a feast was held, and, according to the circumstances of the father, eight or ten oxen were killed in honour of the event. The Koranas were timid and cautious when opposed to Bushmen, but bold in their attacks upon any of the Bachoana tribes. As the different clans assisted each other when attacked, it was rare for any other nation to become the assailants.

Mr. Sass, a missionary who resided for some time among them, states that most of them did not milk their cows in the morning, because their rest would be disturbed by early rising. After a long night's sleep, they would stretch their hands to the warm ashes of the fire to light their pipes, and smoke for a few minutes, and when the heat of the sun increased they crawled to the nearest shade again to indulge in sleep. About noon the cattle returned from the fields to drink, when with great exertion they bestirred themselves to rise and milk them ; they then drank as much of the milk as they could, after which they smoked and composed themselves to sleep till the coolness of the evening seemed to arouse them a little. This was their ordinary mode of living, except when on journeys, for which they prepared by killing a sheep and eating as much of it as they were able to devour. They then set off, and were sometimes absent five or six days without tasting a morsel more. Like most of the savage tribes, if destitute of food they tied a skin cord around them, which they drew tighter and tighter as they felt the attacks of hunger.

The Koranas, though superior to the other Hottentots in stature and muscular strength, were greatly inferior to them in moral character. Excessively vain and impudent, they had a great deal more effrontery than true bravery. To a love of plunder they joined an excess of idleness. All the work was done by the women. The only time they shook off their apathy was when they were engaged in the chase, or cattle-lifting, or at one of their dancing festivals. Capricious and insubordinate, they tolerated their chiefs, rather than obeyed them, each recognising his own will as his only law. They were irreconcilable in their hatreds.

The bodies of the women were loaded with beads, — they wore them on their necks, their arms, their loins, and their ankles. Their dress consisted of an apron of small cords, which descended to their feet, and a kaross made from the skins of sheep or other animals sewed together. They anointed their bodies with sheep- tail fat, mixed with a reddish coloured ochre. They consumed a great part of the day in smoking, and left their children covered with vermin and their rush houses in a state of most disgusting filth. All their energy and vigour appeared to be reserved for their monthly dances. When the moon entered her first quarter the kraal assembled on some favourite elevation, danced to the sound of the tang-tang all night long, and sometimes for eight nights in succession. In this amusement they placed no control on their passions, but abandoned themselves to excesses of which, writes M. Arbousset, it would be a shame even to speak.

One of the most singular customs of these people was that which related to the succession of their chiefs. The eldest son of the captain of the kraal while a lad was hardly allowed to walk, but was kept constantly in his hut, and compelled to drink milk frequently in order that he might grow up a strong man. The milk was handed to him, for he was not allowed to wait upon himself. When the father considered that he had arrived at the age of manhood, he took two kerries, and presenting one to his son, reserved the other for himself. With these the father and son often fought, but immediately the son managed to vanquish his father by knocking him down upon the ground, the parent on rising commended him, and from that time acknowledged him as the captain of the kraal in his stead.

Like the Bushmen, the Koranas exposed the aged to be devoured by wild beasts, alleging in defence of this cruelty that such people were of no use, and only consumed food which ought to fall to the lot of others.

Having thus obtained a few glimpses of the inner life of one of these Korana kraals, we will once more take up the thread of our investigation with regard to their continued migrations and the influence those migrations had in dispossessing the more primitive Bushmen of their long inherited territories.

(c) The Korana Clans of the Middle Veld.

From the traditions preserved among some of the members of the Katse and other clans of this tribe, it would appear certain that some of them at any rate migrated direct from the Cape districts to the tract of country in which they for a time first located themselves, that is in or near the present Division of Victoria West. These traditions prove also that they did not arrive there in a body, but as in all other native migrations they joined their new settlement one after the other in a kind of straggling manner, until they became at length a formidable people.

According to the evidence of Hendrik de Katse, an old Korana living on the bank of the Vaal near Pniel, his portion of the tribe came from the old colonial districts about four generations before his time.N The Bushmen in those days, he said, inhabited all the land : there were neither Griquas nor Kaffirs, and the Bushmen lived alone in it. They lived by hunting, and if they had quarrels with one another, they soon made friends again, as is the custom of those who belong to the same people. The Bushmen of those parts called themselves T'hors-qua, but the Koranas styled them Sana. The Bushmen were also called by them 'Tua-'kne — the Krantz or Cave dwellers.

Notes: The narrative of Hendrik de Katse was obtained from him in 1874 by the writer whilst engaged on the geological survey of Griqualand West. He was then about seventy years of age, which would give about one hundred and eighty years since his forefathers migrated into the interior. His information related not only to the origin of the Korana tribe, but took up the thread of the tribal history at the point where that of Mr. Kallenberg ended, and treated also of the disappearance of the primitive inhabitants of the country.

It was the main stem of their tribe which settled here, originally called the Great Koranas, from which all the offshoots or clans were derived. Here they remained for some two or three generations, slowly moving about from place to place, dividing, and subdividing, until they formed about thirty distinct septs, distinguished by different appellations indicative of some peculiarity of their dress or mode of subsistence. Their only occupations were those of making war upon the aboriginal inhabitants, following the chase, or making forays upon one another's kraals for the purpose of cattle lifting. Some of their kraals possessed large herds of cattle, and also some sheep and goats. Their flocks of the latter, however, were not numerous. The difficulty of driving them from place to place and of protecting them from wild animals doubtless operated against augmenting their flocks to any considerable amount. Many kraals possessed neither sheep nor goats, but only cattle ; some of the weaker clans had been plundered of all, and had retrograded in consequence from the pastoral to the hunter state.

In personal appearance these Koranas, similar to those previously described, were superior to any other race of Hottentots, many of them being tall and possessing an air of ease and good humour about them. They bore an inveterate animosity towards the Bushmen, on account of continual depredations on their flocks and herds. Their wars with the Bushmen were prosecuted with so much rancour that quarter was seldom given on either side, either to old or young. Though possessing similar weapons to the Bushmen, those of the Koranas were superior in size and workmanship, and their poisoned arrows were occasionally feathered. Their only manufactures were mats, arms, karosses, some coarse earthenware, and a few wooden vessels carved with much labour out of solid blocks of wood. In their earlier days, as before stated, they possessed no iron at all ; their arrow points were made of crystal, or flint, while the sharp edge of a split reed answered the purpose of a knife for cutting flesh. They did not work in iron, such things as knives and hatchets were afterwards obtained either from the Bachoana or the Boers.

Like the rest of their countrymen they were fond of singing and dancing by moonlight, and of amusing each other by relating fictitious adventures around their evening fires. True to the instincts of their race, whenever they could procure honey they made a very intoxicating sort of mead or hydromel, by fermenting it with the juice of a certain plant, the secret of which was always retained amongst them with great strictness. Either by copying from their brethren, the Namaqua, or urged thereto by constant hostilities with the Bushmen, or equally frequent squabbles and skirmishes among themselves, these clans of the Middle Veld had made an advance in their mode of warfare, by adopting the use of defensive armour in the shape of shields, which were enormously large and so thick that an arrow or an assagai could not penetrate them. One which Barrow saw was made of the hide of an eland, and measured six feet by four. Their regular attacks were made in large parties of four or five hundred. Though very good friends among each other while poor, the moment they obtained a quantity of cattle by plunder they began to quarrel about the division of the spoil. On some of these occasions this was carried to such an excess that they continued to fight and massacre each other till very few remained on the field.

Such then remained the conditions of life among these Korana hordes of the Middle Veld, until some of them had so entirely forgotten the traditions of their race that when one of their hunting or marauding parties, on a reconnoitring expedition penetrated as far as the banks of the Great river, or 'Nu 'Gariep, they returned to their friends and told them they had reached the end of the world, where the water went all round its borders ; and it was not until a much later period that any of the Koranas were found hardy enough to cross to the opposite bank of the stream, and discovered that the world continued on the northern side and that a country existed there similar to the one in which they lived.

This discovery had an important bearing upon the future destinies of the Korana race. Their increasing clans began gradually to spread themselves in the direction of the river, moving slowly from stage to stage through the present Richmond Division. At this time the principal branches of their tribe were the Taai-bosches, who represented the main stem of the Great Koranas, and whose chiefs were acknowledged to be paramount over all the others. The first great offshoot from the main trunk was that of the Lynx clan, after which followed the Toovenaars, who again threw off a clan called the 'Gaap or Katse people. These, or portions of their clans, took the lead in the northern migration.

At first only a portion of the 'Gaap or Katse moved onward, the older people belonging to it still lingering behind in the Middle Veld. Even in 1797 a large portion of the Korana tribe was still on the left bank of the 'Nu 'Gariep, but by that time they had commenced congregating more thickly along the banks of the river itself. They were then a very formidable tribe. Their pioneers had struck the 'Nu 'Gariep a little below the present Hopetown, and their advanced parties crossed somewhere between that and the junction of the 'Nu and 'Gij 'Gariep, or Vaal, migrating over the country diagonally until they struck the 'Gij 'Gariep itself near the present Backhouse drift. These people were principally the 'Gaap or Katse and the Toovenaars.

Another body seems to have crossed the river lower down, near where the great escarpment and plateau of the 'Kaap fringes upon the 'Gariep or Great river. These penetrated, in a line of march in the rear and to the westward of the advance of the others, as far as Klaarwater, the site of the present Griquatown, then called 'Gatee t'Kamma. The whole country was then inhabited by Bushmen, and was covered with thick groves of the wild olive tree. The place of their crossing was at the Presala, Prisoca, or Prieska drift.

The Toovenaars and Katses, on their arrival at the 'Gij 'Gariep, turned and continued their migration up the stream, extending not only as far to the westward as the ridge of the 'Kaap, near Upper Campbell, where one of the clans made a temporary halt, but also along the valleys of the Kolong (the present Hart) and the 'Gij 'Gariep itself, some of them stretching to the north along the former until they came in contact with the Bachoana tribes advancing from the opposite direction. This collision took place about the same time with the advanced parties of both the Taaibosches and the Toovenaars, and thus once more the Koranas came face to face with the very tribes before whom their fathers had fled some centuries previously from the far north-east interior.

In the interval, however, the Koranas had made advances in the art of war, they no longer used the puny stone or bone tipped reed shafts of their forefathers, but had acquired the mystery of rendering their arrows fatal with the deadly poison of the Bushmen. They were no longer a few fugitive hordes, but an advancing formidable tribe of hunter herdsmen, who had been accustomed for several generations to lord it over all with whom they came in contact. The more confirmed agricultural pursuits of the Bachoana, on the other hand, appear to have deprived them of a portion of the warlike fire which had in earlier ages enabled their forefathers to conquer ; while the Koranas had become more cruel and more daring than any other tribe of their nation. Very soon, therefore, these Bachoana, or Briquas as some writers have called them, found to their cost that they were great sufferers from the proximity of such restless and daring neighbours. Large herds of their cattle were carried off, and their children were also seized and forced into slavery, while in the conflicts which took place between them the assagais of the Bachoana had little chance against the poisoned arrows of the Koranas.

Such, however, was the innate love of plunder which possessed these Koranas, that they were not content with looting the herds of the rich Bachoana tribes, but they frequently turned back to rifle the kraals of their own countrymen whom they had left behind in the old camping grounds south of the Great river. This was especially the case after the advent of the Griquas, and when both they and the Koranas began to possess themselves of firearms. This acquisition so increased their rage for plunder, that they carried their devastating freebooting expeditions to an extent never before thought of, until their names became a terror to the native tribes, and they were not unfitly styled by one writer the Southern Arabs of the Desert. It was during this period of unrest that the remaining clans of the Middle Veld were frequently exposed to forays made upon them by the more hostile and poorer branches of their own tribe.

A graphic description of one of these attacks was given to the writer, which may form a characteristic ending to our remarks upon these clans of the Middle Veld. The narrator was one Leonard Jagers, a counsellor of the Katse clan, who was present at the time of the attack made upon his parents' kraal. What he remembered of this affair was that at the time he was rather more than three years old, when one morning at day-break his friends suddenly found their camp surrounded. Their assailants opened a heavy fire upon the huts and kraal, which as quickly as they could seize their arms was returned by the inhabitants. The firing on both sides continued without intermission, or, as Jagers expressed himself, they fired and fired until the smoke was so thick you could not see through it. This was continued all the day, the women and children in the meanwhile remaining concealed in the huts. Nearly the whole time Jagers was lying with his head on his mother's lap, as she was seated on the ground. Late in the afternoon, as the fire was gradually slackening, a stray bullet entered the hut and struck his mother on the breast, piercing her heart, when she immediately fell dead upon him, covering him with her blood. This was the only life sacrificed, no one else was killed on either side.

From this peculiar plan of attack and wonderful waste of powder, it would seem as if the design of the assailants was to make as much noise as possible, and then amid the din and terror inspired by it upon the minds of those who were as yet somewhat unaccustomed to firearms, to get possession of their cattle with as little risk to themselves as possible ; for their intention was evidently to capture and to feast, and not to fight and die. This instance, however, will give a very good idea of what some of the natives have described as the desperate wars which were waged between Korana and Korana for cattle.

Shortly after this, the increasing depredations of the banditti of the Lower 'Gariep, the frequent forays of their own countrymen, and the steady but ever-continued advance of the Whites beyond the colonial boundary, compelled the last of these clans to break up their camps and rejoin once more the different portions of the tribe to which they severally belonged ; and a few years afterwards only a few very insignificant kraals were to be found to the south or on the left bank of the 'Gariep and 'Nu-'Gariep.

These rivers formed the Rubicon of the Korana race. Passing that, they steadily grew in power and daring, pursuing a course of devastation, until tribe after tribe was impoverished or ruined by them, and the terror of their name spread far into the interior, even as far to the northward as the great town of the Batlapin ; and to the eastward until they made the Basutu around Moshesh tremble in their mountain strongholds.

Having arrived thus far with our subject, we will in the next place take their northern migrations into consideration.

(d) Their Migrations along the Valley of the 'Gij-'Gariep and towards the North.

Before the intrusion of the Koranas into the country north of the Great river in the latter half of the last century, an almost boundless expanse of territory was still in the hands of its primitive owners. To the east and west the stronger races had already passed it, but in doing so had merely skirted its opposite borders along the coast lines. From the north, the Bachoana and Basutu tribes had pressed in like two long sand banks jutting into the broad bosom of an extensive lake ; but we shall find that even the portion of the country into which they had intruded was only partially occupied by them, while in the midst of these wilds there were still numerous clans of Bushmen who had never before the arrival of the Korana intruders seen the face of any other men than those belonging to their own race. Fortunately the native evidence upon this point is clear and definite.

In 1874 when the writer was employed in a geological survey of that portion of the Orange river valley through which these migratory tribes had passed on their northern route, he met, among the precipices of the great 'Kaap plateau, at a spot between the two points where these nomadic Koranas had crossed the river, an ancient Bushman whom the Griquas had named Oude Timmerman. He was found among his ancestral rocks of the 'Kaap, about halfway between the junction of the Orange and Vaal rivers and the black precipitous gorge through which the united streams run, near a place called Bang Hoek, which may be interpreted The Glen of Terror, where the river, hemmed in by great precipices, dashes over a succession of rocks. He was the oldest looking man the writer had ever seen, and he certainly at the very least must have numbered a hundred years. He had more the appearance of a skeleton with a shrivelled parchment skin drawn over it than anything else. He looked like a man of past ages again revisiting the earth, a fossil man, who bore all the signs of antiquity about him, and was a veritable relic of the past. His legs were covered with the most frightful scars, from the burns he had received whilst cowering over a small fire to impart some warmth to his withered limbs during the severity and frosts of the chilling winters.

He said that he was now living alone, that his wife had gone away to see his two daughters, who were staying at the nearest police camp, that he had descended from a race of Bushman captains, and he then gave the names of the five last descents.

He stated that when he was a child the Bushmen of that part believed that the only people in the world were Bushmen and Lions. We fought, he said, the lions, and hunted the great game, and all the game was our cattle ! In those days the country swarmed with lions and large game ; they were there, and there, and there, wherever you see ! He said when a boy of, as he described it, about ten or twelve years of age,N the first Koranas crossed the Great river, and came into the country where his father and his tribe lived. The Koranas began to destroy the Bushmen's cattle, and drive them away ; it was after this that the sight of the herds belonging to the strangers became too strong a temptation for them to withstand, and then, he said, we saw that they would kill us all, annihilate us from the earth, for we were not as they, our houses are among the rocks, we are free men, we love the sun !

Notes: The statement of Timmerman would show that the Koranas first crossed the Great river about 1785-90, a date which, although the exact year is not known, must be nearly correct.

A war of extermination was commenced against them by the Koranas. Many of the Bushmen, he said, were shot ; others fled from the country ; a few like himself tenaciously clung to their old haunts, the place of their birth, where they lived out of the usual track, , and could hide themselves in the krantzes. The bees' nests, he said, were to him what cows were to other men, as he could fill his leather sacks with the honey whenever the nests were full. The place where he and his fathers lived is now called Timmerman's Fontein, and was one of the spots reserved by the Griqua chief Waterboer as a farm for himself. This ancient added with an expression of sorrow that now he was very old, and his only wish was that they would not drive him away, but let him die and leave his bones where his fathers had laid theirs before him.

Such was the somewhat pathetic account of the former condition of the country and its prior occupants, a statement thoroughly substantiated by every old Korana whose evidence could be obtained upon this point. Hendrik de Katse was most emphatic in asserting that the country when they came into it was unoccupied, that it was only filled with the wild game and the Bushmen. The Koranas, he said, after crossing the Great river, traversed the country without hindrance until they arrived on the hills near the present farm Backhouse. At this place a number of Bushmen gathered together, and a large body of them attacked the cattle whilst they were grazing in the veld.

The Bushmen had concealed themselves among the hills, and after the Koranas had finished milking and were driving the cattle out, the Bushmen suddenly attacked them in large numbers. They were all armed with bows and arrows, and some carried also a kind of assagai. They immediately commenced driving off the cattle, when the alarm was given in the camp of the Koranas, who were armed in those days in the same manner as the Bushmen. The Koranas, some hundreds in number, seizing their weapons, followed over the fiats, where they overtook the Bushmen and the cattle. Here a great battle commenced between them. The Koranas, after two or three hours' fighting, succeeded at last in driving the Bushmen away from the cattle. Seven Koranas were wounded. Then the Bushmen fled towards the drift near Backhouse, and here again the Koranas overtook them, and a great slaughter followed. The bank of the river leading to the drift was covered with dead Bushmen, who fought and struggled until they gained the opposite side, when the Koranas ceased from pursuing them. From that day the drift was called 'Go-'koo-ltmie,N from the great destruction of the enemy there. This, said Hendrik, was the first Bushman war.

Notes: The drift was thus named by the Bushmen themselves, from the merciless way in which they were shot down. The meaning of the word is equivalent to the expression, You showed us no mercy.

A kind of peace was then made. During this peace the division of the Koranas called 'Gaap or Katse settled at the top of the kloof, where Campbell was afterwards built, but after remaining here a short time they again removed, and after a year's absence returned. Three years afterwards another war broke out between them and the Bushmen, who on this occasion came from the Langeberg. The remnant of those they had first come in contact with were at this time living intermingled with the Koranas, subsisting on the honey of the 'Kaap.

This statement evidently confirms that of the old Bushman captain, and shows that the Bushmen with whom the Koranas were first at war were those inhabiting the rocks of the 'Kaap, which would include the clan of 'Nambe, and of which Maarman must have been the captain, so that he obtained his name from some Dutch-speaking Korana or some of the Bastaards who followed shortly afterwards.

The Langeberg Bushmen, continued De Katse, came down in a great commando upon them, and surrounded their camp in the night. In the morning the Koranas were perfectly unaware of their danger, and after milking their cows, sent the cattle out as usual. As soon as they arrived at the great vlei (Upper Campbell) the Bushmen sprang out of the long grass and reeds upon them, seized the herds, and drove them rapidly off. Three of the Koranas were killed in the vlei, and three were wounded ; but the alarm being given, they overtook the raiders before they got clear away. An obstinate struggle took place, and they fought for some time, but at last succeeded in driving the Bushmen clear of the cattle and into some deep kloofs near the high ridge where the road passes. Here the Bushmen stood at bay, but a great number were slain.N The remnant fled, and the Koranas taking up their spoor, followed on it, but did not overtake them. They found the skulls of seven of them in one spot, however, and a much larger number at a place farther on. These were evidently men who had died during the flight from their wounds and the poison of the arrows, and who had been afterwards devoured by the hyenas which abounded in those parts. The routed Bushmen succeeded in gaining the Langeberg without being again overtaken by the pursuing Koranas.

Notes: This advantage was very likely obtained from the large shields, which we have already learnt these Koranas carried, and which enabled them to approach the Bushmen with comparative safety.

In those days, and in that battle 'Ku-'nap-soop was the great captain of the Koranas, and his children are living now. This was the second war. After that there was peace, and the Koranas moved away from Campbell and occupied the land near the Klip drift (the present Barkly), and made their kraal near the great camel thorn there.N It was the great tree on the ridge near the poort, on the right bank of the river.N2 They had enjoyed a long time of peace, when after some years the Bushmen east of the Vaal gathered all their tribes together, and seizing the favourite pack ox of the Koranas, upon which they rode, drove it to the hills and there slaughtered it. The Koranas, indignant at this insult, followed on the spoor, and discovered the Bushmen at their place of feasting. The Koranas came there in the night, surrounded the place, and lay still until morning. When the day broke, the Koranas called out to the Bushmen, and asked them to give up the ox, but when they found it had been slaughtered, they attacked the Bushmen so warmly that three fell and the others fled, and no Korana was wounded that day. This was the third and last war of the Katse clan with the Bushmen of the Vaal. It was called the War of the Pack Ox.

Notes 1: This tree escaped the ruthless axe of the diamond diggers until late in 1876. It was a landmark which could be seen many miles.

Notes: 2: In 1874 the writer visited this spot, and found on the hill on the opposite side of the river, near the site of the old Korana camp, the place where the Bushmen on the look-out had formed two or three screens of loose stones, from which they could watch whatever was going on in the camp without exposing themselves to view.

There was peace from those days, and many of the Bushmen came and mixed with the Katses and lived under them. Thus it is that the Katses understand the Bushman tongue, and the Bushmen the Katse's, although they are two languages. After that there was war between the Koranas, one clan with the other. Many years afterwards other Bushmen came from the mountains and fought with the Koranas, but they were altogether destroyed, and then the missionaries came into the land, and the Katse people have dwelt at Pniel unto this day. The captain of the Katses in 1874 was Andries Kats — his father was a great captain, but he was killed and devoured by a lion.

Thus ended Hendrik de Katse's somewhat quaint description of the early movements of that portion of the Korana tribe to which he belonged. We will now revert to the second division, which, passing the river at Prieska drift, advanced through the country rather more to the westward, until they made a temporary halt at 'Gatee-t'Kamma, afterwards chosen by the missionaries as the site of their Griqua station, to which the name Griquatown was subsequently assigned.

At this time the nearest of the Bachoana tribes appears to have been the main branch of the Barolong, then staying at Taung, the place of the Lion, under their chief Tao or Tau, the Lion. This place was situated on the Upper Hart river, then called the Malalarene, while the lower portion of the same stream was distinguished as the Kolong. The Koranas were then under 'Kunapsoop or Taaibosch the Elder, the paramount chief of the Great Koranas. The Barolong chief, upon hearing of their advance into that part of the country, came to pay them a visit, and after an apparently friendly interview departed. After a lapse of time Tau paid them another visit, accompanied by a large number of his people. The old Korana captain, thinking they had come in the same friendly manner as before, hastened to meet them, and offered to the chief, according to their custom, sundry articles of food for himself and his people.

The chief Tau however was meditating treachery, and his followers had concealed under their skin karosses assagais broken short. Noticing a convenient opportunity, they suddenly displayed their perfidy, and most treacherously murdered 'Kunap-soop, with a large number of his people.

After this dastardly attack Jan Taaibosch the Elder, or 'Knon-bil, was unanimously declared chief. He rallied the Koranas, and crossed the Malalarene in pursuit of Tau and his people, who were on the way back to their own country. The Koranas overlook them, and a battle ensued in which the Barolong were defeated and driven away. Following up this advantage, they pursued the retreating Barolong to the great place of Tau. Here he turned at bay, four battles were fought with him and some of the Batlapin, who were then in a state of vassalage under the Barolong, and who had contracted intermarriages with the Bushmen. In the end they forced the Barolong to leave the country, when they retired as far as Setlagole for refuge, a place nearly one hundred miles farther to the north. The chief Tau, it is said, died of his wounds.

After fighting and defeating the Barolong, most of these Koranas removed and settled in the conquered territory. Rijt Taaibosch occupied Patuni or 'Nukuni, and the Korana captain 'Khammakose died at 'Nukuni. It was long subsequent to these Korana victories over the Barolong that the Griquas came and settled with their missionaries at Klaarwater.

These Koranas attempted at various times to push their predatory inroads far to the north, attacking not only the different branches of the Batlapin, but also of the Batlou, the Bakuena, the Bangwaketse, the Leghoya, the Bataung, and others. These attacks were carried on so pertinaciously that some of the branches of these tribes lost all their cattle, and were reduced to the greatest extremities. In all their settlements cattle lifting seems to have been their chief employment and amusement. Never before in the history of their tribe had they possessed such an opportunity of developing their powers of acquisitiveness, and it certainly cannot be said that they did not avail themselves of it to the utmost. Some of their kraals depended entirely upon these raids as a means of support. As long as the captured cattle lasted, there was feasting and dancing, rejoicing and singing, but as soon as the supply was exhausted a preparation of bows and poisoning of arrows commenced for another foray.

As a demonstration of the deplorable effects of these continuous depredations upon many of the surrounding tribes, we learn that Intshe, the Ostrich, a son of Inkwane, who at one time possessed a great many cattle, lost them all in one of these attacks, and was reduced to such utter distress that he and the remnant of his people were obliged to seek shelter among the wild and much despised Bushmen, in order to obtain subsistence. This fact illustrates at the same time that these wild Bushmen could not have been the remorseless and bloodthirsty creatures they have been so frequently depictured, seeing that we find them not only in this case, but in numerous other instances, affording an asylum to many fugitives under similar circumstances.

In all these attacks the principal weapons of the Koranas appear to have been the ancient bows and arrows of their race, which continued to be used until the settlement of the Griquas at Griquatown, about which time firearms were introduced by the Koks and their guardian missionaries.