312 ABORIGINES OF EASTERN I'ROVINCE. 



tribe. Le Yaillant wrote: "The couutry of the (iouaquas 

 which I was explorino- mio-ht reckon about 3,000 people, on an 

 extent of 30 or 40 leagues, out of wliich the Hoord of liaabas 

 (the most considerable in the country) contained 400." They 

 lived in constant fear of the Caff res. 



Other references to the Gonaqua are found in the writings 

 of Sparrman and Thunberg-. The former traveller tells us that 

 the Gonaqua met at Van Staades Eiver (1772) were graziers, 

 and had fields of Cafhr corn. Like the Kaffirs, they practised 

 circumcision, but, according- to Le Vaillant, such was not the 

 case in the tribe he visited. They were comparatively tall, like 

 the Kaffirs who lived with them. At Sondags Eiver he obtained 

 the services of several Boshiesmen as guides. They were intro- 

 duced to him by " three old Hottentots, properly speaking of 

 the race of Boshismen, who distinguished themselves by the 

 name of Good Boshismen — ^probably from the circumstance of 

 their grazing a few cattle and not living by rapine like others 

 of their countrymen." Although Sparrman never met " the 

 Hottentot captain, Ruyter," he mentions him as a remarkable 

 man, who " raised himself to be the chief of a party of Boshies- 

 men or Hottentot rangers," and who used to " assist the 

 colonists by making slaves of such straggling Boshiesmen as 

 did not jive under his jurisdiction." At Little Sundays Eiver 

 Sparrman found a clan of Bastards or Hottentot-Calf res. 

 Thence he travelled to Bushman's Eiver, Assegai Bush, and 

 jN^ew Year's Drift without seeing anyone, although Caffres 

 and Hottentots were reported to be wandering about that part 

 of the country. He vrent on to Hevy, then to Quammedacka 

 Well, and finally reached Agter Briintjes-hoogte, near 

 Somerset East. 



On his return he visited a " Craal of Gonaqua Hottentots," 

 just after crossing the Bushman's Eiver, but these people 

 seem to be the same as those he had previously mentioned 

 as Good Boshismen I 



C. P. Thunberg-, who traA'elled in 1773, tells us that he 

 was visited at Van Stadens Eiver by people who had a 

 tolerable flock of cattle and who had milk in plenty. Then 

 he speaks of " the Gonaquas Hottentots that lived here and 

 were intermixed with Caffres," etc. Most of them were 

 armed with as many javelins as they could well hold in one 

 diand. Thunberg continued his journey as far as the »Sundays 

 Eiver, but between Van Stadens and Sundays Eiver he seems 

 to have seen no native settlements. 



From the facts furnished by Le Yaillant and Paterson, it 

 is clear that in those days the Zuurveld and lower portions of 

 the Fish Eiver Yalley was the home of the Gonaqua, a 

 pastoral race quite distinct from true Bushmen — or Chinese 

 Hottentots, as they were then called — and there is no evidence 

 that Bushmen occurred there except as almost solitary 

 stragglers. Nevertheless, in his important work on " The 

 Native Eaces of South Africa," Stow tells us that the people 

 met by Le Yaillant and Paterson were actually Bushmen. He 

 suggests that the rock-paintings found near Salem were tlie 



