AISOEIGIXES OF EASTEKX PROVINCE. 317 



penetrated the Colony as far as the lioschberg" (Somerset East). 

 J3ei'ore 1750 the bulk of the Xosas had crossed the Kei, and 

 by 1775 the whole tribe was west of that river. It was not 

 until the second half of the eighteenth century that the Xosas 

 crossed the Great Fish Hiver in numbers. They overran the 

 districts of Albany and Somerset East, and some went so far 

 west as the Long- Kloof. C. P. Thunberg, in 1772, saw them 

 in numbers at the Camtours River, where Hottentots and 

 Caft'res lived ijroniiscuously. Then commenced a series of 

 Kaffir wars, by which the Kaffirs were ultimately driven back 

 beyond the Great Eish Eiver. 



Le V'aillant says of them : 



" The Caft'res are taller than the Hottentots of the Colonies, 

 or even than the Gonaquais, though they greatly resemble the 

 latter, but are more robust and possess a greater degree of pride 

 and courage. The features of the Caffres are likewise more agree- 

 able, none of their faces contracting towards the bottom, nor do 

 the cheekbones of these people project in the imcouth manner of the 

 Hottentots." 



Their huts were big'ger and better made than those of the 

 Hottentots. Their weapons were asseg'ais and knobkerries, 

 and in war they carried shields of buffalo hide. He saw them 

 making- assegais, using- stone hammers and bellows of a most 

 primitive type — quite different from the double bellows now 

 employed by the liantu blacksmiths, although according- to 

 Lichstenstein tlie Xosas did use the double bellows. They 

 could not extract iron from the ore. They were agri- 

 culturists having fields of Kaffir corn. Chieftainship was 

 hereditary, the eldest son succeeding. 



In all probability the Kaffir tribes east of the Kei River 

 all contain a Hottentot element, despite the contempt com- 

 monly manifested by Xosa Kaffirs towards the Hottentots. 

 According- to Theal, one Hottentot tribe, the Damaqua, became 

 completely incorporated with the Amantinde Kaffirs. In 

 Sparrman's time the Damaqua of Yan Staadens River " seemed 

 to liave a greater affinity to the Caft'res tlian the Gonaqua had," 

 and since that date the Damaqua tribe has had no separate 

 existence. Another powerful tribe of Kaffirs, the Amagqunu- 

 kwebe, now living near Kingwilliamstown, but a century 

 ago notorious as iuA'aders of the Zuurveld, took origin in a 

 little colony of Hottentots which sheltered fugitive Kaffirs to 

 such an extent that the Hottentot element became quite 

 submerged. Their name is just the Kaffir form of the 

 Hottentot word Gonaqua (see Theal's " History of South 

 Africa before 1795," vol. iii, p. 79). 



To-day, however, the Hottentot element is not notice- 

 able in their features, or not more so than in other Kaffir' 

 tribes of this region. For more than a centui-y they have 

 been regarded as Kaffirs of unmixed origin. But seeing- 

 that all the Bantu tribes of South Africa show Hottentot or 

 Bushman influence in the clicks of their speech, it may be that 

 an aboriginal strain pervades them all. 



