HOTTENTOT PLACE NAMES. 377 



as they are now more generally' called, the Hereros. His two 

 volumes are of the greatest general interest, but the feature that 

 appeals to the student of place names, and that makes his work 

 exceptionally helpful, is that, distorted as his attempted repro- 

 duction of the Hottentot place names frequently is, he seldom 

 fails to give the meaning of the name in English, which is a 

 great help in the endeavour to discover the Hottentot words from 

 which the names are derived. To attempt anything like an 

 exhaustive review of these place names would require too much 

 space. A selection from his pages of some of the names that 

 were not discussed in the previous paper [S.A. Journal of 

 Science, XVII, p. 334, 1920) will be given. 



The general reader is, perhaps, better acquainted with those 

 parts of the country through which Beutler and Plettenberg 

 travelled than with that explored by Alexander. The south-east 

 side of the sub-continent has invited occupation. Bushmen and 

 Hottentots have practically disappeared before better organised 

 peoples from the north and more civilised peoples from the 

 south, and its story, as unfolded in its place names, is, on that 

 account, of some popular interest. iBut Alexander's journey was 

 through a part of the sub-continent, which, because of its 

 forbidding character, attracted little attention except from the 

 adventurous, and was compai'atively little known, and the place 

 names given by the Bushman and Hottentot occupants excited 

 little, if any, interest except among students. That these are 

 wortli preserving, however, is now everywhere recognised, more 

 particularly because we find in both Little and Great Namaqua- 

 land, even to-day, numerous names in their original form, 

 uncorrupted by either European or Bantu distortions or accretions. 

 Alexander did his best to preserve many of these place names 

 by reproducing them as they sounded to his ear and by furnishing 

 us with the meaning of most of them. As we have remarked 

 before of aboriginal place names, they are generally descriptive, 

 or they refer to the fauna or flor;i of the localities. 



To mention a few of the descriptive names occuiring in 

 Alexander's work we have " the steep, rocky, and long pass of 

 Cdi-douir " (I, 83), a pa,ss in the Kamiesberg (Hot. ||rt?'o, narrow; 

 daos, a poort or pass). " The Koanquip, or ' running off ' river" 

 (I, 250), a branch of the Great Fish river (Hot. Inoe, to be 

 quick; \ah, river). " The Koahap (coming on) which flows from 

 the Gnutuas (black morass), westward " (I, 235). Home (Map) 

 spells the former word " Guaxah," a branch of the Great Fish 

 river (Hot. Igu, to come near; !<(/}, river); Gnutuas, the swamp 

 in which the river has its rise, is from the Hot. Inu, black; 

 ^^goah, mud. " The Kei 'us, or Great Fountain. This rises in 

 a" broad patch (^f lii^li reeds at the commencement of the Kei 

 Kaap or Great Flat "' (I, 290). Kei 'us is from gci, great; jous, 

 a spring or fontein ; and is situate on a small branch of the 

 Great Fish river; Home (Map) spells it Gei-ons. Kei Kaap 

 was dealt with in the former paper. " There was a notch in 

 tlie range called ' Isa Koodec faos ' (pretty girls' pass) " (I, 



