AN 1 R R [RATION SirfTLEMENT. 



Hy KOV. liKKXAKl) W J. MaKiII AND. I',. A. 



{Plates 3-() and one Ir.vl jiui'rc. ) 



I pmpcise to g'ive an account of an irrioatifin scheme which 

 was undertaken with the view of setthni^- poor famihes on the 

 land : — 



Locality..— 'V\\t settlement is situated at Kakamas. on the 

 hanks of the Orange River, in the Kenhardt and (iordonia dis- 

 tricts, about 50 miles west of Uping-ton, and 55 miles north-west 

 of Kenhardt. The source of the water supply is, of course, 

 the Orange River, which l)ears almost right through the year 

 a large tjuantity of silt, varying in colour according to the 

 ])articular region where rain has fallen. The Orange River is 

 i^i\ l)y the supply from the Drakensberg, near Wakkerstroom, 

 and all the tributaries of the Vaal River, and also by the Orange 

 River proper, which has its source in the Drakensberg, Basuto- 

 land. and is augmented by its tributaries in the Orange Free 

 State and the Cape Province. 



The banks of the river are in most |)laces covered with 

 heavy de]K)sits of silt, in some cases a couple of miles away from 

 the main stream. The nature of the soil is therefore very largely 

 alluvial in the immediate neighbourhood of the river ; beyond 

 this one finds a red, stony, sandy, quartzite surface, on which 

 Aery little vegetation usually grows, but which has been found 

 excellent for citrus culture. In this is also found the rocky 

 formation, known locally as tsgom, which is really a decomposed 

 gneiss. This tsgom is largely the sotuxe of brack, along the 

 l)anks of the Orange River. The rainfall is negligible in those 

 l)arts. and has no value from an irrigation point of view. 



Irrigation Canals. — In 1897, the Cape Parliament granted to 

 the Dutch Reformed Church two farms on the banks of the 

 Orange River, Kakamas, and Soetap. on condition that the land 

 l)e reserved for the purpose of a settlement for poor families. 

 1)Ut to revert to the Government in case the ])roject proved a 

 failure, five years being allowed for taking out a water-furrow 

 from the Orange River and settling the ])eople on the land. In 

 iSy8 the work was taken in hand by the Rev. C. Schroder, a 

 missionary of the Dutch Reformed Church at Upington, and 

 one of the founders of that township. 



At a spot called Neus. where the C)range River drops 30 

 feet over a reef, the intake was formed, and a year later the first 

 ])ortion of the canal, about 10 miles long, 10 feet broad, with an 

 average depth of a1)out tw'o feet, was finished. This canal 

 was extended for six miles in 1906, and further after that, so 

 that it now measures about 25 miles altogether, enclosing be- 

 tween its channel and the river about 1,200 morgen. At the 

 same point another canal was begun on the north side of the 

 r>range River in 1908. For the first mile the drop in the river 

 is over 40 feet. There are very few lengths of the Orange River 

 from a point 70 miles above Prieska to the Great Waterfall 



