SOUTH AFRICAN 



QUARTERLY JOURNAL, 



SSCONB SERIES. 



Wo.2» JANUARY— MARCH, 1834. Part 2, 



A Sketch of the Progress and present State of Geographi- 

 cal Discovery in the African Continent, made from t.h$ 

 Colony of the Cape of Good Hope. — By J. C. Chase. 



[Continued from page 106.] 



PAPtT II. — Northern Interior. 



I SHALL now proceed to show the amount of information we 

 have since gained respecting the Interior, in order to fix the 

 exiict state of our knowledge previous to the departure of the 

 intended Expedition under Dr. Smith ; and, in attempting 

 this, in order to give greater precision, and to avoid that 

 confusion inseparable to following a mere chronological detail 

 of events, especially when they become numerous, and their 

 pointi are widely separated, by which I should be obliged 

 constantly to revert from one remote scene of enterprize to 

 another, and thereby break their relative connexion, and 

 destroy much of what I trust will be interesting in this abstract, 

 I shall first track up the steps of our travellers and traders 

 beyond the northern limits of the Colony, and then follow the 

 clue of those who have proceeded eastwardly through the long 

 unknown countries which skirt the shores of the Indian Ocean. 



The ease with which the expedition under Messrs. Triiter and 

 Somerville in 1801 had entered the hitherto closed regions, so 

 distant from the Colony, the treatment they had experienced at 

 the hands of the Bechuanas, a peculiarly mild race, and the 

 excitement caused by the discovery of this amiable, cour- 

 teous and much civilized people, induced Lord Caledon, the 

 Governor of the Cape Colony, in 1808 to fit out a new 

 Expedition to follow up the interesting train of discovery so 

 unexpectedly fallen upon, and Dr. Cowan and Lieut. Donovan, 

 along with a cortege of four wagons, and suite composed 

 of 15 Hottentots, 1 colonist, and 2 soldiers, with every neces- 

 sary and an abundance of superfluities, were despatched at an 

 expence of Rds. 16,409, or above £2705 sterling, with in- 

 structions to cross the continent as far as the Portuguese settle- - 



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