164 Progress and present State of GtoyTuphicul 



of the most ferocious disposition. The banks of the river are 

 well timbered, but infested with alligators of a larj^^e size. 

 From the ford the traders drove on east^vard, along and close 

 to a range of mountains on their right hand or south, rich in 

 metallic ores, where were abundant remains of Bichuana vil- 

 lages, (the natives having been destroyed by the Mantatees,) 

 and the traces of recently wrought iron mines. The country 

 was most fertile in appearance, luxuriant in pasturage, well 

 wooded, and watered by frequent streams rising in the moun- 

 tains, and joining it was imagined the Moriifjua, which not 

 unlikely falls into the Indian Ocean, on the coast of Inhamban, 

 GeogTaphical accuracy is not to be expected from mere traders, 

 but this party having been conducted by an educated indivi- 

 dual of great good sense and capability of observation much 

 faith may be placed upon his jourual, written with great care 

 and precision of detail. Somewhere about lat. 24. 50, and 

 long. 29. 40, they , crossed another considerable river running 

 direct north, called the Waritcie, and they then turned imme- 

 diately to the southward over a large plain, on which, just within 

 the eastern verge of the horizon, could be seen two or three peaks 

 of far distant mountains. At the extreme point of this journey, 

 which may be placed somewhere about iat. 20. 30, and long. 

 30. 5, they fell in with" a Zoola Chief, named MatseHikats, or 

 Omsediggas, who had established himself there, having been 

 driven over the great coastwise ridge of mountains by Chaka, the 

 late sovereign of Natal, and who was imitating the example of his 

 victor, by reducing in his turn to his despotic sway those inoffen- 

 sive and half-civilized tribes, upon whose territories he bad been 

 forced. Kurrechanc,'^ or properly Chuav,\.\-\Q town of Baboons, 

 so named by the natives from the number of those animals in 

 the mountains surrounding that place, has been frequently 

 visited by these traders ; it was, however, in ruins, having been 

 overrun by the Mantatees, in their road towards the Colony, 

 in 1824. The inhabitants had removed 20 miles from tlie 

 original site to the N. W., and their new city, under the same 

 appellation, contained only 2000 instead of 16,000 souls, as in 

 the time of Campbell. The neighbouring country is described 

 as very mountainous, highly beautiful, and exceedingly fertile. 



After the unexpected discovery made by these traders of a 

 Zulo" Chieftain (Omseddigas) on the northward of the elevated 

 mountain range, which skirts the eastern coast, Mr. Moffat, the 

 Missionary, proceeded from Kuniman to the new kraal of this 

 interloper by almost a direct easterly course, by takin'g of which 

 he was the first to trace up one of the main branches of the 

 Gariep, or Orange-river, to its source, that marked in the 



*■ First visited by Mr, Campbell in 18' 9. 



