200 Progress and present State of Georjrnpl.ical 



They are now to be seen under great disadvantages from the 

 effects of the distress to which they have been reduced by the 

 complete plunder of their herds, and hurried, as they have 

 been, from one situation to another by the cruel and ambitious 

 Zoolas. 



Besides this people, a most interesting little tribe occupy a 

 portion of the country I have just described, whose existence 

 has already been made known by W. van Reeneu in 1790, 

 when in search of the survivors from the Grosvenor, Indiaman. 

 I allude to the descendants of Europeans wrecked on this coast, 

 the re-discovery of whom has awakened long slumbering sym- 

 pathies for the fate of the parties saved from that dreadful 

 scene of destruction. The e^cpedition of Major Dundas in 

 1828 already mentioned, was the first since the time of Van 

 Reenen, which fell in with these people, of whose history and 

 present cirsumstances, our late intercoursee with the interior 

 has given us frequent opportunities to procure information, — a 

 considerable mass of facts connected with which I have been 

 able to collect, but they are by far too voluminous for this 

 paper. 



IV. From the Omzimboo to the Omtavoomo river is a 

 distance along the coast of 55 miles, and the divison I have 

 marked by these boundaries contains about 2,000 superficial 

 miles. It is almost destitute of human inhabitants, a few only 

 residing close to the first named streams, and belonging to the 

 Amaponda race, having been depopulated by the fire-brand 

 and spear of the Zoola conqueror, whose march has been well 

 traced by our traders, by the innumerable remains of human 

 skeletons with which the whole country is strewn. 



The Omtavoomoo river, whose source is 70 miles long, and 

 whose estuary is in lat. 30. 55. and Ion. 30. 7-, 's a great 

 physical line of demarkation, and forms a perfect boundary 

 between the north-eastern and south-western part of the 

 coast, distinguished by the comparative severity of its tem- 

 perature and climate, the cold being intense and rains very 

 frequent, as well as by the difference in its vegetable produc- 

 tion. The Wild Date and Bannana which are common beyond 

 this division entirely ceasing to exist westward of this 

 stream. 



All the seaward portion of this tract is covered by dense 

 woods and possesses the most magnificent forest scenery. Its 

 trees have been represented as generally very different from 

 any of the colonial kinds, and one especially has received the 

 homage of most of the travellers, but unfortunately not yet of 

 a botanist. It is chieflv found in the extensive woods near the 

 Omzimvooboo river, and is described as being seventy feet in 

 height, perfectly straight, when it at once spreads into a canopy 



