306 EXPEDITION INTO [Chap. XXXIV. 



lakes impart to the wanderer fevered with thirst, 

 the torments of Tantalus ; yet even on these naked 

 plains he will experience none of the debilitating 

 fervour of an Indian sun. 



Although thinly populated by skulking broods 

 of Bushmen, and by the starving remnants of nomadic 

 pastoral tribes, which have been broken up by war 

 and violence, this is a land in which no man perma- 

 nently dwells — neither is the soil any man's property, 

 being abandoned as water or fuel fails. Nearly all 

 the rivers by which it is traversed are periodical, 

 and the few pools that exist, being dried up at 

 certain seasons, the miserable wretches, whose ex- 

 istence depends upon the wild animals, migrate with 

 them to distant parts, keeping within the verge of 

 expiring verdure. Owing to the devastation oc- 

 casioned in the countries north-east of the colony by 

 the hordes called Mantatees and Ficani especially, 

 as well as by xnarandrnghsindso^ Bergefiaar-Griqiias 

 — a race of mixed European and African lineage — 

 many hundred famishing survivors of the Bechuana 

 tribes took refuge, during the years 1824 and 1825, 

 in the frontier districts of Graaff Reinet and Somer- 

 set. Indeed, amongst the savage nations of South 

 Africa, as elsewhere, a principle of extinction has 

 for ages past been in active operation. Regions 

 now silent and deserted, once contained their busy 

 throng, whose numbers and strength have been 

 gradually brought down by war and want. Whole 

 tribes have been rooted out from their hereditary 

 homes, and have either disappeared from the face 



