348 EXPEDITION INTO [Chap.XXXIX. 



Kafir war obliged them to postpone the execution 

 of their design. 



Shortly after the conclusion of hostilities, the first 

 party of actual emigrants, consisting of about thirty 

 families, left the colony under the guidance of an 

 Albany farmer, named Louis Triechard. Being 

 desirous of eluding the Kafir tribes, they proceeded 

 across the Great River in a north-easterly direction, 

 skirting the mountain chain which divides Caf- 

 fraria from Bechuana Land ; with the intention, 

 when they had cleared it, of turning to the east- 

 ward, and gaining the neighbourhood of Port Natal. 

 The features presented by this barrier are rugged 

 and forbidding in the extreme; they have the ap- 

 pearance of innumerable jjyramidical hills thrown 

 together in the most grotesque and disorderly man- 

 ner: one peak jutting beyond, or soaring above the 

 other, as though precluding the possibility of any- 

 human foot, much less any wheeled vehicle, from 

 passing over; and, from the imperfect knowledge pos- 

 sessed by the wanderers, of that section of Southern 

 Africa, the geography of which is still veiled in con- 

 siderable obscurhy, they were led by the course of 

 the mountains far beyond the latitude of Port Natal, 

 and found themselves, about the end of May 1S36, 

 in a fertile but uninhabited waste, lying between 

 the 26th and 'Uth parallels of south latitude, on 

 the eastern banks of the large and beautiful river, 

 noticed in a former part of this Narrative, which 

 flows sluggishly through • a level tract in a north- 

 easterly direction, and is said to join the Oori, or 



