Chap. XXXIX.] SOUTHERN AFRICA, 349 



Limpopo, and discharge its water into the Bay of 

 Delagoa. 



From this point, in order to reach the unoccupied 

 country about Natal, it would have been necessary 

 to traverse the whole length of Dingaan's dominions, 

 a journey fraught with difficulties of the most for- 

 midable kind, and opposed by a climate of the most 

 destructive character. And, as the newly discovered 

 country was abundantly watered, abounding in game, 

 and aiTording all the materials requisite for building, 

 the further progress of the emigrants was for the 

 present discontinued. 



The example thus set by Louis Triechard was 

 speedily followed by many of his countrymen. Nu- 

 merous parties were formed on the frontier by the 

 border colonists, who, with their families and flocks, 

 crossed the Great River, and dived into the very 

 depths of the wilderness, with no very clear idea 

 perhaps of what their ultimate destination was to 

 be, but yet firmly determined to abandon their 

 native hearths for ever, and to fix their future resi- 

 dence in some distant land. For the sake of ob- 

 taining pasturage for their numerous herds, and in 

 opposition to the advice of the Missionaries through 

 whose stations they passed, by whom they were 

 warned of the imminent risk that they would incur 

 from the native tribes, they scattered themselves 

 heedlessly along the luxuriant banks of the Likwa 

 or Vaal river, with the design of remaining until 

 the country in advance should be explored, and 1 heir 

 plans digested and arranged. 



