SOUTHERN AFRICA. 289 



the accuracy of these reports, and forming' a larg*e party, 

 with ten or twelve wag"g'ons, proceeded to explore the country. 

 So well pleased were they with what they saw, that they 

 formed a determination of locatino- themselves in that neio-h- 

 bourhood, and returned forthwith for their families, when 

 the breaking' out of the last Kafir Avar oblig-ed them to post- 

 pone 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 g'uidance of an Albany farmer, named 

 Louis Triechard. Beino- desirous of eludino* the Kafir tribes, 

 they proceeded across the Great River in a north-easterly 

 direction, skirting- the mountain chain which divides CafFraria 

 from Bechuana Land ; with the intention, when they had 

 cleared it, of turning- to the eastward, and g-aining- the neig-h- 

 bourhood of Port Natal. The features presented by this 

 barrier are rug-g*ed and forbidding- in the extreme ; they have 

 the appearance of innumerable pyramidical hills thrown to- 

 g-ether in the most g-rotesque and disorderly manner : one 

 peak jutting" beyond, or soaring* above the other, as thoug-h 

 precluding- the possibihty of any human foot, much less any 

 wheeled vehicle, from passing over ; and, from the imperfect 

 knowledg-e possessed b}^ the wanderers, of that section of 

 Southern Africa, the g-eog-raphy of which is still veiled in 

 considerable obscurity, they were led by the course of the 

 mountains far be3^ond the latitude of Port Natal, and found 

 themselves, about the end of May 1836, in a fertile but un- 

 inhabited waste, lying- between the 26th and 27th parallels 

 of south latitude, on the eastern banks of the larofe and 

 beautiful river, noticed in a former part of this Narrative, 

 which flows slug-gishly throug-h a level tract in a north- 

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

 popo, and discharg-e its water into the Bay of Delag-oa. 

 From this point, in order to reach the unoccupied country 



u 



