DIVISIONS OF SOUTH AFRICAN FAMILY. 219 



" We are Bachuana, or equals — we are not inferior to any of our 

 nation," in exactly the same sense as Irishmen or Scotchmen, 

 in the same circumstances, would reply, " We are Britons," or 

 "We are Englishmen." Most other tribes are known by the 

 terms applied to them by strangers only, as the Caffres, Hotten- 

 tots, and Bushmen. The Bechuanas alone use the term to them- 

 selves as a generic one for the whole nation. They have man- 

 aged, also, to give a comprehensive name to the whites, viz., Ma- 

 koa, though they can not explain the derivation of it any more 

 than of their own. It seems to mean " handsome," from the man- 

 ner in which they use it to indicate beauty ; but there is a word 

 so very like it meaning " infirm," or " weak," that Burchell's 

 conjecture is probably the right one. " The different Hottentot 

 tribes were known by names terminating in kua, which means 

 'man,' and the Bechuanas simply added the prefix Ma, denoting 

 a nation." They themselves were first known as Briquas, or 

 " goat-men. " The language of the Bechuanas is termed Sichuana ; 

 that of the whites (or Makoa) is called Sekoa. 



The Makololo, or Basuto, have carried their powers of gener- 

 alization still farther, and arranged the other parts of the same 

 great family of South Africans into three divisions : 1st. The 

 Matebele, or Makonkobi — the CafFre family living on the eastern 

 side of the country ; 2d. The Bakoni, or Basuto ; and, 3d. The Ba- 

 kalahari, or Bechuanas, living in the central parts, which includes 

 all those tribes living in or adjacent to the great Kalahari Desert. 



1st. The Caffres are divided by themselves into various subdi- 

 visions, as Amakosa, Amapanda, and other well-known titles. 

 They consider the name CafFre as an insulting epithet. 



The Zulus of Natal belong to the same family, and they are as 

 famed for their honesty as their brethren who live adjacent to our 

 colonial frontier are renowned for cattle-lifting. The Recorder of 

 Natal declared of them that history does not present another in- 

 stance in which so much security for life and property has been 

 enjoyed, as has been experienced, during the whole period of En- 

 glish occupation, by ten thousand colonists, in the midst of one 

 hundred thousand Zulus. 



The Matebele of Mosilikatse, living a short distance south of 

 the Zambesi, and other tribes living a little south of Tete and 

 Senna, are members of this same family. They are not known 



