APPENDIX. 177 
val at Klaarwater or Griqua Town, in lat. 28° 50’ and long. 24° 
10’, the principal seat of the Bastard or mixed race, finding 
his suite too small to carry on his journey, and obstacles being 
placed in the way of his attempt to induce the Griquas to 
join him by the resident Missionaries, he conceived the idea 
of returning to the Colony to procure fresh assistants 
through an entirely new route, that from Klaarwater to the 
village of Graaff-Reinet, which had never been trodden 
by white feet. This, from the most narrow policy of the 
Missionaries, who dreaded the effects of a nearer connexion 
with the Colony on the morals of their flock, and the possi- 
bility of the Colonists possessing themselves of the wild 
country in which the Griquas had themselves intruded, was 
represented by them as impossible, from the ferocious cha- 
racter of the inhabitants, and the mountainous nature of the 
intervening space. But undaunted by these unfavourable 
reports, Burchell set out, and succeeded with comparative 
ease in connecting that part of the interior with the Colony 
by a nearly direct route, and a regular post-road has conse- 
quently been established to the Griqua and Bechuana 
people, in this direction, to the exclusion of the old line 
through the Karroo, and by the Sak River. In his way to 
Graaff Reinet, he discovered a river, called by him the New, 
but now denominated the Brakke; passed through several 
kraals of Bushmen, whom he found friendly disposed, and 
much interesting country, and he arrived at Graaff Reinet 
in about thirty days. ‘This place and the whole surround- 
ing country was thrown into astate of most extraordinary 
alarm at his approach from such a direction, and the most 
exaggerated stories became current among the simple 
farmers of this wild frontier. Reports of the approach of a 
white officer at the head of a force of several hundreds of 
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