APPENDIX: 183 
cieties to publish the knowledge gained by their respective 
agents, who possess such superior opportunities of acquire- 
ment. The avidity, however, with which “ Ellis’s Poly- 
nesian Researches” have been received, it is to be hoped 
will induce others of this most devoted and praiseworthy: 
class of men to step forward and gratify public curiosity, 
which cannot fail to add largely to the list of supporters to. 
the Missionary cause—the cause of our common faith, 
which we are enjoined to extend. 
In the same year Mr. George Thompson visited Lita- 
kou and the neighbouring districts, but the approach of the 
devastating Mantatees, then on their road to the Batlapees, 
arrested his progress, and his discoveries were confined 
chiefly to some new points on the banks of the Gareep. 
As far back as the year 1818, an experiment was made 
by the Colonial Government to open a trading intercourse 
with the Griqua and Corana tribes by the establishment of 
a fair at the village of Beaufort, on the borders of the 
Karroo, but which from several causes fell into disuse. In 
1825 facilities were afforded therefore to the colonists to 
proceed for the same purpose, beyond the limits of the 
colony to the kraals of the natives; and numerous parties 
soon took advantage of this permission, several of them 
opening up new routes, until a wide and intimate know- 
ledge has been gained of the regions to the northward. 
Of the most important of these I shall now give a rapid 
sketch. 
In 1826, Messrs. Bain and Biddulph, (the former * 
having been the first to take advantage of the government 
* With Mr. B. Kift, who is to accompany the new expedition as 
Superintendent of its Trading Department. 
