CESSION OF LAND TO EUROPEANS. 137 
along the Fish river on the East, (or as it had 
been first named by the Portuguese discoverers, 
Eio d ? Infanta,) and, from it, along the Meuwe- 
veldt and Eoggeyeldt ranges of mountains to- 
ward the West. This territory haying been thus 
ceded by the Hottentots, must have originally 
belonged to them: but, further, when relin- 
quishing it, they would, as a natural conse- 
quence, have been conversant with other in- 
terior districts, to which they knew they could 
retire, on evacuating this one. For it must 
ever be borne in mind, that this first grant of 
land to Europeans, at the Cape, was, on the part 
of the natives, (as has been shown,) not com- 
pulsory, but optional, and was arranged in good 
faith by these aborigines. And hence, any 
claims which the Hottentot tribes may have had 
events, it is evident that they have arisen from a race distinct from 
that of their neighbours, and extended inland, inhabiting the most 
fertile spots, till their course was arrested on the East by the bold 
and warlike Kaffirs, and, on the North, by the Bechuanas and Damaras. 
It is probable that they stretched out into Great Namaqualand, along 
the Western divisions of the Colony, till prevented by a desert country, 
beyond which lay the Damaras ; and then, again, they proceeded from 
Little Namaqualand Eastward, along the cooling banks of the Gariep 
or Orange River, richly fringed with overhanging willows, towering 
acacias, and kharree trees and shrubs, umbrageous at all seasons of the 
year. Thus, by the localities of the country, they became separated 
into the three great divisions of Hottentots, Korunnas, and Lesser and 
Greater Namaquas. From time immemorial, these have been the 
boundaries of their habitations, while the desert wastes, and barren 
mountain ravines which intervened, became the refuge and domains 
of the Bushmen, who are, emphatically, 'the children of the desert.' " 
