SOUTHERN AFRICA. 85 
diameter. This intermediate space, if less than three miles 
in diameter, was considered as not tenable, and, consequently, 
if any person (willing to pay the established rent for a smaller 
quantity of land than Government allowed) applied for such 
intermediate piece of ground, his application was sure to be 
rejected. Whether the Government had any design of 
dispersing the people by such an absurd system, under 
the idea of keeping them more easily in subjection, I can't 
pretend to say, but it thought proper to encourage the 
continuance of the system, which is in full force to this 
moment. 
The disputes about these stakes or baakens, as they call 
them, are endless ; and partly through accident, but fre- 
quently by design, the stakes are so placed that, on an average 
throughout the whole colony, the farms are at twice the dis- 
tance, and consequently contain four times the quantity of 
land allowed by Government. 
The number of these loan farms registered in the office of 
the receiver of tlie land revenue, on closing the books in 1 798*9 
were, 
In the district of the Cape - - 110 
Stellenbosch and Drakenstein - 6'89 
— Zwellendam- - - 541 
Graaf Reynet - - 492 
Total 1832 
