346 
COUNTRY OF THE KORAS. 
30 Sept. 
populous kraal called the Hart. Along the banks of the Great 
River, and for several days journey up the Yellow River, or Ky- 
Gariep, are many of their moveable villages. These do not extend 
down the river more than two or three days' journey below the spot 
where we crossed it. It is difficult to define the boundaries of the 
country inhabited by any of these wandering African nations ; not 
only because they are perpetually shifting from one quarter to 
another, but because the villages of two, and sometimes of three, 
nations, are often so interlocated, that it can not easily be decided 
to which of them the territory belongs. In fact, with respect to 
territory, they have none of those ideas which a European would 
attach to the word. The soil appears never to be considered as 
property, nor is it hardly ever thought worth claiming or disputing 
the possession of : the water and pasturage of it, is all that is rated 
of any value ; and when these are exhausted, the soil is abandoned 
as useless. Wherever they find a spring unoccupied, there they 
feel themselves at liberty to plant their huts ; and, on their removal, 
others, if they chuse, come and fix their quarters. This last ob- 
servation, though holding good in many cases with respect to dif- 
ferent tribes, is applicable more strictly to different kraals, or families, 
of the same tribe. On one side, the Kora stations are intermingled 
with those of the Bachapins ; on another, with the Bamuchars ; in 
the middle, with the settlements of the Mixed, ov Klaarrmter, Hotten- 
tots ; and every where, with the kraals of the Bushmen. * 
* A book, the numerous errors and misrepresentations of which Professor 
Lichtenstein has, in his " Travels in Southern Africa," taken the trouble fully to expose, 
tells its readers, that the Koranas are a formidable and cruel tribe of Bosjesmans, and that 
thej^ dwell " directly east from the Roggeveld," which " for several months in the year 
" is entirely covered with snow;" (a specimen of the accuracy of that writer's description of 
the colony;) and concludes its account of that people by stating, with peculiar sagacity, 
that, " though very good friends among each other while poor, from the moment they 
" have obtained by plunder a quantity of cattle, they begin to quarrel about the division of 
" the spoil ; and they are said to carry this sometimes to such an excess, that they continue 
" the fight and massacre, till, like the soldiers of Cadmus, very few remain on the field." 
Barrow's Travels, page 404. In modern days, I confess, I know of nothing like this, 
except the story of the two Kilkenny Cats, which fought " to such an excess," that they 
actually devoured each other, and nothing was found remaining on the field, but the tips, 
of their tails. 
