530 PROJECT OF A JOURNEY TO GRAAFFREYNET. 5, 6 Feb. 
my waggons at Klaarwater, which would have been left in the care 
of my three Hottentots. 
At last, while lamenting the great distance between Cape Town 
and the place where I was, I considered that Klaarwater might be 
much nearer to some other part of the colony, where I might equally 
well obtain the object of my visit. I therefore returned to my wag- 
gon, to look over my map : and immediately fixed on the village of 
Graaffreynet.* The examining of my observations, together with 
a rough computation from the course and distance out of the Colony, 
satisfied me that that village lay in the direction of nearly south, at 
a distance of only three degrees and a half of latitude ; and that the 
Colonial boundary at Plettenberg's Baaken was consequently con- 
siderably nearer to us than Sack river or the Roggeveld. This, 
therefore, I perceived, was the quarter where assistance ought to be 
sought ; especially as the Landdrost of that district, Mr. Stockenstrom, 
was a particular friend of Mr. Hesse's ; and bore the character of 
being a man of liberal mind, which, added to the weight and 
authority of the papers with which I had been furnished by the Cape 
government, gave me every reasonable assurance of meeting with the 
best reception. 
I again walked over to the village, to communicate this second 
plan to the missionary, and ask his assistance in obtaining men for 
this purpose ; which, being a journey into the Colony, 1 concluded 
was not liable to those objections which had hitherto foiled my 
endeavours to go forwards. 
But here again I was met with nothing but the most disheart- 
ening accounts : — that country through which I would pass was, as 
he had always been told, inhabited by tribes of Bushmen the most 
savage in Africa : it was, he had every reason to believe, so moun- 
tainous as to be quite impassable : he knew that the Klaarwater people 
* This name is often written Graaf Reinet ; but the above orthography is more 
conformable to its origin. Both, however, are used in the official writings of the 
Colony. 
