580 
GEOGRAPHICAL 
inhabitants themselves, but principally because they have lately been so much 
altered, or subdivided into new districts, and will probably undergo still 
greater changes, that in the course of a few years the divisions of this map 
would only serve, as those of former maps now do, to mislead. A proof of 
it has occurred during the engi'aving of this ; for scarcely was the 
word Albany put upon the copper, when I received information that the 
boundaries of that district had been altered by proclamation of the Cape 
Government. As however the different districts (see page 7^), bear in most 
instances the same name as the principal village (see page 76)j their situation 
and extent may be known well enough for the general purpose of gaining 
an idea of their relative position. More particular explanations, where they 
are required, will be found in the correspondent parts of the journal. 
The want of proper names for the natural divisions ^oi this part of 
Africa, is, in a geographical point of view, an inconvenience which seems 
to demand some remedy. The name of Cape of Good Hope, which belongs 
only to a particular promontory, cannot without evident absurdity be ap- 
plied to the whole of the southern point of Africa ; jet this absurdity con- 
tinues to be tolerated, and even rendered greater, by thus denominating the 
whole of the country which happens to have been visited or discovered by 
the way of Cape Town. If it be necessary in a political view of the sub- 
ject, to call by this name the whole of the Colonial territory, however ex- 
tensive and distant, it certainly cannot be correct to say that the Gariep is 
a river at the Cape of Good Hope, or that the countries of the Namaquas, 
Bushmen, Koras, Caffres, and Bichuanas, are comprised geographically 
under that denomination. 
Confining the following remarks to that portion of Southern Africa 
which is contained within the limits of the present map, it will appear that 
ten natural divisions present themselves to the geographer. 
1. The Peninsula of the Cape of Good Hope ; or the Cape of Good 
Hope proper. This consists of the mountainous tract extending from Cape 
Town to Cape Point (see page 74). 
2. The Western Districts, or country lying between the Great Western 
Range of mountains and the sea, and stretching in length from False Bay 
to the Western Elephants River. 
3. The Maritime Districts, from Hottentot-Holland Kloof to Sitsi- 
kamma. To these might be added, but with doubtful propriety, being in 
general of a different nature, the districts included between the Great 
Southern Range and the Zwarteberg Range, comprising Kannaland, Kam- 
nasiland, and the maritime districts as far eastward as the Sunday River. 
