Porcupine-hunting is very good sport at night when the moon gives a good light. They visit the Kaffir gardens, when the corn is getting forward. The plan is to go in with a few dogs, and several Kaffirs with sticks; the dogs drive the porcupines about; when they come near a good rap with the stick on their nose soon kills them, but care must be taken they do not run back and plant some of their quills into your legs, for they make dangerous wounds.
The old Bushmen tell me they recollect when all the large game was plentiful over the whole of this part of Griqualand West, north of the Vaal and Orange rivers, and also the hippopotami were found in them. The Blood Kaffirs, along the lower part of the Orange, also tell me there is one at the present time to be seen occasionally.
The flora in these parts, in the spring and through the summer, is an interesting study alone. Some of the flowers are perfectly crimson, others of a deep purple; the creepers, with their rich scarlet flowers, climbing up amongst the bushes, and long yellow pods, make the veldt interesting. The Vaal bush is the most common in this province; it flowers in the winter, and has a pleasant perfume; the tea made from its leaves is an excellent tonic. Many of the Bechuanas live in small kraals along the Campbell Randt, the Harts river, and at Great and Little Boetsap, and possess many waggons and spans of oxen, supplying the people at the Diamond-Fields with vegetables, corn, cattle, and also wood from their forests, to keep the machinery at work. The general altitude of this part of the country is 4300 feet above sea-level. This is the cause of grass being more coarse throughout the interior of South Africa than it is at a lower level, and why winters are colder than they would be, the south latitude being only 28 degrees.
Griqualand at the present time is as much occupied by a white population as any part of the Cape Colony, and, from its being the great diamond centre, has now become the most extensive and business part of South Africa; millions of pounds change hands annually, where fifteen years ago it was a howling wilderness.
Chapter Six.
The Bechuana family—Their division into tribes—Their past and present condition.
That portion of Bechuanaland between the territory belonging to the chief Montsoia, which is on the north, and Griqualand West, is occupied by several chiefs belonging to this family. Monkuruan claims to be the paramount chief over many of them, others claim their independence. When the British Government annexed the Diamond-Fields, they acknowledged this chief to be the head of the Bechuanas over all that country. Previous to that time, Mahura, uncle to Monkuruan, ruled; at his death his nephew became chief, and lived at his chief town, situated on one of the spurs of the Campbell Rantz, called Taung, or Toane, a large Kaffir station, close to a small branch of the Harts river, above its junction, containing a population, at the time I first visited the country, under 2000. Monkuruan and his people belong to the Batlapin tribe of the Bechuana family. He has several large kraals, where his people live. Another chief, Botlatsitsi, son of the old chief Gasebone, lives at Phokwane, about eighteen miles from Taung, on the south side of Harts river. He and his people belong to the same tribe as Monkuruan.
The town, or kraal, is very pleasantly situated amongst the hills, which are thickly covered with low underwood. The other petty captains, living within the country first described, are Moshette, of the Baralong tribe, who, with his people, live about nine miles from Taung, at Kunanna; the chief Matlabane, of the Bamairi branch of the Batlapiu tribe, whose kraal is six miles from Taung, on the hills about it.