The Bechuana language, which belongs to the Bantu linguistic family, is copious, with but few slight dialectic differences, and is free from the Hottentot elements found in the Kaffir and Zulu tongues. The richness of the language may be judged from the fact that, though only oral until reduced to writing by the missionaries, it has sufficed for the translation of the whole Bible.
Bibliography.—G.W. Stow, The Native Races of South Africa (London, 1905); Gustav Fritsch, Die Eingeborenen Sud-Afrikas (Breslau, 1872); Robert Moffat, Missionary Labours and Scenes in Southern Africa (1842); David Livingstone, Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa (London, 1857); J.C. MacGregor, Basuto Traditions (Cape Town, 1905).
(T. A. J.)
BECHUANALAND (a name given from its inhabitants, the Bechuana, q.v.), a country of British South Africa occupying the central part of the vast tableland which stretches north to the Zambezi. It is bounded S. by the Orange river, N.E. and E. by Matabeleland, the Transvaal and Orange River Colony, and W. and N. by German South-West Africa. Bechuanaland geographically and ethnically enjoys almost complete unity, but politically it is divided as follows:—
I. British Bechuanaland, since 1895 an integral part of Cape Colony. Area, 51,424 sq. m. Pop. (1904) 84,210, of whom 9276 were whites.
II. The Bechuanaland Protectorate, the northern part of the country, governed on the lines of a British crown colony. Area (estimated), 225,000 sq. m. Pop. (1904) 120,776, of whom Europeans numbered 1004. The natives, in addition to the Bechuana tribes, include some thousands of Bushmen (Masarwa). Administratively attached to the protectorate is the Tati concession, which covers 2500 sq. m. and forms geographically the south-west corner of Matabeleland.
The Griqualand West province of Cape Colony belongs also geographically to Bechuanaland, and except in the Kimberley diamond mines region is still largely inhabited by Bechuana. (See [Griqualand].)
Physical Features.—The average height of the tableland of which Bechuanaland consists is nearly 4000 ft. The surface is hilly and undulating with a general slope to the west, where the level falls in considerable areas to little over 2000 ft. A large part of the country is covered with grass or shrub, chiefly acacia. There is very little forest land. The western region, the Kalahari Desert (q.v.), is mainly arid, with a sandy soil, and is covered in part by dense bush. In the northern region are large marshy depressions, in which the water is often salt. The best known of these depressions, Ngami (q.v.), lies to the north-west and is the central point of an inland water system apparently in process of drying up. To the north-east and connected with Ngami by the Botletle river, is the great Makari-Kari salt pan, which also drains a vast extent of territory, receiving in the rainy season a large volume of water. The marsh then becomes a great lake, the water surface stretching beyond the horizon, while in the dry season a mirage is often seen. The permanent marsh land covers a region 60 m. from south to north and from 30 to 60 m. east to west. In the south the rivers, such as the Molopo and the Kuruman, drain towards the Orange. Other streams are tributaries of the Limpopo, which for some distance is the frontier between Bechuanaland and the Transvaal.
The rivers of Bechuanaland are, with few exceptions, intermittent or lose themselves in the desert. It is evident, however, from the extent of the beds of these streams and of others now permanently dry, and from remains of ancient forests, that at a former period the country must have been abundantly watered. From the many cattle-folds and walls of defence scattered over the country, and ruins of ancient settlements, it is also evident that at that period stone-dykes were very common. The increasing dryness of the land is partly, perhaps largely, attributable to the cutting down of timber trees both by natives and by whites, and to the custom of annually burning the grass, which is destructive to young wood.