The Vaal River--sometimes called the Nu Gariep, and sometimes the Yellow River--is the principal tributary of the Orange River; indeed, it is so large an affluent, that some geographers have doubted, as in the case of the Mississippi and the Missouri, which should properly be considered the main stream. These rivers, the Orange and the Vaal, rising near together in the Drakenberg chain, take a wide circuit, the one to the south-west, the other to the north-west, and flow each a distance of about 400 miles before their junction. The territory which they thus enclose is nearly as large as England, comprising between 40,000 and 50,000 square miles. It is inhabited by about 80,000 natives, of various Bechuana, Namaqua, and half-caste tribes, and by some 15,000 or 20,000 colonists of European origin. Over all these inhabitants, colonists and natives, the British sovereignty has been proclaimed. Subject to this supremacy, the native chiefs and tribes are still left to manage their own affairs, according to their original laws and customs. But in order to indicate clearly and decisively the fact, that the royal authority is now paramount in this region whenever Her Majesty's government chooses to exert it, the name of the Orange River Sovereignty has been given to the whole territory. The portion of this territory which is properly a British settlement--or, in other words, which is inhabited by Dutch and English colonists, is in extent about two-thirds of the whole. It is subdivided into four districts, for each of which a stipendiary magistrate has been appointed. These magistrates, with eight unofficial members of council--who are all respectable landowners--form, in conjunction with the 'British resident,' the legislature of the colony. The title of the Resident is borrowed from the official system of India, and was originally given to him when acting as a government commissioner for the protection of the native tribes; but his office is at present simply that of a colonial governor.