In 1843 the Africanders of this region were widely scattered over a vast spread of country measuring seven hundred miles in length and three hundred in width. To the southeast it was bounded by the Quathlamba mountains, but on the north and west there were no natural features to delimitate it from the plain which extends to the Zambesi on the north and to the Atlantic Ocean on the west. Within this territory the Africander population, in 1843, was not much more than 15,000. This seems a small number in view of the fact that the pioneer emigrants of 1836 to 1838 had been largely re-enforced from the Cape colony. But it must be remembered their life was precarious in the extreme; many had died—some from disease, some in conflict with wild beasts, and a still greater number in their frequent wars with the natives. The white population was further recruited between 1843 and 1847 by a second Africander trek from Natal—which will be described in another chapter. So small a body of people, of whom not more than 4,000 were adult males, occupying so vast a territory, experienced serious difficulties in establishing an efficient government. The difficulties growing out of that cause were enhanced by the very qualities in the Africanders which had led to their emigration from the old colony, and which had made them successful in their wars of conquest in the interior. To an excessive degree they were possessed by a spirit of individual poise and independence. They desired isolation—even from one another. They chafed and grew restive under control of any kind, so much so that they were indisposed to obey even the authorities created by themselves. For warlike expeditions, which yielded them a pleasant excitement, enlarged their territory by conquest, and enriched them with captured cattle and other spoil, they readily united under their military leaders and rendered them obedience, but any other form of control they found irksome. This predilection towards solitary independence was constantly strengthened by the circumstances in which they lived. The soil, being dry and parched in most places, did not invite agriculture to any considerable extent. Most of the people turned to stock-farming, and the nomadic life it necessitated in seeking change of pasture for the flocks and herds confirmed the disposition to live separate from other people.