_The Koranas._--This branch of the Hottentots has its locality on the middle part of the Gariep, with the Griquas to the north, the Bechuana Kaffres to the east, and the Saabs in the middle of them. Their number is, perhaps, 10,000. Their exact relation to the other Hottentots is uncertain. They are a better formed people than the Gonaqua and Namaqua, but whether they be the best samples of the Hottentot stock altogether is uncertain. Probably a tribe far up in the north-western parts of South Africa, and beyond Namaqualand, may dispute the honour with them. These are the Dammaras--themselves disputed Hottentots. Their country lies beyond the British colony, but it must be noticed for the sake of taking in all the branches of the stock in question. It is the tract between Benguela and Namaqualand, marked in the maps as _sterile country_; in the northern parts of which we sometimes find notices of a fierce nation called _Jagas_. Walvisch Bay lies in the middle of it. Now some writers make the Dammaras of this country Hottentot; others Kaffre; and that both rightly and wrongly. They are both--partly one, partly the other; since Dammara is a geographical term, and some of the tribes to which it applies are Kaffre, some Hottentot. The Dammaras of the plains, or the Cattle Dammaras are the former; the Dammaras[19] of the hills, the latter. Between the Dammara and the Korana a much nearer approach to Kaffre type is made than is usually supposed. A branch of the Koranas--those of the valley of the Hartebeest River--deserves particular attention. They caution us against overvaluing differences; and Dr. Prichard has quoted the evidence of Mr. Thompson with this especial object. They are Koranas who have suffered in war, lost their cattle, and been partially expatriated by the more powerful sections of their stock. Hence, want and poverty have acted upon them; and the effect has been that they have become hunters instead of shepherds, have been reduced to a precarious subsistence, and as the consequence of altered circumstances, have receded from the level of the other Koranas, and approached that of the-- _Saabs or Bushmen._--These belong to the parts between the Roggeveld and Orange River; parts which rival the _sterile country_ of the map in barrenness. As is the country so are the inhabitants; starved, miserable hunters--hunters rather than shepherds or herdsmen. The Lap is not more strongly contrasted with the Finlander, than the Korana with the Saab; and the deadly enmity between these two populations is as marked as the differences in their physical appearances. I think, however, that undue inferences have been drawn from the difference; in other words, that the distance between the Korana and the Saab has been exaggerated. The languages are unequivocally allied.