Twenty-Five Years in a Waggon in South Africa: Sport and Travel in South AfricaAnderson, Andrew A.
History
Twenty-Five Years in a Waggon in South Africa: Sport and Travel in South Africa
Anderson, Andrew A.
Africa, Southern -- Description and travel; Anderson, Andrew A. -- Travel -- Africa, Southern
It will only be necessary to touch very lightly on the principal and
most important events that have occurred from the commencement of the
invasion of the Kaffir chief, Moselikatze (pronounced Umseligas), to the
time when the country was taken over by the British Government, as it is
my intention to go into the history of this Republic only so far as will
throw light on its physical geography.
In 1820 the powerful chief Moselikatze fled from Chaka, the king of
Zululand, with all his people, and crossed the Drakensberg mountains to
the north, into what is now the southern portion of the Transvaal and
Free State. There he found the country thickly populated by various
native tribes, living independent of each other in large kraals along
the river-banks, fountains, and pans--many of these stone kraals are
still in existence, but in ruins--the principal tribes being Makatees or
Mahows, Bapedi, Bakala, Basutos, and some Bechuanas, Bushmen, also
Hottentots, where they must have lived in peace for many generations,
from the remains of extensive gardens now grown over with grass,
proving, I think, they were not a wandering tribe, but a peaceful
people, as the country was most suitable for agricultural purposes,
being free from bush and comparatively level, with numerous streams of
good water flowing in every direction. Moselikatze, with his several
hundred warriors, soon cleared the country by the death and flight of
these people; and eventually spreading northwards and towards the west,
crossed the Vaal river, and occupied all the south part of what is now
the Transvaal. Moselikatze, in 1825, pushed on his conquests where he
found the country occupied by the Bahurutse tribe of Bechuanas, on the
west of what is now Klein Marico, and fought a great battle with them at
their station named Mosega, situated on a small branch of the Klein
Marico river, above where Sindling's post is now built, and defeated
them with great slaughter, occupying the country, and taking possession
of the station--situated in 25 degrees 40 minutes South latitude, 26
degrees 26 minutes East longitude, south of several picturesque hills,
that appear by every indication to have been a volcano--and there he
collected his forces, and there he seems to have remained until he was,
in 1836, attacked by the emigrant Boers under one Potgieter, who
suffered a great defeat at the hands of the Zulu chief, who nearly
destroyed the Boer commando. Those who escaped fled to the Orange Free
State on to Thaba Nchu, then occupied by the Barolong tribe of Bechuanas
under the great chief Moroka, who died in 1880.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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