7 5 4 C A P E O F G O O D HOP E.
Orange river and tropic of Capricorn,"are Kouffis, a race whom our
author fufpcdts to be of Arabian" extradt, as they widely differ from
the Hottentots and the negroes, and' are.acquaipted- with the fmelting.of
copper, and fome other rude arts. The country of the Dama-ras is fó
barren. and fandy that they cannot keep cattle. The Orange river, alfo
called the Groot or .Great liver, feems to rife about-S. lat.30?. long. 28°.
E. from Greenwich, and paffes W. by N. till it join the fea between the
Great and Little Nemakas. ... There are high catara&s ; and it has inundations
like the. Nile. On the fhor-es:’afe carnelians, calcedonies, agates
and variolites.;. “ The rains in the^great mountains beyond- the Kaffers
and the Tambookies,-along the. feet of "which the Orange river runs, col-
ledting their tributary ftreams in its paffage, commence in November,
and caufe the inundations to take place towards-the Nemaka country
in December.”1 Mr, Barrow’s ' account terminates with part of P|&.
country of the little Nemakas, included in the colony: beyond which
are the Copper Mountains and fandy deferts ; and he ridicule sMafflaht’s
fuppofcd excurfions in this~quarter, while he névèf paffed the Ofafige
river. Yet Mr, Barrow feems a ftrangcr to the Camelopardalis, which
the French traveller appears certainly to have hunted and hr Ought; to
Europe. The prepofterous vanity of Vaillant greatly injures the’credibility
of his narrative, and his map of the colonial poffeflions cannot
be compared with the adtüal fürvèy by Mr. Barrów. To the; north of
the Green River the map of the French author feems imaginary; ^as
he is a ftranger to the Damaras, though he infert the Copper Mountains.*
. * Barrow, p. 298. The Tambookies are to the N. E, óf the Kouffis; thus according to
our author’ s idea, there is a great range palling N.W. and S. E . about lat. 320. or 3 3 This great
range, Paterfon, p. 125, fays, runs E. and W. at the diftance of about four days’ journey from
the month of the Orange river, being- called, the mountains of Bren as; probably -the inmoft
terrace of the Table land o f louthern Africa, which feenis' to be pervaded by the Jagasf. a wandering
nation like the Tatar»;. Near the Orange river Paterfon obferved that the natives cut off
the 'firft joint of theirJittle, finger.
* His Orange River flows from N. E. to S. W. the reverfc o£ the truth: and beyond the
Great Nemakas he places a ftream called the River of F-ifli, with- the tribes of Kabobikas and
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