Page:Seven Years in South Africa v1.djvu/265

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Return Journey to Dutoitspan.
213

been satisfactory, would give him a certificate to the local authorities, that he might be permitted to buy a gun. The certificate was practically equivalent, therefore, to a gun licence; and thus it had been brought about that many hundreds of natives, both in the colony and in their own independent states, were in possession of fire-arms, with liberty to use them.

As the Basutos, whom I have just mentioned, formed in 1872 and 1873 the larger contingent of he coloured labourers, I should like to say a few words about them, thus including them in my general survey of the family of the Bantus.

I divide the natives of South Africa into three races—the Bushmen, the Hottentots, and the Bantus. To the first belong the Bushmen proper; to the second the Hottentots proper, the Griquas, and the Korannas; whilst the third includes the colonial Kaffirs, Zulus, Basutos, Bechuanas, Makalakas, and other tribes, about forty in all; besides which there are transition types between the races, as, for instance, between the Bushmen and the Bantus. It is asubject, however, upon which I have no scope to enlarge here.

Of these tribes, we have already made some acquaintance with the Korannas and two tribes of the Batlapins. The Basutos reside chiefly on the Cornetspruit and the Caledon River, extending thence to the Drakensbergen; they consequently occupy the country bounded by the Free State, Cape Colony, Nomansland, and Natal. Their lan-