Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/211

 KTTRUMAN-VRIJBURa. ISl known 08 stationH and market-places on the g^reat hij^hway leading from the Orange to the Zambese. ThoRc (xx-upied bv the chiefs are usuolly very jMipulouH. all the inhabitants being concentrated at such iwints with a view to defence. In 1801 Truter and Somerville estimated ut fifteen thousand the population of Latoku (Litaku), the town founde<l by the allied Ba-Tlupi and Ba-Uolong naticms on the margin of the Takun spring. After the sepanition of the two tribes, Kurunitm, the new capital of the lia-Tlupi, raj)idly became a real town witlv nearly six hundred houses and five thousiind inhabitants. The other royal residences which succeeded Kurumun were, or still are, places of considerable size. Such are Tnnttg, at the issue of a wady on the right bank of the Katong (Hart's River) ; MnniHH'i, lying some .sixty miles further up on the left bank of the same river; and Likatlong, whose cabins are also groupecl on the banks of the Katong. not far from its confluence with the Vaal, and in the present province of Griqualaud West. But in this region the centres of population are easily displaced, and every new king makes it u point of honour to found and give his name to one of these ephemeral residences. All that is needed for their construction is a good supply of acacia wood stakes, clay, and herbage or foliage for thatching. The diamond fields that were discovered in 1887 in the district near Vrijburg, former capital of Stellalund, cannot fuil to attra?t immigrants and cause new towns to spring up. The principal religious centie of the countrj' is Kuruwnu, whith lies in the midst of gardens and verdure at the east foot of a sandstone hill, whence an extensive view is commanded of the surrounding plateau. Here the missionaiies have acquired possession of many broad acres of arable lund, which they lease only to monogamous natives. The river Euruman, on which stands the town of like name, has its source among the hills a few miles to the south-east. From a cave at the foot of an isolated blulT the water flows in such a copious stream as to be navigable for small boats. Through stalactite galleries clo.«e to the chief opening the visitor may penetrate over slippery stones far into the interior of the rocky cavity, which is supposed to be inhabited by a sacred serpent, tutelar spirit of the stream. Were he to be slain, the perennial spring would at once dry u At the beginning of the century lions were still so numerous and daring in this region that many of the natives slept in narrow huts erected on piles amid the branches of the trees. Moffat speaks of a large tree in the neighbourhood of Lataku which contained no less than seventeen of such aerial dwtl'ings. The Ba-Rolong nation, formerly allies of the Ba-TIapi, but now divided into several independent tribes, occupy the northern section of the specially protected territory, that is to say, the district comprised between the mostly dry beds of the Molopo and the aflHuents of the Kuruman. But the chief villages. Mo/eking, resi- dence of the British Commissioner, i^lniba, Piefmni, and Morohcan^ are grouped about the head waters of the Molopo, where the gorges yield a sufficient supply for the irrigation of their fields. The Ba Bob ngs number altogether eighteen thousand full-blood Bechuanas, besides many half-castes reckoned apart. The tract lying between their domain and that of the Ba-Tlapi has afforded a refuge 108— A#