Page:Seven Years in South Africa v1.djvu/88

 By degrees I was able to launch out a little in my expenditure, and to emerge in some measure from my seclusion; and although I was obliged still to reside in a tent-hut, which was a source of personal inconvenience to myself, I never found it any detriment to my public position. It was a very great relief to me that a considerable number of Germans, on hearing of the arrival of a new doctor who could speak their language, were glad to make their way to my quarters. Their visits were a mutual advantage to both parties, for while they had the benefit of my German, I managed, from my intercourse with them, to make a wonderful progress in my knowledge of Dutch.

The diamond-fields of South Africa lie chiefly in the English province of Griqualand West, a district that simultaneously with the discovery of its subterranean treasure became an apple of discord among the native princes. The Griqua king Waterboer, and the Batlapin chiefs Yantje and Gassibone, all strove for an absolute possession, though it was very certain that none of them had any definite or just claim to assert. Waterboer possessed the principal part of the land on each side of the lower course of the Vaal and Modder Bivers; Yantje held the territory north of the mouth of the Harts River; while Gassibone made good his sway over the district that lay between the Vaal and the Harts on the north-east. The Korannas occupied the Vaal valley from Fourteen Streams to the mouth of the Harts.