Page:South Africa (1878 Volume 2).djvu/38

 CHAPTER II.

THE TRANSVAAL.—ITS HISTORY.

The Transvaal as its name plainly indicates is the district lying north or beyond the Vaal river. The Orange river as it runs down to the sea from the Diamond Fields through the inhospitable and little known regions of Bushmansland and Namaqualand used to be called the Gariep and is made up of two large rivers which, above their junction, were known as the Gariep Kye and the Knu Gariep,—the tawny and the orange coloured. The former which is the larger of the two is now known as the Vaal, and the latter as the Orange. The Vaal rises in the Drakenberg mountains and is the northern border of the Orange Free State or Republic. The country therefore beyond that river received its present name very naturally.

This southern boundary of the Transvaal has always been marked clearly enough, but on every other side there are and have been doubts and claims which are great difficulties to the administrator of the new Colony. To the west are the Zulus who are, at this moment, claiming lands which we also claim. Then above them, to the north-west are the Portuguese who are not perhaps likely to extend their demands for inland territory, but who are probably quite as