Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/207

BECHU AN ALAND. 167 the valley of the Molojx) affluent of the same river. A treaty concluded with Germony secures to Grout Rrituin the eventual possession of the whole region limited on the west by the twentieth di'gree of oist longitude, and on the north by the twenty-second degree of south latitude. This territory constitutes u " pro- tectorate," within which is officially included the narrow strip of land stretching eastwards betweun the course of the Linipojx) and the twenty-second degree parallel, as far as the frontier of the Portuguese possessions. IJut towards the north this conventional line has alrejdy been encroached upon, for by a special convention the Bechuana kingdom of Khama, lying still farther north, has also been placed under the protection of the British Government. Certain semi- official documents even already speak of the Zambese as the real or natural northern limit of the British domain in Austral Africa. Meanwhile the uncertainty of the conventional frontiers prevents the geograr phers from accurately estimating the actual extent of the protectorate. But the region comprised within the official limits traced along the meridian and parallel of latitude has a superficial area of probably about 180,000 square miles. The jwpulation of this territory, which is already well known from numerous exploring expeditions, can scarcely exceed half a million, and is placed by some writers as low as 47o,000 or 480,000. Of this number as many as 160,000 are concentrated in the section of Bechuanaland lying south of the Molopo tributar}' of the Ilygap. The Bechi anas. The Bechuana people are a branch of the great Bantu family, who according to the national traditions arrived in Austral Africa later than the other Kafir tribes. Till recently they were even still migrating, though not voluntarily. In order to escape from the Boers of the Orange and Transvaal, many tribal groups had been compelled to move westwards, and before the intervention of the English the native tribes were being harassed all along the line by the Boers of the conterminous districts. " At present the western Bechuunos are separated from the Basutos and other kindred peoples by the territory of the two Dutch republics. Like the Griquas, the Bechuanas have thus been broken into two great divisions, henceforth cut off from all direct intercourse with one another. But notwithstanding this dismem- berment, they have the full consciousness of their common origin, and throughout the vast region between the Orange and the Zambese they everywhere recognise their kinship, even grouping their various tribes in the order of national pre- eminence. According to unanimous agreement, the senior branch of the family are the Ba-Harutse (Barotsc), who dwell west of the liimpojx) headstreams, on the north-west frontier of the South African republic. M. Arbousset believes that the term Be-Chuana, now universally adopted as the collective ethnical name, is due to a misunderstanding on the part of some travellers, whoso inquiries about the various peoples of the country were met by the remark ba c/tuana, that is, " they resemble each other," meaning they are all alike, all of one stock. They have themselves no common national or racitd designation in any of their dialects.