been many corners in South Africa, respecting which there was doubts as to ownership. Waterboer alleged that the line which his father and old Adam Kok had made so long ago as 1821,—with what geometrical resources they might then have,—gave him a certain apparently valueless tract of land, and those again who assumed a right to Adam Kok's land, asserted that the line gave it to them. The Kokites, however, had this point in their favour, that they had in some sort occupied the land,—having sold it or granted leases on it to Dutch Boers who paid taxes to the Orange Free State in spite of Waterboer's remonstrances.
But the matter at the time was in truth unimportant. Encroachments were made also into this very district of Griqualand from the other Republic also. In speaking of the Transvaal I have already described the position there to which such encroachments had led. A treaty became necessary to check the Transvaal Boers from establishing themselves on Griqualand, and the Transvaal authorities with the native Chiefs, and our Governor at the Cape, agreed that the matter should be referred to an umpire. Mr. Keate, the Lieut. Governor of Natal, was chosen and the Keate award was made. But the land in question was not valuable; diamonds had not yet been found, and the question was not weighty enough to create determined action. The Transvaal rejected the treaty, and the Transvaal Boers, as well as those from the Free State, continued to occupy land in Griqualand West. Now the land of the Transvaal Republic has come back into our hands, and there is one little difficulty the more to solve.
