Adamantia : the truth about the South African diamond fields : or, a ...

GRIQUAS ONLY SQUATTERS. 21and civil improvement, which no other tribe north ofthe Vaal ever had."I cannot find any evidence as to the exact date whenthe Griquas settled down ill their new quarters, but.quite sufficient to prove that it was certainly within ayear or two of 1811.From the above account we obtain further importantevidence that the Griquas were merely squatters upon'Certain grounds by the generosity and sufferance ofthe real owners and their feudatories; that, moreover,until tM8e latter 8/undd 8ell to them, formally present,Qr 108e bll fJlar tMir territorial rights, neither could any'BUCk accrue to them. It does not appear that either Qne()f these conditions ever came to pass. The principalKorana tribe (the Sorcerers) under their hereditaryparamount chiefs the Taaiboschs, have never abandoned.·nor forfeited their sovereign rights as the successors tothe aboriginal owners of the soil by right of conquest.For, surely, it can never be maintained. that simpleabsence from molestation by the real owners of a-country creates territorial rights for squatters so distinctlyupon sufferance? .By and by we shall have to consider whether or nothe long abandonment of part of their territory to the.squatters has caused the right of the Koranas to lapse,:now that they seem to give a tacit consent to the titleof the Griquas.To the chief Berends we may almost say adieu;a.lready, but with the family of the Koks, who, fromthe first, seem to have been the hereditary chiefs of thegreater part of the Griquas, we have much to do.At the first settlement of these people in their new-country they established two principal kraals or villages•Digitized by Goog Ie