Kai Karoo

In the southern Karoo, the Buffels River gathers the Wilgenhout and Baviaans streams near a gap in the hills. Farther south it cuts through Buffelspoort, near the long east–west ridge of the Klein Swartberg. Streams and springs descending from these mountains provide water in a country otherwise prone to drought and sudden floods. During the eighteenth century, trekboers drove sheep and cattle into the Karoo and took possession of springs and grazing land used by San hunting communities. Resistance and livestock raids met violent retaliation from colonial commandos, who attacked camps and took captives. The advance of stock farms transformed the country around the Buffels and its neighbours.