Qkhukaxgamma

In the Camdeboo country of the Great Karoo, a bend of the Sundays River shelters the settlement later known as Graaff-Reinet. Mountains rise beyond the river and the dry plains around it. The Dutch East India Company established an administrative centre here in 1786, naming it after the Cape governor Van de Graaff and his wife Reinet. In 1795 dissatisfied settlers expelled the Company's magistrate and proclaimed a republic. The experiment was short-lived: British occupation of the Cape brought a new authority to the district.