BECHUANA  , a

South African people, forming a branch of the great Bantu-Negroid family . They occupy not only Bechuanaland, to which they have given their name, and Basutoland, but are the most numerous native race in the Orange River Colony and in the western and northern districts of the Transvaal . It seems certain that they reached their present home later than the Zulu-Xosa [Kaffir] peoples who came down the east coast of the continent, but it is probable that they started on their southward journey before the latter .