Blood River, also known as Ncome, (Afrikaans: Bloedrivier) is situated in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. This river has its sources in the hills SE of Utrecht; leaving the highlands it is joined by two important tributaries that originate in the Schurveberg, after which it flows meandering through a sandy plain. The Blood River is a tributary of the Buffalo River, itself a tributary of the Tugela River which it joins from the north-east.
This river is so named after the Battle of Blood River in which Zulu king Dingaan was defeated by Andries Pretorius' troops in 1838.
The Blood River Vlei, located about 20 km to the south-west of Vryheid, is one of the biggest inland wetlands in South Africa, and the wintering place of migratory birds such as ducks and geese.
Famous quotes containing the words blood and/or river:
“The look for me moonlight.
Watch for me by moonlight,
And he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.”
—Alfred Noyes (1880–1958)
“Hard by the lilied Nile I saw
A duskish river dragon stretched along.
The brown habergeon of his limbs enamelled
With sanguine alamandines and rainy pearl:
And on his back there lay a young one sleeping,
No bigger than a mouse;”
—Thomas Lovell Beddoes (1803–1849)