Karoo were very large and the family group moved from one part to the other. Their only domestic animals were dogs. The Bantu people to the east of the Great Karoo did not occupy this arid region due to the scarce rainfall which prevented the farming of cattle. In 1854, Daniel Halladay invented the multibladed windpump (windmill) in the USA. It was perfected in 1883, and soon South Africa (and elsewhere) produced them in large numbers. These windpumps transformed the Great Karoo, making permanent settlement and stock farming (predominantly sheep) possible over large parts of the Karoo for the first time.
Karoo 10–20 km from the foot of the Swartberg mountains is least karoo-like, in that it is a well-watered area both from the rain and the many streams that cascade down the mountain, or through narrow defiles in the Swartberg from the Great Karoo. The main towns of the region are situated along this northern strip of the Little Karoo: Montagu, Barrydale, Ladismith, Calitzdorp, Oudtshoorn, and De Rust, as well as such well-known mission stations such as Zoar, Amalienstein, and Dysselsdorp. The southern 30– to 50-km-wide strip, north of the Langeberg range, is as arid as the western Lower Karoo, except