CHAPTER III.

Hear ill News.—Engage Hans.—Ride to Barmen.—En route.—Oxen _versus_ Mules.—Arrive at Barmen.—Jonker’s Attack.—Previous History.—Oerlams and Europeans.—Hottentots and Bushmen.—Establishment of Missions.—Native Feuds.—Dislike to Missions.—Obstruction to Travellers.—Write to Jonker.—Buy Oxen from Hans.—Breaking them in.—Attacks of Distemper.—Complete my Encampment.—Damara Digging.—Native Hunting.—Oxen sent to the Bay.—I go to Barmen.—Damara Thorn-trees.—Jonker writes to me.—My Plans.—The Ovampo.—First Rain.—Hottentot Beauties.—Hyena’s Insolence.—Damara Ferocity.—Cruel Murder.—Mutilated Victim.—Message to Chiefs.—Their Replies.

Otjimbinguè is well situated for a Missionary station. Water, the first necessary of life, is here in sufficient quantity, as a small streamlet runs down the bed of the river. Grass, the next essential in the eyes of a pastoral people like the Damaras, is also in abundance, for the Swakop, at this place, instead of lying between abrupt cliffs, runs through a wide plain, that shelves for miles down its bed; and which, though covered with thorn-bushes, affords a fair allowance of grass-bearing soil. The mission-house was a temporary affair, a mud wall six feet high, and over it a round-tented ceiling of matwork, in shape like a waggon roof. A gigantic house was being built by Mr. Rath, the missionary, on the top of a little cliff close by. Mr. Rath and his wife received me with great kindness, and as this place, or its neighbourhood, was to be my head-quarters for some time, I chose my encampment with some deliberation. It was among a group of fine trees, and close by a good spring of water. The natives about the station were excessively annoying and troublesome, and I was strongly inclined to make an example of some of them; but I still followed a pacific policy. When my encampment had been planned, and the tent pitched, and bushes placed in a wide circle round the cart, I went to spend the evening with the missionary, and to hear the news of the country. The first intelligence shocked me very much; it was, that quite recently the neighbouring Namaqua Hottentots had attacked Schmelen’s Hope (three long days’ journey ahead), had murdered and mutilated the Damaras that lived there, and, naturally enough, terrified the resident missionary into leaving the place. The cause of this outrage, as far as I could learn, was simply savage barbarism, a little robbery, and a demonstration of dislike to the missionary cause.

I mentioned, at the beginning of the book, the name of Jonker Africaner, as the most important man among the Hottentots; it was he who headed the expedition.

The effect of this attack, which had occurred after a long peace or pause from fighting, was to frighten every Damara who had cattle to lose, into the far interior, so that hardly an ox was grazing within two days’ journey north of the Swakop, and to seriously alarm the missionaries, who had hitherto depended on these very Hottentots for protection from Damara insult. The Damaras that I saw were paupers who had no cows—people who chiefly lived, not on milk, but on roots like pig-nuts, and who collected round a white man with a vague hope of protection from him against their countrymen.

I determined to start immediately for Barmen, the head seat of intelligence as regards Damara and Hottentot movements, and called upon Hans, the next morning, to get, not horsed, but “oxed,” for the journey. I found him in the neatest of encampments, with an old sail stretched in a sailor-like way to keep the sun off, and in an enclosure of thick reeds, that were cut and hedged all round. The floor was covered with sheep-skin mats: shooting things, knick-knacks, and wooden vessels were hung on the forked branches of the sticks, that propped up the whole. A very intelligent English lad was acting as his “help.” Natives squatted round at a respectful distance, and Hans sat on an ottoman, looking like a Mogul. I had some conversation with him, and saw at once that he was not only willing to accompany me, but that also he was the very man I wanted. I had heard but one opinion of his efficiency and honesty from the Europeans that I had seen, which satisfied me on those points, and the style of the man was exactly what I desired, for he was quiet, sedate, but vigorous and powerfully framed, showing in all his remarks the shrewdest common sense, and evidently, from the order around him, an excellent disciplinarian. We very soon came to terms, which were, that he should go with me to Barmen on trial, and that, if we suited, I would employ him as head servant. I was strongly urged to make a good enclosure (kraal) for mules and men, as the lions were extremely numerous about the low ground, in which I had encamped, for the sake of the shade, though they seldom prowled upon the bare cliff on which Hans and the Damara huts were scattered. I therefore collected all the natives together that I could, and set vigorously to work, cutting down all the bushes I could find, to strengthen my kraal with, and two days passed very busily. I then left Andersson in charge, and rode on with Stewartson and Hans towards Barmen, in the afternoon of the second day. Our little caravan consisted entirely of Hans’ animals, for all of mine required rest; besides our ride-oxen, we had one ox packed and one loose, three sheep, and two Damaras; our pace was a jog-trot, and the Damaras drove the sheep and two oxen in front, while we rode behind and drove on the Damaras. We off-packed after three hours, but it was dark when we did so, and the sheep ran loose and we could not drive them in together; one ran quite away, and was eaten, I presume, by the hyenas, who disturbed us a good deal; one we killed, and the other we tied to a bush. Hans made me a much more comfortable bed than I had previously enjoyed, showing me how to cut the bushes and make a dead hedge of them; then he smoothed the ground, and plucking dry grass, strewed it thickly about; upon that he laid two or three sheepskins, over them my mackintosh, and, lastly, my eider-down quilt. This had become torn to rags by the thorns, and I intended on the first opportunity to get a caross instead of it. Sheepskins and carosses are no incumbrance in travelling with pack-oxen, for they are carefully placed under the saddle-bags, and their use in keeping the animal’s back from being galled is more than compensation for their weight. I listened with much interest to Hans’ tales and anecdotes. He had been the most successful sportsman in the country, and had lived the last two or three years in sole charge of an immense drove of oxen, once amounting to 700, with only one or two native lads to help him in the care of them. He had shot a great many lions out of the Swakop, six in the preceding year, and made it a much safer place than it used to be, to drive cattle in. From his account, that river-bed must have swarmed with game, when it was first seen by Europeans, but I can easily fancy, from the confined character of the country, how in a short time one or two guns would entirely exterminate them.

In the morning our remaining sheep could not be driven; he was too scared, and as time was much more precious than mutton, we killed him, took out his inside, and strapped him across one of the oxen with hardly any delay. I was well mounted on an old ox, and really liked his walking pace very much. I think I can sit more hours on ox-back than on horse-back, supposing in both cases the animals to walk. An ox’s jog-trot is not very endurable, but anything faster abominable. The peculiarity of the creature is, that he will not go alone, from his disposition being so very gregarious. He is distressed beyond expression, when any attempt succeeds for a time in separating him from the herd. It is with great difficulty that an ox can be found willing to go ahead of the others, even though he knows that his fellows are just behind him. Whipping and spurring has hardly any effect on the animal: he feels every cut most sensitively, as the rider cannot but be aware of; but the obstinacy of his nature is so wonderfully great, that pain has little or no influence upon his determination. His character is totally different from that of a horse, and very curious to observe; he is infinitely the more sagacious of the two, but never free from vice. The gregariousness of oxen and of sheep is of great advantage to the traveller; for it is not necessary to be perpetually counting the animals, to see if any have strayed; and at night, when the oxen are all loose about him, a constant anxiety is taken off the owner’s mind, by knowing that if he sees one, all are there. My mules had given me a great deal of trouble, by requiring much more watching than the oxen; and I hardly know how I could have travelled with a large drove of those animals. I should not dare to let them be loose at night; and the country seldom affords enough trees to tether them to.

We made a tedious ride to-day, taking something to eat at noon, and going on in the evening. I began to see that being able to endure severe exertion for half the day without the breakfast we always have in England, was essential to our sort of life. At first it is very trying. In temperate climates it is easy enough; but in tropical ones, when you begin work in the fresh cool of the morning, and become hungry and exhausted at the very time that the sun is beginning to blaze most powerfully, the want of a restorative is more particularly felt. It is impossible in practice to ensure breakfast before you start; and constantly, when you least expect it, a series of accidents occur that keep you mounted, and put it off till two or three o’clock in the afternoon; but coffee, so long as you have any, can always be made before starting.

We passed over very broken ground, and slept under some magnificent camelthorn trees: the meat we killed in the morning seemed a little tainted; so we cooked as much as we could in our iron pot, to prevent it from becoming worse, and gave all the rest to our two or three natives for a grand feast. The evening of the next day found us at Barmen, which, if I was to avoid the Hottentots, would probably be the starting-point of my exploring expedition. Mr. Hahn, a Russian by birth, and married to an English lady, and a missionary of considerable influence, was the founder of this station.

Mr. Kolbe and his young wife, who had been attacked by the Hottentots at Schmelen’s Hope, had come here for refuge. They had lost nearly everything. It seems they had quite recently occupied the place, and that the poorer natives had settled in great numbers by them. Kahikenè, one of the four or five principal chiefs in Damara-land, had also trecked there with many of his men and large herds of cattle. He had always behaved in a very friendly way to the missionaries; but this was the first time that either he, or any of the influential Damaras, had encamped within easy reach of a mission station. Kahikenè showed no distrust, but lived in the friendliest relations with Mr. and Mrs. Kolbe; and they had sincerely hoped by his means to get a firmer footing than they then had in Damara-land. Just at this time, one night a troop of mounted Hottentots galloped up to the place, firing at and murdering all they could catch. Kahikenè narrowly escaped; the Hottentots scoured the country in every direction, and a most fearful night was passed. In the early morning, Jonker came reeling drunk to the mission-house, ordered the door to be unbarred, and behaved in the coolest way,—demanded some breakfast, and so forth; and then departed with his men, and the oxen, and what else they had robbed. It is very difficult to find out how many people are killed or wounded in occasions like these, as hyenas soon devour the dead bodies, and those who survive scatter in all directions; so that no clue remains towards the numbers missing. I saw two poor women, one with both legs cut off at her ankle joints, and the other with one. They had crawled the whole way on that eventful night from Schmelen’s Hope to Barmen, some twenty miles. The Hottentots had cut them off after their usual habit, in order to slip off the solid iron anklets that they wear. These wretched creatures showed me how they had stopped the blood, by poking the wounded stumps into the sand. A European would certainly have bled to death under such circumstances. One of Jonker’s sons, a hopeful youth, came to a child that had been dropped on the ground, and who lay screaming there, and he leisurely gouged out its eyes with a small stick.

I had no reason to think that this outrage on Mr. Kolbe’s station was any worse than the usual attacks that the Hottentots and Damaras make upon one another; but the Damaras are savages, and are not supposed to know better, while Jonker is a British subject, born in the colony, and his best men are British subjects too. Missionaries and teachers in great numbers have been amongst them, or their fathers, for years and years; and the home of these people, though now they have trecked on to the tropics, is properly on the borders of the Orange River.

I was very anxious to obtain something like an authentic history of these Hottentots, and of the Damaras, during the last few years, and I begged Mr. Hahn, who was eminently qualified to give me one, to do so; and as it will illustrate my story I will now give its substance, mixed up and corrected with what I have since gathered from various quarters, or made out for myself.

The agents in this history are Namaqua “Oerlams,” or Namaquas born, in or near the colony, often having Dutch blood and a good deal of Dutch character in their veins. Among these, Jonker is a chief. The Namaqua “Hottentots” look at these Oerlams with great jealousy, and consider them almost as aliens; they do not approve of their intelligence and mixed blood, but nevertheless make common cause with them against the Damaras.

It must be recollected that Hottentots are yellow, and not at all black. I could pick out many complexions far fairer than that of my own sunburnt face among them. But the Damaras are quite dark, though their features are good and seldom of the negro type. Oerlam was a nickname given by Dutch colonists to the Hottentots that hung about their farms; it means a barren ewe—a creature good neither for breeding nor fattening, a worthless concern, one that gives trouble and yields no profit. However all things are relative, and what these Oerlams were to the Dutchmen, that the Namaqua Hottentots are to the Oerlams.

The Europeans that have visited the country between the latitudes of Angra Pequana and Barmen, are some ten missionaries, the same number of traders, five or six runaway sailors, who have acted as servants to these, and two travelling parties besides my own. The first was that of Sir James Alexander, who explored this country upwards from the Orange River fifteen or twenty years ago, and whom the traders and missionaries followed; the other was that of Mr. Ruxton, the well-known American traveller, who sailed to Walfisch Bay, but was prevented by the traders that were there from entering further into the land, and who had to return in the same ship that brought him. There is no difference whatever between the Hottentot and the Bushman, who lives wild about the hills in this part of Africa, whatever may have been said or written on the subject. The Namaqua Hottentot is simply the reclaimed and somewhat civilised Bushman, just as the Oerlams represent the same raw material under a slightly higher degree of polish. Not only are they identical in features and language, but the Hottentot tribes have been, and continue to be, recruited from the Bushmen. The largest tribe of these Namaqua Hottentots, those under Cornelius, and who muster now 1000 guns, have almost all of them lived the life of Bushmen. In fact, a savage loses his name, “Saen,” which is the Hottentot word, as soon as he leaves his Bushman’s life and joins one of the larger tribes, as those at Walfisch Bay have done; and therefore when I say Oerlam Hottentot or Bushman, the identically same yellow, flat-nosed, woolly-haired, clicking individual must be conjured up before the mind of my kind reader, but differing in dirt, squalor, and nakedness, according to the actual term employed; the very highest point of the scale being a creature who has means of dressing himself respectably on Sundays and gala-days, and who knows something of reading and writing; the lowest point, a regular savage.

Of the very smallest tribe of Bushmen I met none in my travels.

The Oerlams, then, some thirty years since, were near the Orange River, and Jonker was a chief of secondary importance amongst them. He fought his way into notoriety, and with success his little tribe received fresh recruits. The Namaqua Hottentots asked his assistance in attacking their northern neighbours, the Damaras, the pretext being constant quarrels, the ill-treatment that their kindred the Bushmen were receiving throughout the country, and last, not least, the fine herds of oxen that only waited to be plundered. Jonker accordingly trecked up, helped the Hottentots, and then settled alongside of them. His tribe now became larger and more efficient; he bought guns and horses from the Cape with the oxen that he stole, and continued robbing the Damaras on his own account.

In consequence of a representation sent by Sir James Alexander to two Missionary societies, stations were formed at Jonker’s head-quarters; and, in 1840, he had been so far influenced, that he agreed to leave the Damaras at rest, and to take care that the other Hottentots should do the same, for he had become by far the most important chief among them all. The way in which peace was made and kept for three years was highly creditable to the missionaries concerned in it; a great deal of trade was carried on in Jonker’s werft. A blacksmith’s shop was put up there, and iron things, assegais, choppers for cutting wood, beads, and so forth, were made in great quantities and sold for cattle, which again were exchanged with traders from the Cape for clothes, guns, and such-like things. But this did not long last; the traders sold their goods on credit; Jonker and the others became deeply in debt, and as the only way of paying it off involved themselves once again in the endless Damara quarrels. It appeared that one Damara chief and his tribe had been invited to a feast, and when these were attacked, and nearly all killed, Jonker after much persuasion got a commando together to revenge the injured party, and started. Once on a raid, the Hottentots did not much care whom they attacked, and began by robbing a werft under Kasheua, who had nothing to do with the matter in question, drove off their cattle, and rode after the natives—men, women, and children, shooting them down in all directions; this he repeated elsewhere till a large herd of cattle were brought together, and then he returned. Cornelius’s tribe of Hottentots hearing of Jonker’s success, followed his example; they rode in a friendly way to one of Kahikenè’s villages, (Mr. Kolbe’s friend at Schmelen’s Hope) and as the Damaras were employed in bringing them milk after the usual fashion, they attacked them and massacred all they could. From this time up to the Schmelen’s Hope affair, nothing else had occurred but fightings and retaliations between the Namaquas and Damaras.

I have the details in full of many of them, but they are all alike, with little more than the name and place varied. The consequence is, that although the Namaquas have no trade whatever with the Damaras, a steady export of Damara oxen goes on southwards to our colony in droves of from 200 to 800 head of cattle, which are bought here with far too little inquiry as to how they have been obtained. In fact I am assured in every quarter that of late years the news of a trader’s waggon being on the road has been the signal for a general raid upon the Damaras.

Jonker had up to the present time acted very fairly, but rather despotically to all the whites. He had always protected their persons and property, and had often stood their friend against the other Hottentots. Even the Damara missionaries were greatly indebted to him for the security they enjoyed; for the belief was, that any harm done to them would be instantly retaliated by the much-dreaded horsemen of the Hottentots. But Jonker liked to have his own way, and soon became heartily tired of advice and admonition; and more lately his plundering disposition and that of the Hottentots had become so thoroughly roused, that the rebuking presence of the missionaries was felt to be extremely irksome and galling, and he constantly expressed his determination to rid himself of them. Still they entertained no personal cause for alarm, but the attack on Schmelen’s Hope had placed the matter on a different footing, and their position was become avowedly very perilous.

The Damaras, from their suspicious nature, always believed the missionaries and other white people to be merely a species of Hottentot, and acting as spies to Jonker. They argue thus,—“You come and go without harm, passing through their country; you must therefore be as one of their people;” and now that the Damaras had been killed all round Mr. Kolbe, and he himself not murdered, they firmly believed that he went there merely as a decoy to bring Kahikenè within Jonker’s reach. There was nothing revolting in such a line of conduct in the Damara mind, for they seem to have no perceptible notion of right and wrong, but it was considered to be a simple fact, and as such they acted upon it, by entirely gutting the Schmelen’s Hope house the instant that Mr. and Mrs. Kolbe had made their hurried retreat from that place to Barmen.

Jonker had never, even when on the best terms with the whites, permitted any of them to enter Damara-land; the traders were peremptorily refused permission to go there; and more lately, when Mr. Hahn had got everything in readiness at Barmen to explore the interior, a troop of men were sent who drove away all his ride, pack, and waggon oxen, and detained them till the season for travelling was gone by; the reason being, that if a free intercourse were established between the whites and Damara-land, the Damaras would soon buy guns and weapons, which would place them on more equal terms with the Hottentots. It can easily then be conceived with what temper Jonker and the others had heard of my landing, and intention to explore; a plan of sending men down to Walfisch Bay, and to cut me off there, was, as I found out afterwards, publicly discussed. Help or countenance from the Damaras was the last thing I could expect, for they would treat me as a Hottentot, and again, my men were so totally undisciplined and devoid of pluck, and had already cast back so many longing regrets towards the Cape, that I felt that the least check, in the first instance, to my success would dash the whole enterprise.

At the Cape my plans had already been thwarted by the emigrant Boers, who chose to cut off all communication with the north by the one side of the Karrikarri desert; and here were the Oerlams, their offset as it were, trying to do the same on the other. The cases were as similar as could be; both parties were guided by British subjects,—both were effectually barring out civilisation and commerce from Central Africa, and what I felt most peculiarly vexatious, both were barring out _me_.

Now when I was in Cape Town there was a very general feeling that the interior of South Africa would become an extensive and open field for colonial commerce; since the discovery of Lake ’Ngami had shown a way to it. Hence it was doubly annoying that the emigrant Boers, whose treatment of the blacks was not very many shades better than that of the Oerlams, should not only keep us from these countries, but also generate a hatred on the part of the blacks against white faces, which years of intercourse on our part might not efface. His excellency the Governor, guided by these views, took advantage of my intended expedition, and also of Mr. Oswell’s, who was then in the neighbourhood of Lake ’Ngami, by formally requesting each of us to establish “friendly relations” on the part of the Cape Government with the black tribes who were subject to the attacks of these marauders. We were simply to convey expressions of good-will and strong assurances that the proceedings of the Boers met with no countenance on the part of the colony. I, therefore, knowing that Jonker still felt some fear of and respect for the Cape Government, wrote him a long letter in legible characters, which I was assured could be deciphered by some of his people. I told him how much displeasure the emigrant Boers had caused,—that his actions were as bad as theirs,—and that therefore he would probably be regarded with the same displeasure as they, if he persisted in attacking the Damaras now that he had been warned. I ended with an assurance that I should call the Damara chiefs together, and express to them what I had been requested to do in the case of the nations threatened by the emigrant Boers.

After I had written my letter in English, I had it translated into simple Dutch, and written on a magnificent sheet of paper, and, finding a messenger, sent it by him to Jonker, who lived fifty miles off, under a high range of hills which was distinctly visible from Barmen.

Mr. Hahn spoke highly of Hans, and strongly advised me not only to take him into my service, but also to buy up his stock of oxen and sheep, as it would save me infinite trouble; and this I did. I paid him, by cheque on Cape Town, 71_l._ for fifty oxen and a hundred sheep and goats. Of these about fifteen were more or less trained, and two or three were ride-oxen. It was the best bargain I could possibly have made, for a month’s barter among the Damaras would never have bought so many. The poverty of the land began to strike me, and the extreme inconvenience of having no currency, which makes bartering a very different matter from buying at a shop. I was grieved, too, to find that very many of my articles of exchange were ill-chosen and worthless, and also that I should require a very large troop of slaughter oxen, as hardly any game seemed to exist in this part of the country.

I only staid one whole day at Barmen, and then returned to my cart at Otjimbinguè, riding the sixty miles between the two places in a day and a half, which is very fair travelling for an ox.

I found everything in order under Andersson’s management. I heard that the night I left them some lions were roaring in the most awful manner close round the encampment. They seemed to be trying to get at the mules, who luckily did not break loose. The men were excessively frightened, as well they might be, for they could see nothing in the dark night, and the lions could at any moment have leaped over the slight fence into the midst of them. The morning showed their spoors, as they had crawled round, and close to the bushes that made the fence.

Hans was now formally installed in his office, and the breaking in of the new oxen for the waggons began. Yokes were borrowed from the missionary, and a heavy tree felled for the animals to draw. The first ox that we lassoed by the leg was very vicious: he threw himself down, and broke his thigh-bone, and I had to shoot him. The next sprained his ankle, and then got savage, and chased everybody, running upon three legs. He at length took refuge among some thick dabby bushes, which were thronged with hornets, and, what between the mad charges of the animal and the stings of the hornets, we were fairly beaten off, and had to leave him the whole day by himself.

This was a bad beginning; but after infinite labour three or four were inspanned: they were caught, then made fast between two tame oxen, and there yoked. The same operation was repeated for a few days; but we did not make much progress, the animals were so very fresh and vicious. It must be recollected that Damara cattle are far wilder animals than those we see in England, and infinitely more difficult to break in. There is a game-like and thorough-bred look about them. Many of them will face and charge a lion, as a buffalo would. My ride-ox, Frieschland, who had once been badly scratched and bitten, became furious if he heard a lion’s cry near him. Hans suggested driving them down to the Bay, and then, when a little tired by the journey, and accustomed to having a number of white men about them, they would be more submissive; I decided on trying this plan, and an early day was fixed for the start.

In the meantime we had ceased to stare at the strangeness of our new friends, the Damaras. Numbers came to my kraal every day, to look in at us in a friendly manner, and to see if there was anything for them to pilfer. Timboo began to make himself intelligible to them, and was quite delighted at each word or phrase that he found to be the same as in his own language.

The mules and horses were just recovering their condition, when that fatal scourge, the distemper, broke out amongst them. First one fine mule was found to be ill, and to stand with difficulty; a little froth gathered about his nose and mouth; in an hour he was lying on the ground, and in another hour dead. I was distressed beyond measure, as I knew the disease would not rest with him; neither did it,—two more mules were infected, and died also; but my last horse still was in good health. He gave me one good gallop after a giraffe. I saw him far off, coming down the long slope on the other side of the river, and cantered round him. As I got nearer and rode gently, I passed two other individuals, each stalking the same beast; one was my faithful Hans, and the other, a brute of a lion. I gallopped up to the giraffe, and put a large bullet through his ribs, which sickened him at once. I then rode in front of him, as he slowly kept on his road at a pace between a walk and a trot; but when I began to re-load, I found to my intense disgust, that my powder-horn had jolted out of my pocket. I could not turn the giraffe; he forged steadily on at about seven miles an hour, and, as the evening was closing in, I had to leave him to go where he pleased. I offered a good reward for my powder-flask, which I could not easily spare; and men, women, and boys ran off the next day on my horse’s spoor, and found it. I never carried a powder-flask loose in my pocket again. Other Damaras followed, and got my giraffe for themselves.

In return for the meat of the dead mules, the Damaras worked at strengthening my kraal, building me a hut in it, and digging a well. I had logs of wood or branches of trees planted upright in the ground at intervals all round, and plenty of dabby bushes wattled in between them. I made a good gate to the whole; for I wished to feel, that when Timboo, John Morta, and I remained behind, and the rest of the party were gone down to the Bay to fetch the waggons, I might have a place of security against pilferers and night marauders.

When the holes had to be dug for planting the uprights, I was infinitely amused at the adroitness with which the Damaras made them. I should have used spades, and, in default of those, I really do not know what I should have done, but the natives each took a common stick, pointed at one end, and, holding it like a dagger, broke up the ground with it; they then scratched out the loose earth with their left hand, working in this way until holes were burrowed deeper than the elbow, and only some six inches in diameter. Savages have so many occasions for scratching up the ground, as in digging for deep roots, for water, when the wells are partly choked up, and such-like, that the Damaras often carry a stick for the purpose among their arrows, in their quiver. The Bushmen do the same, and this method of digging is called in Dutch patois “crowing” the ground; thus, “crow-water,” means water that you have to crow for, and not an open well, or spring.

To return to my horse; the day arrived when he was doomed, and the fatal distemper made him its last victim. It appears that distemper is most fatal in the months of September, October, and November, and that it generally ceases with the first rains. The Hottentots were hardly able to contend with it at first, but by degrees places were found in the Hottentot country, one on a high table-mountain, where the sickly season could be passed by them in safety; some few horses had had the distemper and recovered, and these were kept at hand. Jonker had always a few of these about him. The exchange price of a horse among the Hottentots here is from eight to ten oxen, but they were hardly ever sold, as a horse is invaluable for marauding purposes. Cattle cannot be swept off by a few men without their aid, for as soon as the attack is made, the oxen run off in all directions, and it is quite out of the power of a man on foot to overtake and turn them, but they are quite at the mercy of a few horsemen.

There were large herds of zebras about, that came down nearly every afternoon to drink, but I soon gave over trying to shoot them. It here required a very long stalk, as the broad open river-bed had first to be crossed; and there were four or five hangers-on about the place with their guns, who would run down and have their shots; besides these, there were savages with their bows and arrows. Often, after an hour’s hard and careful manœuvring, the game was seen to be startled, and a ball from a zealous sportsman was whizzing at them from some ridiculous distance. The captain of the werft made good and steady bags of game with his bow and arrows, getting a zebra about every other day; but then he had to slave at it, and often follow the wounded animal’s spoor for great distances. The lions also killed several, and they supplied the natives pretty well. The Damaras were always on the look-out, and, guided by the vultures, appropriated in the morning whatever beasts the lions had left half eaten.

I employed myself in breaking in my remaining mules to carry packs and saddles; they were too few now to draw my cart, but use might be made of them in some other way. They were troublesome, sensible creatures, not kicking at random, but always with an aim. We had several tumbles, but succeeded in teaching them the elements of their duty.

It is much more difficult to break in animals in the open country than it is in an enclosure, because, when you let them go, which you cannot help doing sometimes, they gallop off, and it takes a very long time, often an hour, and plenty of running, to turn and catch them again; besides this, each chase scares and frightens them all the more.

Eight days had now passed since I had returned from Barmen, and a fortnight since the cart first arrived here, in Otjimbinguè. The time had been spent pretty actively, a great deal had been learnt, one very bad character weeded from among my men, and on the evening of the ninth day all the party, except Timboo, John Morta, and myself, went down under the care of Andersson to the waggons. They took all the oxen and a sufficiency of slaughter sheep with them, the remainder being in charge of John Allen, the English lad whom I found living with Hans, and doing work for him. John Allen was not yet in my service, but I engaged him afterwards; he was a most trustworthy, hard-working clever lad, and originally a sailor. There was now no anxiety about the food and safety of the Bay party, for Hans knew every inch of the road, and was thoroughly _au fait_ in all that related to oxen; but I did anticipate with much fear that the animals would never be broken in within any reasonable time. Everybody prophesied ill; but they had done so from the beginning, and I felt convinced that the hardest part of the journey, the first step, was over. I now had an establishment of oxen and men, and a few good servants amongst them, and it was precisely in possessing myself of an establishment that my great difficulty had lain.

There was a ride-ox for every man that went to the Bay, and they trotted off on the evening of October 17th. Stewartson went back with them. I was very sorry to part with him, as he had been an amusing comrade and of great service to me. My proposed expedition to Erongo had therefore to be postponed, and I determined to go there on Hans’s return.

I now lived in great part at Mr. Rath’s house, copying his dictionary of Damara words, and hearing the results of his observations on the people. Timboo continued learning the language; and I waited with anxiety for an answer from Jonker. The time passed pleasantly enough. I put my map of the country, so far as I had gone, into order, practised a good deal with my sextant, but made very little progress indeed in the language; I could find no pleasure in associating and trying to chat with these Damaras, they were so filthy and disgusting in every way, and made themselves very troublesome. My mules were watched and taken out to graze by two natives, whom I fed and paid at the rate of a yard of iron wire per month.

After a time, no reply having arrived from Jonker, I engaged a Hottentot, who had four or five trained oxen, to take me to Barmen. He was a respectable old gentleman, who spoke Dutch perfectly, and every now and then earned something by doing odd jobs for the missionaries. His honesty was unimpeachable; his family large; the ladies of it were thoroughly Hottentot, and the younger ones were dressed in leather skirts, that showed off their peculiar shapes to great advantage. Half of my things were put on ox-back, half on the mules. Timboo and I rode an ox and a mule between us. John Morta got a mount now and then, but he disliked both animals exceedingly. The mule curved his back and cocked his ears and switched his tail much more than was pleasant among the sharp rocks and abominable hakis thorns. These hakis thorns have overspread the whole country on this side of Tsobis; the tree is seldom more than fifteen feet high, with a short straight stem and a spreading bushy head; the thorns are all curved (hakis is the Dutch for hook), and, consequently, they do not hurt you like other thorns when you tumble into a bush, but only when you try to get _out_ of it. My hands were cruelly torn with these thorns, and as I was still in bad condition, all the scratches festered; it was very painful, I could hardly close my hands for pain. Besides these, there were the “black thorn” and the “white thorn” (I take the names as I heard them); the first produces crisp tasteless gum in great abundance, the other a very sweet gum, that tastes and feels exactly like jujubes, but has a great tendency to ferment.

We travelled on very quietly to Barmen, as John Morta was lame, and there was no hurry. We were four days in going there. I like gipsying work excessively, making a temporary home of a pretty spot and then going on without regret at leaving it.

A heavy thunder-storm swept by us, the first we had yet seen, and the harbinger of the rainy weather that was to provision me, as far as water was concerned, for my approaching journey. Deluges of rain and peals of thunder passed down the Swakop, such as only tropical countries can show.

Jonker’s answer reached me at Barmen; it was rambling and unsatisfactory, begging that I would come to his town and discuss the matters. The letter, instead of having been sent by a direct messenger, had been passed from one person to another, so that it had occupied a month in travelling from the blue hills that bounded the horizon before me. I thought this highly disrespectful, and hardly knew how to act, when three days later brought intelligence of a Hottentot raid of a more murderous and extensive description than any that had taken place previously. Eleven whole werfts had been swept away; the Hottentots had passed within twenty miles of where I was, and fugitives came from every side telling of their misfortunes. Now this was too bad; but I determined to have patience for a little time—a traveller must learn patience—and I wrote Jonker another civil letter. I took the ground of supposing that he had not understood my last one, and I explained myself over again. My intentions were simply these: if he still intended to obstruct the way to Damara-land, in spite of the long, the carefully worded and well indited letters that I had sent him, and which explained fairly enough what the feelings were with which the Cape Government regarded marauders like himself, I would try if I could not do something personally to further my own plans of exploring as I liked. I had no idea of undertaking a piece of Quixotism in behalf of the Damaras, who are themselves a nation of thieves and cut-throats; but I was determined that Jonker’s contempt of white men should not be carried so far as to jeopardise my own plans. In fact, if he did not care a straw for me, as the bearer of the wishes of our common Government, I would take my own line as an individual who had a few good guns at command, and would do my best to force my point.

Whatever I was to do must be postponed till my men came, so I busied myself as usual with the milder occupations of latitudes and longitudes, and mapping. I built a wall, on the top of which I mounted my tent; a hut was made opposite for my two men, and the whole was well bushed in with thorns. I dined most days with Mr. Hahn, who gave me most full and accurate information about both Damaras and Hottentots. Timboo improved very much in the language, and was the life and soul of the place, while John Morta watched over my kraal like a dragon, and made the very children cry out with terror when he scowled at them. Mr. Hahn and I had numbers of the natives up to question them about the country to the north, but very little could be learnt. At last a man came to Mr. Hahn and said there was a great lake ten days off, of which he heard I had been in search, and that he would take me there, and the name of the lake was Omanbondè. Its direction was somewhere between north and east. This was just what I wanted—a point to aim at, something to search for and explore. It seemed so very absurd to bring a quantity of men and oxen, and charge the scarcely penetrable hakis thorns which hemmed us in on every side, without something definite to go after. The name was pretty; the idea of a lake in this dusty sun-dried land was most refreshing, and, according to my temperament, I became immediately sanguine and determined to visit it.

A nation called the Ovampo were said to live in that direction, a very interesting agricultural people, who, according to Damara ideas, were most highly civilised. I wished much to go to them; they were the only people worth visiting that I could hear of; but I could find out very little regarding them. These savages were as ignorant of the country two days’ journey off as an English labourer usually is. My friend, who told me of Omanbondè, told me also that I could get to the Ovampo by way of that lake, and he told me much more. He mentioned most particularly a remarkable nation, who were deficient in joints both at the elbow and knees. They were therefore unable to lift anything to their mouths by themselves; but when they dined, they did so in pairs, each man feeding his _vis-à-vis_.

We had, after a long drought, a most terrific thunder-storm: the lightning flashed so continuously that I could read a newspaper by its light without stopping, my eye taking in enough words by one flash to enable me to read steadily on until the next one. It lightened in three different parts, and we were in the middle. There were some flowers in front of me, and the lightning was so vivid, and its light so pure, that I could not only see the flowers, but also their colours. I believe this is a very rare thing with lightning. There were four savages running in a line, about 100 yards off, on their way to their huts: after one of the flashes, only three remained; the other was struck dead. Mr. Hahn and I picked him up. It is curious how little a negro’s features are changed by death; there is no paleness. His widow howled all night; and was engaged to be married again the succeeding day.

The Swakop ran violently after this storm, pouring vast volumes of turbid and broken water for three days down what had hitherto been an arid sandy channel.

Mr. Hahn’s household was large. There was an interpreter, and a sub-interpreter, and again others; but all most excellently well-behaved, and showing to great advantage the influence of their master. These servants were chiefly Hottentots, who had migrated with Mr. Hahn from Hottentot-land, and, like him, had picked up the language of the Damaras. The sub-interpreter was married to a charming person, not only a Hottentot in figure, but in that respect a Venus among Hottentots. I was perfectly aghast at her development, and made inquiries upon that delicate point as far as I dared among my missionary friends. The result is, that I believe Mrs. Petrus to be the lady who ranks second among all the Hottentots for the beautiful outline that her back affords, Jonker’s wife ranking as the first; the latter, however, was slightly _passée_, while Mrs. Petrus was in full _embonpoint_. I profess to be a scientific man, and was exceedingly anxious to obtain accurate measurements of her shape; but there was a difficulty in doing this. I did not know a word of Hottentot, and could never therefore have explained to the lady what the object of my foot-rule could be; and I really dared not ask my worthy missionary host to interpret for me. I therefore felt in a dilemma as I gazed at her form, that gift of bounteous nature to this favoured race, which no mantua-maker, with all her crinoline and stuffing, can do otherwise than humbly imitate. The object of my admiration stood under a tree, and was turning herself about to all points of the compass, as ladies who wish to be admired usually do. Of a sudden my eye fell upon my sextant; the bright thought struck me, and I took a series of observations upon her figure in every direction, up and down, crossways, diagonally, and so forth, and I registered them carefully upon an outline drawing for fear of any mistake; this being done, I boldly pulled out my measuring-tape, and measured the distance from where I was to the place she stood, and having thus obtained both base and angles, I worked out the results by trigonometry and logarithms.

Mr. Hahn gave me a very interesting account of the first establishment of the Damara mission. He was permitted to leave Jonker’s place after much trouble, and encamped amongst the negroes in company with Mr. Rath and Mr. Bam. None of them knew a word of the language. No European had ever as yet learnt it, and the natives laughed at them, and annoyed them most excessively; they were mobbed and could do scarcely anything. At last, a lazy fellow, with his nose half-bitten off by a hyena, attached himself to them. He happened, besides being lazy, to be also a particularly intelligent man, and soon understood what the missionaries were driving at, when they endeavoured to get at the pronouns and tenses of this tongue of prefixes. He was of the greatest use to them, and, mainly through his aid, they have, after five or six years’ labour, fully acquired the language. Their grammar and dictionary were to have been sent in 1852, to the professor of philology at Bonn, and have probably been received by this time.

This man’s nose was seized by a hyena while he was asleep on his back—very unpleasant, and an excellent story to frighten children with. I could hardly believe it until a case occurred—quite _à-propos_. An old Bushwoman, who encamped under the lee of a few sticks and reeds that she had bent together, after the custom of those people, was sleeping coiled up close round the fire, with her lank feet straggling out in the dark, when a hyena, who was prowling about in the early morning, laid hold of her heel, and pulled her bodily half out of the hut. Her howls alarmed the hyena, who quitted his hold; and she hobbled up the next morning to us for plaisters and bandages. The very next night the old lady slept in the same fashion as before, and the hyena came in the same way, and tugged at her heel just as he had done the previous evening. The poor creature was in a sad state; and I and one of Mr. Hahn’s men sat up the next night to watch for the animal. I squatted in the shade of her house; my companion covered a side-path, and the woman occupied her hut as a bait. It was a grand idea, that of baiting with an old woman. The hyena came along the side-path, and there received his quietus.

All along the country about us was in the utmost confusion; but we were not annoyed at Barmen. Once indeed men came with the news that a body of Damaras had been seen prowling behind the rocks that form a broken background to the station; and we got everything ready for an attack, and watched through the night, but nothing came.

The fugitives from a lately dispersed werft were staying at Barmen; their cattle had been scattered all about the country, and three men went out on a three or four days’ excursion to look after them. When they returned they came to the station yelling and leaping, and the whole population turned out and joined them in their war-dance. I never witnessed a more demoniacal display; their outrageous movements, their barking cries, the brandishing of the assegais, and the savage exultation of man, woman, and child at the thoughts of bloodshed, formed a most horrible scene. We heard that the meaning of it all was, that the Damaras, who were looking after their lost cattle, had found two of the robbers in the act of driving some of their herd a few miles from this place, and that they had caught the men and killed them. The story seemed improbable on very many accounts, and as the scene of the slaughter was no great distance off, the interpreter and two or three men were sent on the spoor to find out what they could. They returned with the tale that in the middle of a river-bed they had come to a place where the sand was much trodden down, and some blood was dashed about, and from that spot footsteps led in two directions, and with each set of footsteps there was the mark of something being dragged; the first spoor led to a bush on one side of the river where a man lay dead, the other to a thick hakis thorn cover, but nothing could be seen under it though the sand was disturbed. Looking further they found a spoor that went thence by itself right up the river-bed. The interpreter followed it; it was that of a person crawling and dragging himself, and the wretched man whose track it was was found a mile off under a tree in a most pitiable state, with the back of his neck cut through to the bone. It was in the forenoon of the day before that he had been wounded, and it was now past the early morning, but he was still able to speak. He said—and further inquiries corroborated the story—that he and the man that lay dead were loitering about digging roots, when they saw a fire and the three Damaras, from Barmen, eating meat over it; an ox lay slaughtered by their side. They offered to feed them if they would help to carry as much meat to Barmen as they could, so they agreed and went on. Arriving at the river-bed, the three men fell upon their two porters, knocked them down with their knob kerries, and struck them till they were nearly insensible, and then hacked at their necks with their assegais. This one was left for dead, but he recovered, and succeeded in crawling from under the thorn bush to where he was found. The tenacity of life in a negro is wonderful. The object of the murder proved to be simply this—The three Damaras had found cattle belonging to their werft but not to themselves; they were hungry and killed an ox to have a good gorge, and then, not knowing how to get out of the scrape of having killed their friends’ cattle, they determined to lay the guilt upon these two unhappy men, and therefore murdered them. It would never do to leave this man to die where he was, so I went with water, a litter and some bandages. The first man’s throat was cut quite through, and he had long been dead; the second man I found under the shadow of a tree with his head between his two hands on his knees and insensible, but we roused him up, his lips were cracked with thirst and he could not speak. I could never have believed that a man with a wound like this could have survived an hour; all the back sinews of his neck were severed to the bone, and the cut went quite round his neck, but only skin deep near the jugular vein and windpipe. The head was perfectly loose upon his shoulders, and heavily bruised, and his skin was torn with the hakis thorns. I put him on the litter, but his head rolled so shockingly from side to side as the litter moved that I was obliged to make two cushions of grass, one on each side of his head, to steady it. At Barmen he was not able to give any further account, as he became delirious and died in a few hours.

I had sent messages to the different chiefs trying to explain what the instructions were that I had received at Cape Town. The way of authenticating messages in this part of the world is curious; it is by giving some token to the messenger which he shows as a guarantee that he really comes from the person he professes to represent, just as our ancestors who were not clever at writing sent their signet rings. I could not tell what to send; it ought to be something very characteristic and not worth stealing—an article that neither grease, rain, nor dirt could spoil, and impossible to be broken. All my things were reviewed, but none were suitable except a great French cuirassier’s sword in a steel scabbard, one that I had bought years before in Egypt. This was just the thing. The Damaras adore iron as we adore gold; and the brightness of the weapon was charming in their eyes. They had no idea of its use, as swords are unknown to them, but they considered it as a large knife. I therefore girded my messenger with it in the presence of his companion, and Mr. Hahn translated for me a short message to this effect—That I came from a great chief and a large nation who did not rob as the Namaquas did, but wished to be friends and not enemies with the Damaras, and to send traders into their country; that our land was very fertile, and we did not want any other, but we wanted cattle, and our traders would bring iron and buy them; that the Damaras must not think when our people come that they are spies, for they are friends, and they must treat them kindly. The messengers then repeated what they had heard, to show that they recollected it, and were given a sheep to cut up and carry for their provision, and started off. I received civil answers on the messengers’ return; but the Damaras are all so hostile to each other, tribe against tribe, that I found it impossible to bring the chiefs together. Still I was glad that I had sent my messages, as it was a demonstration, and that might be of some immediate good to me.