CHAPTER V.

Personnel.—Commissariat.—Daily Allowances.—Start on the Expedition.—Damara Obtuseness.—Inability to count.—Information withheld.—Kahikenè sends to us.—Arrive on the high Tableland.—Superstitions on Food.—Meet Kahikenè.—His Difficulties.—Gives me Advice.—Information about the Road.—Four Oxen stolen.—The Culprits are punished.—Recognising lost Oxen.—Hear of another Road.—Reach Omatako.—African Puma.—Eshuameno.—Chipping the front Teeth.—View from the Hill.—Ja Kabaca.—Climb Omuvereoom.—A Snake.—Seriously obstructed by the Thorns.—Reach Otjironjuba.—How to make Soap.—We catch some Bushmen.—Learn a little and travel on.—Doubts about our route.—Arrive at a Werft.—Are guided onwards.—Omanbondè.—Hippopotami.

The morning of March the 3rd found us packed up, and starting for our exploring journey. We tugged along the heavy Swakop sand, and outspanned after three hours at a fountain, passing at length into a country which, I believe, no European eye had ever before witnessed.

I may now review our caravan: it consisted of two waggons, both filled with things; the large one had a solid deck over all, and was curtained into two compartments; Andersson slept in the front one and I in the back if the ground was wet. Spare guns were lashed inside this waggon, and canvass bags for books and for other etceteras, but we could never make the waggon a place to read in with any comfort, for it was far too full of articles of exchange. The small waggon was the receptacle for the men’s sleeping clothes, besides its regular freight. Nobody slept in it except during heavy rains. John St. Helena drove the large waggon and led the way; Phlebus the small one. John Williams, Onesimus, and John Allen were all engaged as leaders, but in practice Onesimus always led the large waggon and any odd Damara led the other. Hans, John Morta and Timboo were the remaining servants. My natives were constantly changing. I am quite unable to give the names of the Ghou Damups, for two reasons: the first, perhaps a sufficient one, is that they are totally unpronounceable to any European mouth, and altogether beyond the powers of our alphabet to represent;—the second, that they were invariably christened afresh by my men as soon as they entered my service. The sort of names these negroes answered to will perhaps convey a better notion of their character and style than a longer description—there was a “Grub,” a “Scrub,” a “Nicodemus,” a “Moonshine,” and a “Toby.” The Damaras generally retained their own names; they were much the more stylish of the two. My Damara party at starting was something as follows:—

Name. | Use. | Where from. Kambanya | Generally useful | “Given” me by Mr. Hahn. “Rhinoster” | A Guide | Hired from Otjimbinguè. “Bill” | Andersson’s henchman. | Picked up by chance. Kernerootie | { Excellent runner, } | Sent me by Mr. Rath. | { used on every } | | { emergency } | Kahoni | Anything | Picked up by chance. Old Kahoni | Nothing | ” ” ” His Son | Cattle Watcher | ” ” ” Piet from Mozambique | Conversational | { Timboo’s friend, a | | { runaway slave.

The grown-up ladies were the wives of Kambanya, “Rhinoster,” and old Kahoni. There were numbers of occasions on which I should have turned old Kahoni away, if he had not been possessed of a little daughter, the nicest, merriest, and slimmest of Damara girls, about eight or nine years old. She won my heart, and I was obliged to tolerate the rest of the family that I might retain her. Besides these twelve I have mentioned, there were two or three others, hangers-on, whom I have forgotten, and perhaps never knew, and the women had three babies, so my party may be considered as about ten Europeans and eighteen natives, or twenty-eight in all.

As regards commissariat, my biscuit and every kind of vegetable food was eaten up. I had much too great a weight to carry to be enabled to lade the waggons with provisions also. I had plenty of tea, coffee, and a very little sugar; there were some few trifles besides. The oxen and sheep we drove with us were to be our sustenance, and they alone, excepting now and then a chance head of game. If these oxen strayed by night, and were lost, we should be little better than the crew of a ship in the broad Pacific, who had broached their last cask. The charge of these quadrupeds was now to be my anxiety and care, day and night, for a loose ox in Damara-land is as quickly appropriated as a dropped sovereign in the streets of London.

In estimating cattle as so many days’ provision, the calculation I acted on was as follows. A sheep gives twenty meals, no bread or other vegetables being allowed, and a man cannot work _well_ with less than two meals a day. A sheep therefore feeds ten people for one day. An average ox is equivalent to seven sheep, and it therefore feeds seventy people for one day, or thirty-five for two, or twenty-four for three. I cannot accurately say what the quantity of food is that different kinds of game afford, as waste always goes on when one is slaughtered, but, as a rough allowance, I considered—

1 Springbok, or roebuck equal to 1 sheep. 1 Hartebeest ” 2 ” 1 Zebra, or gnu, or gemsbok ” 4 ” 1 Giraffe ” 2 oxen. 1 Black or Keitloa rhinoceros ” 3 ” 1 White ” 4 ”

I possessed seventy-five oxen and one calf; of these fifty-seven had been inspanned, including the ride and pack-oxen. My ride-oxen were Frieschland, Ceylon, Timmerman, Buchau and Fairland. Andersson had Spring. All these would also carry packs as a matter of course, but there were others simply pack-oxen. Hans had three ride-oxen, six cows, and five calves; John Allen had two ride-oxen. There were also two heifers that belonged to some of the other men. Gross total of oxen, and cows and calves, ninety-four; but my own flock of sheep was reduced to twenty-four. I had therefore (allowing twenty slaughter oxen) full provisions for two and a half months for all my party, independently of game. This was not nearly as much as I should have liked, but I trusted to buy more on my journey, and also to get some shooting.

_March 4th._—This was our most difficult day: the Swakop ran through a gorge so broken and narrow, as not to admit a waggon, and the only road we could find out of it lay for some considerable distance along a narrow ridge of jagged rock with a precipitous fall on our left. Hakis thorns and ravines made the country quite impenetrable everywhere else; our road was horrible; the waggon crashed and thundered and thumped, but somehow or other got safe over. If I had to undergo two or three more such days of journeyings, the waggons would have to be left behind. The oxen were dreadfully wild; there was no guiding or restraining them down hill, but they tossed themselves about and charged like wild buffaloes; it still took us an hour and a half to inspan the two waggons, and every man was actively employed. We went only three hours, and slept at the furthest watering-place that Hans and I had explored. Now we had to trust to the guides, whose ideas of time and distance were most provokingly indistinct; besides this, they have no comparative in their language, so that you cannot say to them, “which is the _longer_ of the two, the next stage or the last one?” but you must say, “the last stage is little; the next, is it great?” The reply is not, it is a “little longer,” “much longer,” or “very much longer;” but simply, “it is so,” or “it is not so.” They have a very poor notion of time. If you say, “Suppose we start at sunrise, where will the sun be when we arrive?” they make the wildest points in the sky, though they are something of astronomers, and give names to several stars. They have no way of distinguishing days, but reckon by the rainy season, the dry season, or the pig-nut season. When inquiries are made about how many days’ journey off a place may be, their ignorance of all numerical ideas is very annoying. In practice, whatever they may possess in their language, they certainly use no numeral greater than three. When they wish to express four, they take to their fingers, which are to them as formidable instruments of calculation as a sliding-rule is to an English school-boy. They puzzle very much after five, because no spare hand remains to grasp and secure the fingers that are required for “units.” Yet they seldom lose oxen: the way in which they discover the loss of one, is not by the number of the herd being diminished, but by the absence of a face they know. When bartering is going on, each sheep must be paid for separately. Thus, suppose two sticks of tobacco to be the rate of exchange for one sheep, it would sorely puzzle a Damara to take two sheep and give him four sticks. I have done so, and seen a man first put two of the sticks apart and take a sight over them at one of the sheep he was about to sell. Having satisfied himself that that one was honestly paid for, and finding to his surprise that exactly two sticks remained in hand to settle the account for the other sheep, he would be afflicted with doubts; the transaction seemed to come out too “pat” to be correct, and he would refer back to the first couple of sticks, and then his mind got hazy and confused, and wandered from one sheep to the other, and he broke off the transaction until two sticks were put into his hand and one sheep driven away, and then the other two sticks given him and the second sheep driven away. When a Damara’s mind is bent upon number, it is too much occupied to dwell upon quantity; thus a heifer is bought from a man for ten sticks of tobacco; his large hands being both spread out upon the ground, and a stick placed on each finger, he gathers up the tobacco; the size of the mass pleases him, and the bargain is struck. You then want to buy a second heifer: the same process is gone through, but half sticks instead of whole ones are put upon his fingers; the man is equally satisfied at the time, but occasionally finds it out and complains the next day. Once, while I watched a Damara floundering hopelessly in a calculation on one side of me, I observed Dinah, my spaniel, equally embarrassed on the other. She was overlooking half a dozen of her new-born puppies, which had been removed two or three times from her, and her anxiety was excessive, as she tried to find out if they were all present, or if any were still missing. She kept puzzling and running her eyes over them backwards and forwards, but could not satisfy herself. She evidently had a vague notion of counting, but the figure was too large for her brain. Taking the two as they stood, dog and Damara, the comparison reflected no great honour on the man. Hence, as the Damaras had the vaguest notions of time and distance, and as their language was a poor vehicle for expressing what ideas they had, and, lastly, as truth-telling was the exception and not the rule, I found their information to be of very little practical use.

I had spent more hours than an untravelled European would easily give me credit for, in questioning and cross-questioning Damaras about the distances we had to go over. Mr. Hahn and Mr. Rath severally, at Barmen and Otjimbinguè, had helped me to the utmost of their ability, and yet, on starting, I could not tell whether Omanbondè lay five days off or six weeks. As a proof of the extreme difficulty of worming out facts from the Damaras, I may mention that Okandu Fountain, which lay only five miles from Schmelen’s Hope, and where we slept the first day, was unknown by the missionaries. At Schmelen’s Hope itself there is only vley (pool) water and wells, which a dry season might exhaust, and though abounding in grass, trees, and garden land, the place was reluctantly abandoned, and the head-quarters of the Mission were established at Barmen, which has much fewer natural advantages. When Mr. Kolbe, at a subsequent period, went to Schmelen’s Hope, he merely occupied it as a branch station. Now, constant inquiries have been made for years as to whether there were any fountains near Schmelen’s Hope, but without success, and yet this one, lying in full sight and right in the middle of the river-bed, had never been spoken of to the Missionaries or discovered by them. This is not at all an isolated case of the difficulty of getting the information you want from the savages; they are intensely stupid, and lie for lying’s sake. One man at Otjimbinguè told me, that if I started now to Omanbondè, and travelled as fast as I could, it would take me so long that I should be an old man when I came back.

My plan of journeying was this; to move steadily on, and whenever I came across water, after three hours’ travel, to stop; in this way my oxen would keep fresh for any severe exertion they might be called upon to make, and I should also have more time to learn particulars about the country, which would be of essential use if I returned in the dry season. The necks of the oxen had also to become hardened to the yoke; if a raw was established the beast would be useless.

On the third day’s travel, the long slope, which is the water-shed of the Swakop, was surmounted, and quite new scenery lay before us. In front rose the two magnificent cones of Omatako, each appealing as perfect as that of Teneriffe; to the far left were many broken mountains, some of which must look down upon Erongo; more northerly lay the long escarpment of another Ghou Damup mountain, Koniati; and to the westward of north, a very distant blue hill was seen, which had to be passed on our way to Omanbondè. The sandy soil was covered with thin dry grass, and a scanty thorn-coppice, without under-wood, overspread the land.

As we travelled on, some messengers met us. They were sent from the Chief Kahikenè, who begged me to visit him. He lay at a large vley in front, whither he had moved to meet me. The messenger brought a magnificent black ox as a present from him; it was larger than any in my drove, though I had some fine ones amongst them.

We had now finally lost sight of Jonker’s hills and all the broken ground of the Swakop, the summits of whose highest mountains were below us. We had mounted steadily up, and were journeying on a high plateau 6000 feet above the level of the sea, as measured by a boiling-point thermometer. On this plateau Omatako, Koniati, and other hills stood. Almost immediately after leaving a large tributary of the Swakop, we came upon a river-bed, running in exactly the opposite direction, and this we followed; it is called Okaroschekè, or “naked” river—the story being, that one rainy season, when the water was flowing waist-high, some Damara women tried to cross it to get at the berry-trees which grew on the opposite bank, and stripped to do so, leaving their skin aprons on the ground; when they were on the other side a torrent of water came down which swept their aprons away, and left them without clothing. The Damaras are very particular about wearing something, however little it may be, and look upon complete nakedness as a great disgrace. Another somewhat refined practice that they have is, that no hunger will drive them to eat raw or even underdone meat. They have numberless superstitions about meat, which are very troublesome: in the first place, each tribe, or rather family, is prohibited from eating cattle of certain colours, savages “who come from the sun” eschewing sheep spotted in a particular way, which those “who come from the rain” have no objection to. As there are five or six different “eandas” or descents, and I had men from most of them with me, I could hardly ever kill a sheep that everybody would eat; many were martyrs for a long time to their consciences, but hunger converted them all at last. Goats are an abomination to every Damara, whatever his eanda may be. Another superstition is that meat is common property. Every slaughter is looked upon as a kind of sacrifice or festal occasion. Damaras cannot conceive that people should eat meat as their daily food. Their chiefs kill an ox when a stranger comes, or half a dozen oxen on a birth or circumcision feast, or any great event, and then everybody present shares the meat. When I stayed near werfts I could not at first ensure my men getting food enough to eat, for the strange Damaras came about them and begged their share, “cursing” them if they refused. The curse is supposed to have a withering and blighting effect. For this reason meat is never an article of exchange at anything like its real value in Damara-land. A freshly killed ox would not buy a live sheep. Damaras have a great respect, almost reverence, for oxen. They keep them to look at, as we keep fallow deer; and though a nine-shilling gun will buy five fine oxen, yet that is no proof of the cheapness of cattle with the Damaras, but rather of the dearness of guns amongst them. Any man, not himself possessed of cattle, may be murdered without fear of the consequences, if payment of two oxen be made to his relations, as that by the custom of the country is amply sufficient blood-money. Milk, the great article of diet among the richer Damaras, though used in such profusion, can rarely be bought, for there are some superstitions about it also. Each Damara, who lives entirely or chiefly on milk, the rest of his food being pig-nuts, drinks from one to two gallons daily. Now it is reasonable to suppose that a day’s provision of meat would be exchangeable for one of milk, especially as meat is more prized, and the greater dainty of the two; but it is not so, nor indeed anything like it. If a head of game be shot and bartered with the natives, it will be found a difficult matter to obtain a single gallon of milk for a whole gnu or zebra. Sweet milk can hardly be ever obtained, because Damaras, like all other milk-drinking nations, use it only when sour, and the cow is milked into the tainted vessels. They firmly believe that a cow’s milk will fail her if they milk her into anything freshly washed and clean. The milk of these cows actually does fail them if the calf be taken away. It is the same with those in parts of South America.

_March 12th._—We had arrived at the place where Kahikenè waited for us. He and about forty magnificently made and well-armed Damaras were standing under the trees. As the waggons came near, the men all fell into a single file, according to their usual custom, which Kahikenè headed, and they walked up to me. He had quite the manners of a chief, and received me very well. I gave him some gilt ornaments as presents, which, although he was in mourning, he put on in compliment to me: the Damaras strip off their ornaments when in mourning. He had been in great distresses of late. After Jonker had attacked him, and scattered his people at Schmelen’s Hope, Omagundè’s son, who was encamped two days in front of us, followed up the attack, and killed some of his children, and took others prisoners, leaving only one lad with him. The greater number of his oxen were also taken, and he was left almost destitute, with but the remnant of a tribe, and was now about to make a last desperate attack upon his enemy. A few years ago, Kahikenè was the most powerful chief in Damara-land, and, like Katjimasha, had once allied himself with, and afterwards had separated from, Jonker. Subsequent to this separation, Jonker attacked him, and he made a bold retaliation the next night. Ever since that he had been a marked man with the Hottentots, and werft after werft of his had been swept away, until he was reduced to the condition in which I found him.

He was the only friend among the Damaras that the missionaries ever had, and his friendliness and frankness to me and my men interested all of us without exception most thoroughly in his favour.

He had brought his men together to make one quick and last attack upon the werft of Omagundè’s son, and the usual superstitious ceremony was gone through of dragging a berry bush after him wherever he went. I offered to go to Omagundè’s son and see if I could not get his children and some oxen back for him; for it is a very common custom among the Damaras that when one tribe has utterly ruined another they should then give them back a part of what they had taken, as an act of clemency, which should secure them against retaliation; and it was but natural that Damara chiefs should pay some little deference to my mediation, since I had just checked the Hottentots from laying hands on their cattle. But Kahikenè was too proud to receive back part and compromise the matter, though he said that he knew his expedition was but a forlorn hope, and that he would be killed. He said that his best soldiers were gone, and that those with him were but arrant cowards, who would leave him at the first danger. He made these complimentary speeches quite loud, while all his men were sitting around us. He showed us all the scars and cuts with which he was covered, and gave the history of them in an easy chatty way. He criticised my arrangements, and said that I was much too careless in the way I travelled and encamped—that I ought never to allow many Damaras to mix in with my men, because if they made one of their sudden attacks I should be overpowered directly. He recommended the greatest caution in trusting the Damaras. I knew too well the truth of much that he said, but my waggon-men were far too negligent for me to keep up anything like the discipline I should have wished amongst them. At very little trifles they were ready to show discontent, and if I had pushed them too much they would have turned back and left me. Kahikenè assured me, and I had heard from other quarters also, that Omagundè’s son would not let us pass through his country. I wished to send messengers to him, but no Damara dared to go. His feelings were anything but favourable towards whites; not long before he had sent men who stole Mr. Hahn’s cattle. After a great deal of expostulation had passed he condescended to return them, but cut their tails off before doing so, and kept them as trophies.

I asked Kahikenè about the country ahead, and he gave me much information very concisely and well; his intellect and manner contrasted most strongly with those of the other Damaras. Indeed a chief over many men, whether savages or not, must have something in him, or he could never keep them together. He said that he used to send trading excursions to the Ovampo, but not by Omanbondè, and to quite a different part of their country to that which I proposed visiting. His trading parties kept alongside but far from the sea. There were different points on the route from which it could be seen. The journey to the Ovampo occupied two months (moons). The men stayed one month there and then returned. The Damaras were friendly along that route, and so were they at Omanbondè, but between where we then were and Omanbondè, Omagundè’s tribe cut off all communication. He said that the road was very broken, and that I should never get my waggons along it.

An incident occurred in which Kahikenè behaved very well to me. One morning three of my best front oxen and another slaughter ox were gone. They were instantly spoored, and the tracks of Damaras driving them found by their sides. I called Kahikenè up and told him that I did not for a moment believe that he was privy to the theft, but that they were taken from me when under his protection, and that he must get them back. I am sure that he was very much touched by my giving him credit for sincerity, for of late he had been hearing of nothing else but distrust and desertion on every side. He sent instantly after the cattle, and half a dozen of my own Damaras went also. My men returned after a day’s absence, as they were afraid of going further, but Kahikenè’s men had kept to the spoor. Intelligence at length came that three of the four oxen were recovered, and one front ox had been killed; six thieves were taken and were detained a little distance off till further orders. Kahikenè regretted extremely the loss of the front ox; he said he knew that it was as disastrous an accident to our team as cutting off a leg is to a man, but that any oxen of his that I chose to take were quite at my service. Then as to what should be done with the thieves; he looked about him till a stout horizontal bough of one of the large camelthorn trees caught his eye, and he proposed to hang them in a row upon it. Against this scheme I used all my eloquence, as I did not like such strong measures; at length Kahikenè stated the case fairly enough; he said the thieves had been guilty both to me and to him—to me for the theft, to him for their audacity in taking oxen when I was under his protection; that the punishment due to them for the first part of the matter was my affair, and that I could remit it or not as I pleased, but that for his part he must vindicate his own rights. I could of course make no answer to this, so he sent men who clubbed or assegaied four of the culprits, but two escaped. I never could learn the full particulars of the matter. Of the two that escaped one was brought to me a few days after, when I was on the road; he was brought in the evening, and I did not like punishing and letting him go then, as he might revenge himself in the night. It is not easy to secure a powerful supple-limbed negro, so that he cannot slip loose, but in this case I hand-cuffed his wrists, one on each side of the stem of a tree, and made my fire near him that he might not be too much chilled during the night, and in the morning I gave him a most severe flogging and let him go. One of the four culprits who had been left for dead we also found. He was fearfully bruised with the clubs, and perfectly stripped, but had crawled to the same watering-place—a vley—that I was encamped at. His punishment had been, I thought, amply sufficient, and I gave him a meal, and let him go, but I sadly fear, from what I heard long subsequently, that some of my Damaras followed and assegaied him.

Kahikenè’s men had in the meantime frightened mine about Omagundè’s people, and they were quite panic-struck and mutinous, and fairly refused to go any further. Andersson here was of the greatest assistance to me. He would have accompanied me alone, and Timboo I think would not have failed us. The waggon-men knew I was in their power. If the cattle had been moderately tame, and the country at all open, Andersson and I could ourselves have taken the waggons back to Barmen, and, leaving them there, ridden on; but the character of the expedition and of the country made us as dependent on a large body of men as a frigate is upon a large crew. Hans had not been long enough with me to become thoroughly attached to my cause, and he had a very disagreeable time of service, owing to the laziness and jealousies of the waggon-men, and would then have been very glad to have discontinued it. I earnestly longed to place a broad tract of country between me and the Mission stations, and then I knew that the waggon-men would hesitate before they ran away and crossed it alone. I persuaded the men, instead of going north through the hostile country, to turn to the left and travel westwards to Kahikenè’s head-quarters. We passed by a great many kraals, in few of which were there more than ten houses, generally only five or six—probably 100 head of cattle and not more, belonged to each kraal. Of these, twenty or thirty were the chief’s own property, taken care of by the people who occupied the huts, together with the other oxen which were their own. The perquisites for taking care of the chief’s cattle consisted of the milk of the cows, and occasionally a calf or lamb.

The Damaras have a wonderful faculty of recollecting any ox that they have once seen, and whenever I came to a new werft the natives always went up and down among my oxen to see if any that had been stolen from them were among the number. I found a great advantage in having bought the majority of mine from Hans, for they had been in his hands for four years, and no Damara could lay a claim to any of them, but in those I bought myself I had to be very careful, as they were pretty sure to have been stolen at some time or another, and might, according to the custom of the land, be reclaimed at any moment by their former possessors.

Hans and John Allen were very quick at recollecting oxen: I never could succeed in doing so myself: but it is perfectly essential to a traveller here that some trustworthy persons of his party should be able to pick out his own oxen from any drove in which they have become mixed; for, depend upon it, the strange Damaras will give no help on those occasions. When fresh oxen are bought, the old ones butt and fight them for a few days before admitting them into their society, and during the time of probation the new oxen are always trying to run off and get home again. Now the tribe from whom they were bought may be lying at eight or ten scattered kraals, to any one of which the ox that had been bought but a few hours before and seen for a few minutes only, may have made his escape. He has to be picked out from among 500 or 600 head of cattle, and this the Damaras can do with perfect certainty. They do not seem to know the sheep or to care much about them, but their thoughts and conversation run upon oxen for the greater part of the day.

By dint of excessive badgering and cross-questioning I found out that it might be possible after all to turn Omagundè’s flank. I had now two or three Damaras who had once been that way, and my men were willing to go on. We bought a few oxen here. Some zebras were shot and given to Kahikenè’s people. He made a last endeavour to persuade me not to go up the country, but in vain; and we separated with some regret, I going on my journey and he to his hopeless attempt against Omagundè’s people. I took a few men from his werft, and by dint of constant bartering, started with 100 oxen, twenty-seven goats and thirty sheep. Poor Kahikenè! of all the Damaras I saw in my year and a half journey, none had so thoroughly ingratiated himself with my party as he had. We tolerated a few others, but became really attached to him.

_March 18th._—The high cones of Omatako were full in front of us, and the next wells were a long distance on the other side; however we met with pools of rain-water and trekked on in three or four hour stages. At one place John Morta was beginning to make his fire under a bush, when he retreated in great alarm, as he found the place occupied by a puff-adder. The next day we saw our first herd of wild animals; I counted about 100 hartebeests in one place, and Andersson 400 gnus in another. We shot some game, and Andersson started what he thought was a puma. The natives talk a great deal about such an animal existing; they describe it as a very shy creature, and hardly ever moving about in the day-time, of the same colour and general shape as a lion, but smaller, and with no mane. The animal Andersson caught a glimpse of answered the description perfectly. It might have been a young lion, but its movements were not those of a cub. It jumped up close by him, but was among the thick bushes and out of sight before there was time to fire.

We had a very fatiguing day in going round Omatako. The ground was open, but heavy, and the oxen sadly exhausted. We came to a small river-bed on the other side of it, which Andersson had reached in his long ride from Schmelen’s Hope, and encamped by a pool of water that remained in that part of its course. The stream was running breast high with water when Andersson saw it, but it was now utterly dry.

The next day, after crossing the river-bed with difficulty, as its banks were so high, we arrived at the wells that we had heard of, and to which the Damaras guided us straight enough. Now was the question how to proceed; we had been travelling due north from Kahikenè’s werft, but the next certain water-place was by a hill (Ja Kabaca) that looked very distant indeed to the north-east, and the sun was so powerful and the ground so sandy, that vley water could in no way be depended on. In front of us, to the north, was the hill Eshuameno, so called from a grand feast the Damaras once held there, on occasion of “chipping” the front teeth of a number of children. Most negroes, as is well known, chip their teeth, and in different ways, according to their tribe. The Damaras knock out a wedge-shaped gap between their two front teeth; the ladies say, it makes them lisp charmingly.

I left the waggons at the wells and rode on with a couple of men for five hours, till I got to Eshuameno. We found no water there, but off-packed among some thick thorns, where the most pitch dark of nights brought us to a stand-still. In the morning I went up the hill, both to view the country and to get bearings of Ja Kabaca, by which I could determine its distance from the waggons, and whether or no it would be practicable to reach it in a single stage, should water fail us. I was very anxious about the matter, so I took a protractor up the hill with me, and protracted all my bearings on the spot, by which I had a better idea of the country than I could obtain before for want of well-selected observing stations. I had a very wide prospect indeed from the top of Eshuameno. Southwards I could clearly see Diambotodthu, which is only some twenty-five miles from Schmelen’s Hope. Northward extended a wide flat of the most barren country. There seemed to be no grass whatever upon it, but it was studded over with low scrubby bushes; while eastwards, in which direction we had to travel, the ground was covered with trees and grass. The results of the survey were satisfactory to me, and I determined to risk going across the plain to Ja Kabaca. I was assured of plenty of water being found there. As we returned the rain fell in torrents, in a perfect sheet of water. This was delightful, as it would fill the vleys for us; but we felt rather cold and hungry when we arrived, after our five hours’ ride through it. The little waggon was too full of things for the men to use it for shelter, but they had contrived some tenting, which was sufficient for the occasion.

_March 22nd._—We were again _en route_. In four hours a fine vley was discovered, and there of course I stopped. I cannot take liberties with my oxen; they are disheartened as easily as my men, and I am always afraid of their sticking in the bushes. As for the men, they drink like fishes. I can only carry four meals of water for them.

The next day we arrived at some large wells, in which again there was a sufficiency of water. The cattle were very restless at night, and constantly straying; Hans preferred their lying loose and picking up grass during the night to making a kraal, but I was sadly afraid that some morning they might be missing, and have fallen into the hands of Omagundè’s people. Except my cattle, I had not one day’s provision; no biscuit, no flour, nor anything of the sort; I felt that I had now committed myself in earnest. There was no certain water between these wells and where I first met Kahikenè. A month of drought would exhaust every vley on the road, and then unless I rode right through Omagundè’s country, the journey would be quite impossible even for ride-oxen. I told a great many stories, I am afraid, to my men. I impressed upon them the certainty of soon arriving at a better country, and talked a great deal about some large fountains near Omatako, as a baiting place on our way home, but which I had not really much faith in.

The next day, by starting early and keeping a steady even pace, we arrived at Ja Kabaca, and passing along its rugged base and between it and Omuvereoom, arrived late in the afternoon at a wretched vley, which we discovered after an anxious search. It would be a waste of time to enlarge on the horrible stuff one often had to drink at these small vleys, as it can so easily be conceived. Fancy a shallow pool from ten to twenty yards across, and from six to twelve inches deep, in which a herd of wild animals, say fifty zebras, have been splashing and rolling themselves all night, and which they have left in every respect like the water pumped out of a farm-yard; and where wild animals are wanting, the oxen, in spite of every precaution, will do the same.

The two mountains between which we were now encamped, Omuvereoom and Ja Kabaca, were said to be great strongholds of Bushmen and Ghou Damup, so Hans, Andersson, and I, made an expedition up the first of these, to see if we could catch any, and persuade or compel them to guide us. The first name means “a door,” or “a pass;” the second is derived from a proper name.

Since leaving Kahikenè we had not seen a single person beyond our own party. We rode our oxen to the foot of Omuvereoom, which was about an hour and a half off, and leaving them with our Damaras, went up a hill, in some parts the most rugged that I ever climbed. We first steered for a green patch, in which the telescopes had shown us water: there we found deserted huts, but nothing else, neither could we see any recent tracks; but at one place, hearing what we thought was a halloo, Hans and I scampered up hill after it. I was utterly blown, and had just mounted up on a kind of natural step, when, while I was balancing myself, I found that I had put my foot on the tail of a great dark-green snake, who was up in an instant, with his head as high as my chest, and confronting me. I had, though used up with my run, just sense and quickness enough left to leap over the side of the rock, and came with a great tumble among some bushes; the snake, too, came over after me, I can hardly suppose in chase, because he did not follow me when we were at the bottom together; but I ran after him a long way, for I was not hurt, throwing stones at the reptile. A Damara, who was some way behind, was carrying my gun, and I had not even a stick.

Resuming our search, we came to where the hill was so broken that I could not get on. Huge jagged rough stones, many as big as a small house, were piled up, and thrown about in all directions, with deep fissures between them; just the place for a man to fall and break his legs. We found altogether two or three small fountains, but no people. There were some giraffe-spoors high on the hills. Giraffes are wonderful climbers: koodoos are the best; but I think that giraffes come next to them, even before the zebras. From the hill we swept the country with our telescopes, and caught the glimmer of distant water between the trees: there was to be our next halt. The Damaras pointed north-east, as the direction of Omanbondè, but said that it still lay a great way off. We “marked” the vley as well as we could, and took the waggon there,—three hours’ travel before breakfast. The water-shed was now obviously to the eastward, the distant country dropping down most perceptibly. I had been hoping to see fewer thorn-trees, but here they were worse than ever. My oxen would not face them: a single bush threw the whole team into confusion: the oxen plunged and tossed, and got their heads out of the yokes; and often the waggon-men could not get up to the fighting creatures on account of the thorns. Flogging is of little or no use; the animal is essentially perverse and vicious, and calls for almost superhuman patience. From eleven A.M., till night-fall, we were labouring through the thorns, that threatened soon to become impervious. Our clothes and hands were sadly torn; but still we pushed on steadily. Not a blade of grass was to be seen; and when we outspanned, a pitch dark night had set in; the oxen were roaming about,—we could hardly see them in the thick cover. When the morning broke, a few oxen remained, and the rest were gone. Away went half the men, without any breakfast, running a steady pace, for we feared the oxen might get back even to Kahikenè’s werft. They were overtaken beyond the vley, as they were walking steadily back. In the meantime I had gone on to see how far we were from the stream Otjironjuba, our next watering-place. To my delight, I found it close by, only an hour and a half off, full of running water, and like a trout-stream, with meadows of grass about it. It came out from a cliff of Omuvereoom.

In the evening we brought the waggons up, and encamped beside it, about two miles from the hill. Here we staid two days, in happy idleness, climbing the hill, bathing, shooting francolines, and having a good clothes-washing.

I must here make a digression on the subject of soap, an article that we had to make for ourselves, as I found that I had not brought nearly enough from Cape Town. This is one instance out of a vast number in which the missionary or the traveller is thrown upon his own resources. Our process of making it took a week or ten days to complete. It was as follows: the cook having saved as much fat as he could from the meat, until his store accumulated to half a bucket-full, or more, and a great quantity of wood, or shrub-ashes, having been collected, those plants alone being used whose ashes taste acrid, a savage was set to work at making two very large clay pots, which is an easy thing to do when proper clay can be obtained; in one of these we put the ashes, and let water stand upon them; in the other, under which a fire-place was built, we placed the fat. A Damara of sedentary disposition was then employed to superintend the process to the end, he or she having simply to keep up the fire under the grease-pot, and from time to time to ladle into it a spoonfull of the ash-water, or ley. This ash-water is sucked up by the grease; and in ten days the stuff is transformed into good white soap. The difficulty lies in selecting proper ashes. Those of most plants make the soap too hard; those of others too soft; but when the _juste milieu_ is hit, all goes on excellently. The missionaries have now brought their soap-making to perfection; they only use the ashes of two plants, both of which grow in abundance near Otjimbinguè; and practice has taught them the exact proportion in which they should be mixed to make “a superior article.”

From the top of Omuvereoom, about Otjironjuba, nothing but a wide bushy extent could be seen. The brook sprang from several boggy spots, and fell in pretty cascades down the hill.

_March 29th._—We started very early from our agreeable resting-place, and followed the Otjironjuba: it soon disappeared in its sandy bed; and after three hours the country had become so arid, that I outspanned, to let the oxen take a good drink at the last pool of water we could see. The rain now came down in such deluges that the harness, of undressed leather, became too soppy to handle, and the men could not hold the oxen in the reins when they had caught them; so we stopped there all night.

_March 30th._—We again started early, and strayed a great deal; for we had no certain point to aim for, and our chief object was endeavouring to avoid the thorns. The guides were sulky, and could not, or would not, tell us anything. We pulled on for many hours with thick thorn-bushes about us, and not a drop of water to be seen, as the sandy soil had sucked up the rain: however, the oxen went well. Towards evening we turned down a long vista, and the waggon was moving noiselessly over the soft ground, when we saw five or six Bushmen and women squatted in a row on the ground, with their backs towards us, crowing pig-nuts. They did not see us till we were close upon them. We caught a man and woman, and made them show us the water. A little man, who got away from us, was very funny, and stuck to his wife manfully. He danced about her with a bow and arrow, making offers to shoot at us, and was in a wonderfully excited state of mind. We did not approve of the arrow, and let him and his wife go their ways. These people were thorough Namaquas in feature, but darker in colour, exactly like the Walfisch Bay people. The man we caught was tall, certainly above six feet. One sees now and then very tall, bony men among the Hottentots; though, as a race, they are diminutive. He had his wallet full of young birds, just taken out of the nest, linnets and such-like, to eat. He gave us much better information than the Damaras. Phlebus said that the man talked backwards and forwards, and that he could hardly make out what he said. Anyhow, when he did, the answers were very direct. The Bushman name for Omanbondè is Sareesab: as to its size, I heard exactly the same variety of accounts that I did among the Damaras. The man said that the water of it was as broad as the heavens; the woman, that it was perfectly dry; but both agreed that there were hippopotami in it. There could be no doubt about the animal meant; they used the ordinary Hottentot word for them, and mimicked their actions so completely, that it was evident they had seen them; and where hippopotami are there water must be. They gave us a very true account of its distance, calling it four long days for a man on foot.

Phlebus and Hans shot a brace of gemsboks. The water we slept by lay among reeds, and seemed to be the head of an ill-defined water-course, down which we went.

_March 31st._—We picked up the gemsboks by the way, and passed a large and deep vley, in which there were some red and white geese. There are geese and ducks on every large pool of rain-water. They must be taking advantage of the rainy season, and travelling hither in search of food. We saw a very large heron, or crane, an immense creature, and Andersson shot him. The guides sauntered about two miles behind the waggons, and the Damaras were become very slack and careless: one of them, Kahoni, was impertinent, and refused to answer me, or to do what he was told, so I had him down on the ground very quickly; but this time I did not whip him, because he became penitent and communicative.

We came to a halt at a vley, where the water-course led northerly, and the thickest of thorn-bushes penned us in elsewhere. The guides wanted us to go due south, and strike upon the Omaramba river-bed. It was on the upper part of this river-bed that Omagundè’s son lay; but the point where we now should strike it would be far out of his reach. This Omoramba ran into or out of Omanbondè,—I had never been able to make out which—and there never was a want of well-water along it. We held a council on our plans; but the thorns were so thick to the southward, and the distance we had to go so uncertain,—it might be one day, it might be five,—that I abandoned the idea of attempting it. I thought the water-course we were on must be a tributary of the Omoramba, and determined to follow it, especially as its direction was straight towards our point. We were losing sight of all landmarks; nothing was to be seen but a wide undulating plain, black with dense thorn-bushes; to the west was Ja Kabaca, and by its side commenced the long range of Omuvereoom, high and escarped at first, but fining down by slow degrees towards the level of the plain. As we continued _en route_ next day, the water-course still befriended us: its bed was never sand, but hard ground, covered with sward, and here and there holding a pool of rain-water; and the thick bushes were crowded on either side. It seemed as though we were travelling along “a ride,” cut through a thick cover. We now, for the first time, came upon elephant spoors,—huge things, indeed. There were about twenty tracks made where the ground was soft; but it now was hardened, and the waggon jolted heavily over them.

_April 2nd._—We came upon ox-tracks, and other indications of a Damara werft, and following a path, came upon it. The men dispersed in great consternation, but we caught some women, who were too heavily laden with anklets to run fast, and pacified them with tobacco. In a short time the men came back, and we were soon excellent friends. A fine tall Damara, about six feet seven inches in height, offered, in the course of conversation, to guide us to Omanbondè. He said that we should arrive there in three days. We still were perfectly unable to understand how large the water was, as no two people said the same thing.

_April 3rd._—Six hours took us to another werft. After the first two hours we left our old friend, the Vley River, as we called it; and the bushes being more open, and fewer thorn-trees among them, we followed our guide across country. The captain of this werft was a very shrewd fellow, and a jolly, humorous sort of man. He was convinced that we were Hottentot spies; but for all that, we became great friends. At about the point where we now were Omuvereoom was identified with the plain. There were no thorns at all about here, but the country was covered with high green-leaved bushes; the wood was very brittle, so that the waggon crashed through trees whose stem was as thick as a man’s thigh, and we had not to use the axes. Indeed, we have very seldom had occasion to employ them, considering the country that we have pushed through. The captain told us all sorts of tales about the Ovampo and their king, Nangoro. He had visited them two or three times. Nangoro, he said, was the fattest man in the world, and larger than either of my waggons. His size has made a great impression upon the sparely-built Damaras, for whenever I talk about him they allude to it. Every man I have talked to about the Ovampo speaks well of them.

_April 4th._—We started in company with our tall guide, travelling three and a half hours—slept without water. The next day we were to reach our goal. Infinite were the conjectures on the size and appearance of Omanbondè. We had looked over my mackintosh boat to see that it was in good order, and agreed to settle on its banks and have a fortnight or three weeks pleasant shooting in return for all the trouble and annoyance that we had undergone. We tried not to expect very much of a lake for fear of disappointment, but agreed that it could not be less than fifteen miles by eight. Five hours’ travelling over undulating ground brought us on the brow of a hill, below which lay a broad grassy river-bed 500 yards across—this was the Omoramba; up it was a projecting rock, and round that Omanbondè. On a hill-top in front was a cluster of camelthorn trees, (Omanbondè means camelthorn trees,) and below that the lake was said to lie. Forwards we went with our nerves strung to the highest pitch of excitement; we rattled the waggon on as fast as we could walk, turned the corner, but another provoking reach of the river-bed was before us. Then we plunged through a field of dry reeds, and were walking on, when the guide loitered behind and seemed to be looking about for something. The truth slowly dawned upon our minds that we were _then_ in Omanbondè, and that the guide was actually looking for the water. It was really too ridiculous that our magnificent lake should be reduced to this. However there proved to be perfect truth in the story of the hippopotami. The fact is, that a country like Damara-land is as different after a heavy rainy season to what it is after a dry one, as the sea-beach is at different times of the tide. Our ill-luck was that we travelled in one of the driest years known; and Omanbondè, which is a reach of the broad Omoramba, of some nine miles long, bears every mark of having been full of water. The course of the Omoramba, as I found out long afterwards, is towards the great river of the Mationa country, and up it during the rainy season hippopotami travel; many have been killed at Omanbondè; one a few years back actually travelled up to Okaroschekè, and thence his spoor led into the Swakop, that is not more than a couple of miles apart from it. He died in the Swakop, and his carcase was washed down and eaten by the Ghou Damup at Tsobis. Many Hottentots who were familiar with hippopotami, from having been born on the Orange River, which used to abound with them, saw fragments of the animal; Jonker told me the story and I have no reason to disbelieve it, but from the appearance of Damara-land during the dry season, one would as soon expect a hippopotamus to have travelled across the great Sahara as from Omanbondè to Tsobis. There is not a drop of water, except in wells, (which the beast could not get at,) between Omanbondè and the little fountain two hours from Schmelen’s Hope. We encamped by the side of Omanbondè near some wells of excellent water, to which hundreds of desert partridges flew every night. My men had had enough of travelling, and wanted to return; however I had my own way with them. I made them what presents I could. Their shirts were torn to rags, and I served out all the calico which I had taken as an article of exchange to make them new ones. I gave an assegai to each of my Damaras, and did my best to put the men into good humour, and then made ready to go on to the Ovampo.