CHAPTER VI.

Mistake a Lion for an Antelope.—Explore a Road.—Reach Palms.—Return and bring the Waggons.—Experiences of African Travel.—Guide decamps and we find another.—Settle at Okambuti.—The first Elephant.—Waggon breaks down.—Make a Strong Camp.—Chapupa’s History.—Savages _versus_ Europeans.—Ride on to the Ovampo.—Method of searching for Water.—Damaras are bad Guides.—Find some Bushmen.—We start, but are ordered back.—The Ovampo Caravan.—Chikorongo-onkompè.—Pronunciation of the letter L.—Salt, not a Necessary of Life.—Damaras never eat it.—Return to Chapupa’s Werft.—Arrange a Present for Nangoro.—Dressed and tanned Leather.—Hear of Kahikenè’s Death.—Damara Creed.—Eandas and Omakuru.—Ceremonies.—Huts and Finery.—Chaunts and Music.—Damara Language.—Prefixes.

Thus closed an era in the journey; the first great point was reached, the furthest that the Hottentots from Namaqua-land had ever seen—for they had travelled as far as Omanbondè in one great expedition; they went in great numbers and returned in some distress after a few months’ absence.

Curiously enough I arrived at Omanbondè the day year that I had left England.

Now that my oxen were becoming a little more manageable, and the men accustomed to travelling, I had hopes of making better progress than I had done, and of soon reaching a far more interesting country than that which I had now nearly crossed. I staid two days at Omanbondè walking about, putting my map in order, and strolling with my little rifle to shoot guinea-fowls or francolines. There was very little game about, and I had neither patience nor endurance to run on their spoors till I found them. One day as I was sauntering about in this way, I had rather a fright; my rifle was loaded with the merest puff of powder and a round ball, when I caught a sudden glimpse of an animal standing on a mound about 200 yards off. I saw him through the thick boughs of a bush, dropped to the ground directly, and made a careful stalk. I fancied it was a koodoo, and I hoped that I might secure the animal if I could get very near to him. I crawled for about ten minutes amongst the abominable thorns and never showed myself once until about forty or fifty yards from the mound, and then I poked my rifle very gently between the branches of a thorn-tree, and raised myself up slowly on a level with it. To my bewilderment I saw that my game was no koodoo, but a fine black lion with a glorious mane, standing like a statue and looking right at me. His attitude was picturesque, but armed as I was I should much rather have viewed him at a telescopic distance. There was nothing to be done but to put a bold face upon the matter, so I showed myself at once and walked slowly away. I was in an awful flight; I was sure the animal must be hungry, as there was so little game about. He let me walk some fifty yards without stirring in the slightest. He might have been daguerreotyped as he stood. Then he made a bound and trotted away, certainly as much astonished at the interview as myself, for unless he was a great traveller he could never before have seen a white man or one dressed in clothes.

I am not sure whether or no Omanbondè is the head of that branch of the Omoramba; it begins quite abruptly, but I found that it also ended abruptly, and yet after a short distance the river-bed recommenced; in fact the place is like a trough with sides and ends to it. The Omoramba, eastward of the place, is a succession of troughs, but whether there are others to the west of Omanbondè I do not know; there are two, and very likely more, that lie parallel to it and at a short distance to the northward. We arrived on the 5th of April, and on the 8th I was again in my saddle, and set out on my trusty Ceylon to explore a road out of the Omoramba, which, seemed even more impracticable, with regard to thorns, than any place I had yet seen. I longed for the free and luxuriant vegetation of the tropics, and to emerge from a country that was scorched with tropical heat, but unrefreshed with truly tropical rains. Timboo, John Allen, two or three Damaras, and the tall guide accompanied me; we rode three or four hours down the Omoramba and then turned to the left, and in four or five hours off-packed by the side of one of the most agreeable of objects—as the harbinger of richer vegetation—a magnificent palm. Three hours the next day took us past a large pool of water, and up to another where there was a werft. Here I felt very much at the mercy of my teasing hosts, who took the liberty of annoying me in every way. I had no meat, and they would neither sell nor give me anything, and I feared we should have to return without food.

We were too tired to watch all night, but slept almost without a fire, lying on our valuables, and with the oxen tied short up to us, as we feared some theft. The next morning, having been satisfied of the goodness of the road, I returned and rode in eleven hours back to Omanbondè, where I arrived before dusk on the 10th. On the 12th the waggons started, and were taken successfully out of the river-bed. An accident to my best rifle—a long two-ounce one—happened in the evening; some giraffes were coming near us, and we ran through the bushes and surrounded them. Andersson, who had the rifle, crawled near to one that Hans had wounded and knocked him over, but the rifle burst or rather cracked with the shot; the breech giving way just beneath the nipple. I suspect that the bullet had become slightly dislodged by the jolting. We encamped of course by the carcase and had a feast. I see now that the best way of feeding savages is not to give them a steady allowance, so many pounds of meat a day, but to starve them the greatest part of their tune, and to gorge them now and then: besides, it is much the most _convenient_ way of feeding them. There is no doubt that alternate privation and luxury is congenial to most minds.

The two waggons somehow became separated; mine was as usual ahead, but the other tried a short cut to overtake us, and lost our spoor. We were playing at cross purposes, each trying to find the other for hours; at last we encamped at Okatjokeama, the werft I had before explored.

The Damaras who had been so impudent to me and my small party were, as usual, highly civil to my large one; had it been much greater they would have given me presents. I saw clearly the truth of what a Portuguese traveller, whom I have quoted before, told me, that it was not safe to beg but better to force the natives to be hospitable, and that if Africa is ever to be thoroughly explored, the only way to do it is in company with a well-armed force of men (natives of course).

In a despotic country travelling is easy enough if the good-will of the reigning savage be once obtained, but in a place like Damara-land, where every chief is independent, and has to be persuaded or coerced, the case is very different, and when tribes are changed it will take years to persuade the new tribe that the traveller is not a spy. A large body of men forces its way, and the man who commands it can say to a chief—“I wish to be friends, and here are presents for you to show that I am friendly, and also here are things of exchange to buy what I want. Bring me these or I take them.” Many Portuguese traders travel after this way, but stronger measures have to be resorted to in enforcing the discipline of the travelling party, and in compelling civility from the natives, than Englishmen generally would like to adopt. It would be a tedious journey indeed for a man, however well qualified, to attempt to travel as a native would, and to go far into Africa. He would be stopped for months or years at each frontier. We can see this from the case of the missionaries, who have every opportunity of winning respect and regard from the natives they are amongst, of learning their language and their customs, and who have also every desire of extending their spheres of action; yet a long time elapses between each step that their stations advance, and when they do so it invariably is under the strong influence of some chief that they are even then led on. The traveller who tries to dash at it has many difficulties indeed to encounter.

These scoundrel Damaras wanted to misdirect us, and to send us eastwards instead of northwards, to find out the Ovampo, but the women of the tribe let out the secret to the wives of my Damaras, and the wives of course told it to their husbands, who told it to me, so that their plans failed. The tall guide took great pains to explain to us how innocent he was of all guile, and that he would take us on to the Ovampo and do everything we wanted, and also that it would be very convenient if I paid the calf I had promised him in advance, as he had an opportunity of sending it home now, which he would not have again. I mistrusted my friend—I never did trust a Damara out of my sight—but he teased me and I gave him the calf. Timboo was quite won by his agreeable address, and lent him his horse-rug to sleep upon. The rascal of course sent away the calf, and decamped with the rug the next night. Another savage took us on, and we came to a little bit of a water-hole, then to another, on the succeeding day, where there was a large werft, and we fraternised strongly with the people of it. They confirmed what we had heard, of there being elephants ahead, and pointed out a number of coppice-covered knolls, all about which the animals were said to be feeding at that very time. We had passed through a broad belt of palms, high, magnificent trees, with fan-shaped leaves and prickly stems, bearing clusters of fruit exactly like that of the North African doum palm, that is to say, a ruddy, dry fruit, with a fibrous kernel that no power we had at command could make any impression upon. I brought some specimens home with me, and they are planted at Kew Gardens. Ivory was very common as an ornament among these Damaras, our present guide sported a long string of ivory beads, which he wore like a halter, it dangled from his neck down his back as far as his heels. The size of these beads, which were carefully made, tapered gradually down, from nearly the size of billiard-balls to that of hazel-nuts. He would not sell his cherished ornament, though he very kindly offered to lend it to me for a day or two, if I wished to wear it.

_April 17th._—We arrived at Okambuti, where the werft of the principal chief of these parts, Chapupa, was then lying. We were assured that there were elephants about, who drank regularly at some neighbouring fountains, and we found the spoors of five. One was said to be a savage, single-tusked, old bull, and we made a long but unsuccessful hunt after him; as he walked faster than we could, a whole day’s severe labour was on that occasion unrewarded. Some time later, the Damaras went out in a large body to attack him with assegais, for he had come close up to their werft. They surrounded the animal in that daring way in which African savages are used to attack them; but although several arrows were shot and assegais thrown, no serious harm was done to him. A dog belonging to one of the natives ran in upon the elephant, and while the owner was trying to get the dog back, the elephant caught the man with his trunk and threw him violently to the ground. All his ribs seemed to be broken, and he soon died. There were no guns on the spot at the time of the occurrence. The elephant went away for a few days, but returned again, and came close up to the waggons. He received seven bullets, but the two last were unnecessary, for he was evidently dying after receiving the fifth. The Damaras had a grand feed off him.

I did not wish to waste time in Damara-land, and tried to persuade Chapupa to give me a guide to the Ovampo, but after many excuses he flatly refused. Okamabuti is on the Damara frontier, and a Bushman tract of considerable breadth separates the two countries. I had heard every imaginable account of the distance hence to Nangoro’s place, but settled in my own mind that it must be somewhere between a five and a twenty days’ journey. I therefore made ready to trek on to one of the fountains that the elephants frequented, and to stay there for a little until I could bribe a guide to show me the way on. There were a great many things to be done which required at least a fortnight’s rest; the waggon sails, which were torn in shreds, had to be well mended, ox-hides had to be dressed and then cut up into reims; saddle-bags were wanting, the men’s shoes were worn out; more ride and pack-oxen had to be broken in, and I had a great deal of country to map up, and several observations to work out.

On the 19th of April we had started for the fountains when an accident occurred that detained me much longer than I had expected. I ought to have premised that the character of the country had entirely changed; instead of small bushes some magnificent timber trees began to appear, forming belts of forest as regular in shape as the designs of an ornamental gardener could have made them, but offering a very considerable impediment to waggon travelling. The oxen were very fresh, and as soon as they were inspanned bolted down a slight descent with the waggon; there was a stump in the way; it looked a rotten affair, such as we had constantly crushed over, but it really was a hard sound piece of wood. The off fore wheel of the large waggon came against it, and crash went the axletree and ever so much more of the wood-work—and there we were!

[Illustration: CHAPUPA, A DAMARA CHIEF.]

We did not sit one moment with our hands in our pockets and lament, but brought the other waggon up alongside, and at a proper distance off, and then outspanning worked diligently at making a regular encampment. It would never have done to appear disheartened. We were in a complete jungle, but that we soon cleared sufficiently out of our way; a space was then hedged in round the waggons, half of which was made into a strong ox-kraal, and round this I made my five married couples of savages build their huts at equal distances, that they might act as a watch over it. In this sort of work the day passed, and I most heartily congratulated myself that the accident had happened where it did, near water and near friendly Damaras, and in almost the only place that we had seen, since Schmelen’s Hope, where wood fit for a new axletree could be obtained. I did not dare to trust myself to one of unseasoned wood, as it would not have stood a day’s work through such country as that we were now travelling over, and if the next break-down should be in a spot far from trees, grass, or water, we might find ourselves in very great difficulty. I therefore determined to ride with Andersson on to the Ovampo, and to leave Hans behind in charge of the waggons—which he undertook to repair. Curiously enough, though there were so many timber trees, yet we searched for hours before we could find two that were fit for our purpose—straight, not too large, and not worm-eaten. These were cut down at once and brought to the camp. The next day found us busily engaged in strengthening the encampment and making it comfortable. The space between the waggons was awned over, the stumps of bushes rooted out of the ground, the fore part of the broken waggon prized up, the wheels &c. taken away, and stones built under it, and some very active days were thus spent.

Chapupa passed most of the time with us; he had been much indebted to Nangoro for assistance in some Damara squabbles and fightings, and was tolerably intelligent and friendly. It seemed that the Ovampo carry on a cattle trade with the Damaras at this point. Two Ovampo caravans, each consisting of from twenty to thirty men on foot, come here with beads, shells, assegais, wood-choppers, and such-like things, which they exchange for cattle. They obtain the beads and some of the assegais from the half-caste Portuguese traders who frequent their northern frontier. Some years back the then principal Damara chief received the Ovampo with great civility, and allowed them, as usual, to travel about and barter as they liked; but when they had sold everything and brought a fine drove of cattle together, the chief attacked and robbed them. Chapupa was at that time a second-rate captain, and having been himself robbed he sent to Nangoro for help, which was given; their men joined together, killed the obnoxious chief, and then divided his cattle between them; and Chapupa now lives in great plenty, and shows the greatest respect towards all the Ovampo. He evidently did not wish to take the responsibility of himself sending me on to Nangoro, as he feared that I might be a spy, and that Nangoro would find fault with him for allowing me an opportunity of learning the road; but he begged that I would wait till the next Ovampo caravan came, when I should have an excellent opportunity of returning with it.

However, on the 25th of April, a man offered himself as guide; I asked him how soon he would be ready: he replied, as was very true, that he had nothing to pack up, only his assegai to take with him, and would start directly. These savages look with great contempt at our wants, and indeed no European could be a match for them in fatigue-work for two or three days; yet, on the other hand, in a long steady journey the savages very quickly knock up, unless they adopt some of our usages. They cannot endure the cold for many nights without a rug to cover them. The midday sun gives them a headache, and they require a cap. Their sandals do not keep out the thorns, and they have to make shoes, and they cannot do more than a week’s work on pig-nut diet. A savage who makes a dash at work for three or four days gets through it well enough, and a long rest sets him to rights again after his forced exertions; but where there is no such rest, but in its place a steady continuous strain, then he fails unless to a considerable degree he adopts our dress and habits.

_April 26th._—We started; John St. Helena, Timboo, John Williams, Andersson, and myself were all on ride-oxen; we had three carrying packs, and a few others loose, with a small drove of sheep: I also took half a dozen Damaras with me. We passed vast numbers of old elephant tracks, but saw no fresh spoors, and halted after proceeding a short distance, but the next day we made a long tedious journey from sunrise to sunset, getting among hills and quite losing our way. We passed a magnificent set of pitfalls, which the bushmen who live about these hills had made; the whole breadth of the valley was staked and bushed across. At intervals the fence was broken, and where broken deep pitfalls were made. The strength and size of the timber that was used gave me a great idea of Bushman industry, for every tree had to be burnt down and carried away from the hills, and yet the scale of the undertaking would have excited astonishment in far more civilised nations. When a herd of animals was seen among the hills the Bushmen drove them through this valley up to the fence; this was too high for them to jump, so that they were obliged to make for the gaps, and there tumbled into the pitfalls. We had seen no people about, but at night when we off-packed, the hill-top in front of us blazed with fires. I presume that more trees were being burnt to make a second set of pitfalls. It was no encouragement to us to see these fires, for three or four bushmen, each with one meal’s provision of water, might have walked over from a great distance, and made them, and therefore I had no reason to expect to find near at hand the water that we already were in want of for the oxen.

_April 28th._—After some hours’ travel the guide confessed that he had no idea where we were; so we separated to look for tracks, some climbing one hill and some another. The day was hazy, but Andersson made out something like green grass, five or six miles to the north-west, and the guide found a bushman who directed him in that very course; so we went there, and found not only dry rushes but also a troop of baboons. This was a sure sign of there being water somewhere near, and after looking about a little we came upon wells. We generally found water by observing geese, ducks, baboons, parrots, doves, and little birds (not linnets) in flocks. Guinea fowl are seldom more than three hours from water. Plovers I have seen much further. Fresh converging tracks of men or animals of course indicate it, but old _paths_ only mislead; these generally are made when the ground is soft during the rainy season, and lead to some vley which is dry at all other times. In practice, when looking out for water, the first sign that gives hope is a flock of Guinea fowls, then following the lay of the country every distant tree is carefully scanned until a parrot is seen, which, as the bird is fond of perching on the very topmost branches, is, even at great distances, a conspicuous object. A parrot is seldom more than half an hour from water, nor baboons either. Continuing a sharp look-out, and taking a likely course doves are seen flying about, and little birds are found in all the bushes, and they are close upon it.

The well and fountain that we were at was called Otchikango; a bold range of hills bounded it on one side, and along their foot a considerable sheet of water appeared to have lain in the rainy seasons. The guide recognised the place as the station he had wanted to take us to, and promised that there should now be no further mistakes.

_April 29th._—We went on, and after straying for three and a half hours, came again to a nonplus; we had cleared the mountains, and a thick mass of shrubs lay before us. The guide had been following an old elephant, or some other wild beast path, instead of the Ovampo track. I made him climb a pretty stiff hill with me, the cactus and broken stones of which he did not at all like,—but it was of no use to us. A wide forest extended below, without a landmark, so we came down and returned to Otchikango.

The Damaras are bad guides considering that they are savages, and ought to have the instincts of locality strongly developed. On subsequent occasions, in retracing our routes over wide extents of country, it was a common amusement to try each other’s recollection of the road by asking what would be the next object or next turn of the path that we should come to. But it is difficult to compare a European’s idea of a country with that of these savages, as they look at it in such different ways, and have their attention attracted to such entirely different objects. A Damara never _generalises_; he has no one name for a river, but a different name for nearly every reach of it; thus the Swakop is a Namaqua name; there is no Damara word for it. A Damara who knew the road perfectly from A to B, and again from B to C, would have no idea of a straight cut from A to C: he has no map of the country in his mind, but an infinity of local details. He recollects every stump or stone, and the more puerile the object the more strongly does he seem to recollect it. Thus, if you say; “I intend to sleep by the side of the great hill where the river-bed runs close under its foot,” he would never recognise the place by the description, but if you said, “under the tree, a little way on the other side of the place where the black and white ox lowed when the red ox was in front of him, and Koniati dropped his assegai,” &c. &c. every savage in the party would understand the exact locality. The Damaras pick out their way step by step; they never dream of taking a course and keeping to it. All their observations are directed to spoors, sticks and stones, and they perpetually look down on the ground and not round about them.

We had, as usual, been such early risers, that plenty of daylight remained, which we occupied in watching the baboons and climbing about their hills. We had made so zigzag a journey that I mapped out this mountainous region very satisfactorily. Towards evening I saw Andersson walking like a chief, with a long string of Bushmen at his heels; they had come together on the hill-side, and he brought them to the camp. We lavished favours of tobacco and such-like things upon them, showed them their faces in a looking-glass that I always carried with me, chiefly for that purpose, and finally succeeded in persuading some of the party to guide me to the next place—Otchikoto. One Bushman was to remain all night as a hostage; the others were to tell his wife, and to bring next day what they required for the journey. I am sure that Bushmen are, generally speaking, hen-pecked. They always consult their wives. The Damaras do not.

Our new friend became uneasy at night-fall when his companions had left him alone, so we watched him alternately throughout the night to see that he did not run away. I do not think the poor fellow slept a wink. I am sure he did not in my watch, for I constantly caught his bright eye gleaming distrustfully round, whilst he pretended to be asleep. In the morning we went on with him, and stopped at a place which was full of grass, about an hour off, till his companions should come to us by a short cut over the hills. After a little time three Blacks were seen running from the direction of Otjikongo. As soon as we could make them out clearer, the Bushmen and Damaras all called out “Ovampo,” and so it was.

They were part of the long-expected caravan which had arrived immediately after we had started, and as our spoors and way of camping of course excited the greatest curiosity among them, three men were despatched to bring us back. They were ugly fellows, immensely muscular, and most determined looking; they insisted that we should go back; we laughed at them; they took our Bushman aside, and used all kinds of threats to him, till he hardly dared proceed. In the mean time I was much struck by the cool fearless bearing of the men and their peremptory, yet not uncivil manner; and seeing at once that I had quite a different style of men to deal with from either Bushmen or Damaras, I acknowledged that it was but reasonable that they should desire to know something of a stranger before they could allow him to pass into their country, and I returned with them to the encampment we had that morning left.

My new acquaintances were entirely a different looking race from the Damaras, but very like the Ghou Damup. They were ugly, bony men, with strongly marked features, and dressed with a very funny scantiness of attire. Their heads were shaved, and one front tooth was chipped out. They carried little light bows three and a half feet long, and a small and well-made assegai in one hand. On their backs were quivers, each holding from ten to twenty well-barbed and poisoned arrows, and they carried a dagger-knife in a neat sheath, which was either fixed to a girdle round the waist, or else to a band that encircled the left arm above the elbow. Their necks were laden with necklaces for sale, and every man carried a long narrow smoothed pole over his shoulder, from either end of which hung a quantity of packages. These were chiefly little baskets holding iron articles of exchange, packets of corn for their own eating, and water bags.

The Ovampo were twenty-four in number, with a tall enterprising-looking young man as captain. I admired greatly the neatness and order of their encampment, and their demeanour was really polished. We soon became good friends, and I killed a young ox for them and for ourselves; they added some corn, which was a most grateful change of diet to us. They paid us every attention, but refused most decidedly to let any of their party guide us, and insisted that we should return with them to Chapupa’s werft, promising at the same time that when they had finished their bartering and returned they would take us with them. The first question that Chikorongo-onkompè (their captain) asked us, was whether we were rain-makers. I regretted that we were not, else we could travel when we liked and where we liked, and be independent of guides. He told us a long and minutely circumstantial lie—at least he afterwards denied every word of it—to the effect that rain-makers were in great request in Ovampo-land, and that a tribe of them lived by the great river that bounded it to the north, and that Nangoro sent a woman with several presents to these people. If rain was scarce in any year they killed and eat the woman, and had a fresh one sent to them. He also said that the Bushmen on our road to Nangoro’s were very ferocious, and that he and his companions had been fighting with them as they came by, and that now they were more exasperated than ever. These were the only two lies that I have ever heard from an Ovampo. The second was natural enough; as to the first I cannot yet understand why he took such pains to invent and tell it.

Chikorongo-onkompè, or “Chik,” as I will for brevity’s sake call him, spoke Damara language perfectly, but with an accent, and so did Katondoka and Netjo, the next in command, but the others could barely make themselves intelligible. Their own language is most musical and liquid, and they speak it in a slow singing manner. It seems nothing but L’s, which is curious, as the Damaras do not possess that letter and cannot pronounce it. It is odd enough that Damara children, who say L as all other children do when they try to pronounce R, should as they grow older reverse matters, and forgetting how to pronounce the L, always say R instead of it; thus Mr. Kolbe’s name was changed to Korube; my man, whom we nick-named Bill, was called by the Damaras “Biro.” They took infinite pains to master my name, which after various transformations settled into Bortonio—the “io” being an affectionately diminutive affix. Andersson’s name was too full of consonants for them; they gave it up in despair, and called him Kabandera, (the bird-killer). Many of the Ovampo and Damara words are much alike; thus if you say “bring fire,” it is “et omuriro” in Damara, “ella omuliloo” in Ovampo.

The Ovampo way of encamping is very characteristic, for they do not sleep by the side of a large burning log of wood, but instead of that go to great pains in collecting stones about the size of bricks, and make two or three rows of small fires, perhaps five in each row, placing the stones round each of them in a rude circle of two feet diameter, so as to confine the ashes and keep the brands from falling about; then they lie down and go to sleep between the fire-places. They arrange these encampments with great regularity, and the plan of them is certainly a good one in countries where there may be a sufficiency of dry sticks and brush, but no large firewood; for by keeping up the fires throughout half of the night, which one or two men can easily do, the stones become hot enough to radiate for some hours longer when the fuel has become exhausted and every body has dropped off to sleep; again, from the men sleeping so close in between the hearths, they receive the full benefit of whatever heat is afforded. We, like the Damaras, simply made a roaring fire and slept to the windward of it, for we always had plenty of firewood. I never liked sleeping between two large fires on account of the smoke, and of the great danger of sparks. Hans’ bed was more than half burnt under him one night, but some sheepskins that he was lying on kept him from being scorched, and saved his powder-flask. When a heavy log that is half-burnt through breaks and falls with a crash, it scatters burning cinders all about, which the wind will often carry some distance.

The Ovampo had little pipkins to cook in, and eat corn (milice) steeped in hot water; they also eat some salt, which the Damaras never take by any chance. In fact the Damaras could not get it, for there is no salt in their land. There are salt-springs in the lower part of the Swakop, near where we first struck it when we left Scheppmansdorf, and there are large saltpans, as I afterwards found out, in Ovampo-land, and also in the far east, but none whatever in Damara-land. In Europe it is generally supposed that salt is a necessary of life, but here we never found it so; I was once on a riding excursion with Andersson and three other men for six weeks, and a pill-box full of salt was all we used. We had then nothing else whatever but meat and coffee, the latter of which, after a certain degree of “condition” has been obtained, is also a very unnecessary superfluity, and one that I could at any time abandon without regret. The Namaquas occasionally use salt, but they set no store upon it. There is no doubt that people who live on meat and milk would require salt much less than those who live on vegetables, but half the Damaras subsist simply on pig-nuts,—the most worthless and indigestible of food, and requiring to be eaten in excessive quantities to afford enough nourishment to support life. The Hottentots by Walfisch Bay, who live almost entirely on the ’nara gourd, and who have the sea on one side and salt-springs in front of them, hardly ever take the trouble to collect salt, which they certainly would do if they felt that craving for it which distresses many Europeans. The last fact that I have to mention with reference to salt, is that the game in the Swakop do not frequent the salt rocks to lick them, as they do in America. I visited these salt rocks (below Oosop) when there had been plenty of game about, and when the spoors of a month old were perfectly distinct, yet no tracks led to the salt which hung down like stalactites from the rock, from one to twenty feet above the ground, at a place where a small brack-spring dribbles over it, and which was perfectly accessible, and in full view.[1]

The Ovampo were very quiet and sociable; they always seemed to make a point of giving orders in a low tone of voice, and if possible aside. They _can_ count, for they explained to me at once the number of Nangoro’s wives, 105, using their fingers rapidly to show the number. They also counted my oxen as quickly as I could have done it myself. The next day we returned with them, and on the morrow reached my werft. The Ovampo traders then separated into bands, and went about the country bartering. Chik alone remained behind and received such oxen as were from time to time sent to him. He spent most of his time with me, and told me a great deal about the Ovampo and Nangoro. We found that it would require more than a fortnight’s steady travel to get there. My cattle were becoming very thin, and I could ill spare the three weeks that the Ovampo kept me waiting. The grass on this side of the Omoramba was different to that on the other, and the sheep fell off sadly from the change of food, and were hardly worth eating; their tails, once so full of luscious fat, as is the case with all African sheep, were now reduced to cords. There was no game about for us to shoot, and the steady consumption of an ox in every three days told heavily upon my slaughter-cattle. Chapupa would not sell me anything. I think he dared not for fear of offending his old customers—the Ovampo—and the market was not extensive enough for all of us. I therefore saw clearly that my head-quarters had no chance of being removed further to the north unless I met with a sufficiency of game in Ovampo-land to support my party, or unless my articles of exchange would buy me an abundance of provisions there. I exhibited all that I had to Chik, and he told me what to take, and what to leave behind; but showed very little rapture about anything except some red beads and some bars of iron. At my request he arranged a present for Nangoro. An ox was essential, then a handful of red beads, and I added my steel-scabbarded sword, a looking-glass, and a few other things. I took the great crown, but said nothing about it.

I had always plenty of employment for my men; they dressed some hides and made them into good saddle-bags, and also into packing reims, which have to be no less than sixty feet long. It is perfectly impossible to pack-oxen with a short reim, for their hide is so loose, and their sides so shaky, that the packs require eight or ten turns of reim round them on the ox’s back before they are properly fastened. The tugging that is necessary is enormous. It requires two skilled hands and one native to pack an ox. The native holds him by his nose-reim (or thong); the things are placed on his back, the middle of the reim on the top of them, and the loose ends are pulled under the ox’s belly from the opposite side. Then each packer puts his foot against the ox’s ribs, and, holding tightly his end of the reim, pulls at it with all his might and main, till the ox’s waist is considerably, and even fashionably, compressed; then the reims are crossed over his back, and the loose ends again drawn through under his belly, and another pull is given and so on, till the reim is exhausted; finally the ends are tied.

My savages never could pack; they had not strength enough to do it. It is true that Damaras do sometimes put things on the back of an old worn-out ox that has not energy enough to kick them off; but they could never pack, as we did, 150 pounds’ weight on young oxen that had to be driven through thick cover, and amused themselves with trying to rub their pack off against every trunk or bough of a tree that they could get at.

We never had a sufficiency of leather to make reims of; in fact, we always wanted leather, and I would gladly at any time have exchanged a live ox for a dressed skin. It takes at least two days to dress an ox-hide, and two days’ provision is nearly one ox. If game was slaughtered, the Damaras eat so much that they could not work at dressing the hide, which is a most laborious job to undertake, and must be entered upon willingly, or the hide is spoilt. When a hide is dressed, in order to cut it into reims, the projecting edges are first trimmed off, and then with a knife the remaining part is cut spirally round and round the whole way from the circumference to the centre. The reim or band for packing purposes ought to be about an inch thick, and of very regular breadth throughout. A reim, or any other piece of ox-hide that is dressed, is more limp than if it had been tanned; but it feels greasy, and is a nasty thing to handle. Tanned leather is abused by Hottentots and Dutchmen, but I conceive that is simply because it is an innovation upon their ideas. If I travelled again, I should invest largely in it, and only use dressed leather when I had nothing better. Wet ruins the latter, for it makes it soppy and extensible; drought makes tanned leather rotten, but not if a very little fat be rubbed in occasionally. All my tanned leather things lasted admirably, and far outwore the rest.

I had, whilst waiting for the Ovampo, some fresh oxen broken in, and among them Kahikenè’s fine black ox. I did so because news arrived one evening that Kahikenè was killed, and I wished to keep a memento of him, and not to eat his present. It appeared that he went to Omagundè’s son’s werft immediately after we had parted, and made a bold charge. When the fighting was at its thickest, all Kahikenè’s men dropped off, and ran away, leaving him and his son alone. My old servant, Piet, from Mozambique, remained a little time with him, and shot two men with his gun, but then became frightened, and made his escape. An arrow struck Kahikenè; and as he fell to the ground, Omagundè’s men speared him through and through with their assegais. His son, a fine intelligent lad, rushed up to him in despair, and was murdered by his side.

As I have brought my narrative to the time when we were about to leave Damara-land behind us; and as we had already lived five months in it, and of course had seen much of the manners and habits of the people, it will be a good opportunity for me to mention them in order, and more fully than I could have done before, without anticipating or breaking the thread of my story.

To commence with their name. It is in their own language “Ovaherero,” or the “Merry People;” but those who are settled towards the interior are always called “Ovampantieru,” or the “Deceivers;” for what reason I am totally unable to find out. Damup, which is the Namaqua name for the people generally, has been corrupted by the Oerlams and Dutch traders into “Damara,” and by this title they have always been known to the whites. Like the word “Caffre,” it is an established name, and also a convenient one; for it supersedes all distinctions of locality and of tribes, which Ovaherero does not; in addition to this, it is very pronounceable, and therefore I prefer adhering to established usage, and calling these savages by it, rather than by words in their own language.

Next, as to their jumble of ideas, which, for want of a better name must be dignified by that of their religion or creed—

In the beginning of things there was a tree (but the tree is somehow double, because there is one at Omaruru, and another near Omutchamatunda), and out of this tree came Damaras, Bushmen, oxen, and zebras. The Damaras lit a fire, which frightened away the Bushmen and the oxen; but the zebras remained. Hence it is that Bushmen and wild beasts live together in all sorts of inaccessible places, while the Damaras and the oxen possess the land. The tree gave birth to everything else that lives; but has not been prolific of late years. It is of no use waiting by the side of the tree in hopes of capturing such oxen and sheep as it might bear.

[Illustration: DAMARA WOMAN.]

Again, notwithstanding that everything comes out of the tree, men have in some separate manner a special origin or “eanda.” There are six or seven eandas, and each eanda has some peculiar rites. The tribes do not correspond with the eandas, as men of every descent are to be found in each tribe. The chiefs of tribes have some kind of sacerdotal authority—more so than a military one. They bless the oxen; and their daughters sprinkle the fattest ones with a brush dipped in water every morning as they walk out of the kraal. They have no expectation of a future state; yet they pray over the graves of their parents for oxen and sheep,—fat ones, and of the right colour. There is hardly a particle of romance, or affection, or poetry, in their character or creed; but they are a greedy, heartless, silly set of savages. Independently of the tree and the eanda, there is also Omakuru; he can hardly be called a deity, though he gives and withholds rain. He is buried in several different places, at all of which he is occasionally prayed to.

The Damaras have a vast number of small superstitions, but these are all stupid, and often very gross; and there is not much that is characteristic in them. Messengers are greased before they set out on a journey, and greased again when they come back; of one sort of ox only grown men eat; out of one particular calabash of milk only grown men drink, and so on _ad infinitum_. A new-born child is washed—the only time he is ever washed in his life—then dried and greased, and the ceremony is over. Some time during boyhood the lads are circumcised, but at no particular age. Marriage takes place at what appears to be the ages of 15 or 16, but as the Damaras keep no count of years it is scarcely possible to be certain of their ages; my impression was that the Damaras were not so precocious as black people usually are. The teeth are chipped with a flint when the children are young. After death the corpse is placed in a squatting posture, with its chin resting on its knees, and in that position is sewn up in an old ox-hide (the usual thing that they sleep on), and then dropped down into a hole that is dug for it, the face being turned to the north, and covered over; lastly, the spectators jump backwards and forwards over the grave to keep the disease from rising out of it. A sick person meets with no compassion; he is pushed out of his hut by his relations away from the fire into the cold; they do all they can to expedite his death, and when he appears to be dying, they heap ox-hides over him till he is suffocated. Very few Damaras die a natural death.

The huts are wretched affairs—I have already slightly described them—the women are the builders. They first cut a number of sticks eight or nine feet high, and also strip off quantities of bark from the trees which they shred and use as string; holes are then “crowed” in a circle of eight or ten feet across, in which the sticks are planted upright, their tops are next bent together and pleached and lashed with the bark shreds—this makes the frame-work; round about it brushwood is woven and tied until the whole assumes a compact surface; a hole for a door three feet by two, is left in one side, and a forked prop is placed in the middle of the hut to support the roof; the whole is then daubed and plastered over, and the work is completed. As the roof becomes dried and cracked with the heat of the fire, and indeed as it generally has a hole in it for a chimney, the Damaras lay old ox-hides on the outside upon its top, weighting them with stones that they may not be blown off; these they draw aside when they want ventilation, but pull them over at night when they wish to make all snug. The furniture of the hut consists of a couple of ox-hides for lying and sitting on, three or four wooden vessels, a clay cooking pot, a bag of pig-nuts, a leathern box containing a little finery, such as red iron earth to colour themselves with, and a small skin of grease. There may perhaps be an iron knife and a wood chopper; everything else is worn on the persons, or buried secretly in the ground. When they sleep, the whole population of the hut lie huddled up together like pigs, and in every imaginable position round the small fire. They have nothing to cover themselves with. The children, before they can walk, are carried in a kind of leather shawl at the mother’s back; afterwards they are left to shift for themselves, and pick up a living amongst the pig-nuts as well as they can. They all have dreadfully swelled stomachs, and emaciated figures. It is wonderful how they can grow up into such fine men. The Damaras do not dance much, only on great occasions, when they perform war-dances; neither do they sing together, although they are very fond of chaunting solos in a sing-song air, inventing the words as they go on, and having a chorus to break in now and then. I have seen one guitar amongst them, but it was I think an Ovampo importation; their only musical instrument is their bow. They tie a piece of reim round the bow-string and the handle, and bind them up tight together, then they hold the bow horizontally against their teeth, and strike the tense bow-string with a small stick. A good performer can produce great effect with it; they attend more to the rhythm than the notes, and imitate with its music the gallop or trotting of different animals to perfection. The baboon’s clumsy canter is the _chef d’œuvre_, and when well executed makes everybody roar with laughter.

The natural colour of the Damaras is by no means easy to determine, except during the heavy rains which wash off the layers of grease and red pigment with which they so plentifully besmear themselves. In dry weather the Damara comes out ruddy and glossy, like an old well-polished mahogany table; he is then reeking with oil, his features are plump and smooth, his appearance genial and warm, but a few hours’ steady deluge quite alters the man. His skin becomes dead-looking and devoid of all lustre—there is not a tinge of ruddiness in it; it is not even black, but of a pale slate colour, or like old iron railings that want fresh painting, and the Damara, when cleaned, becomes a most seedy-looking object.

Concerning their language I shall say little, as it can only interest philologists, and for their benefit a most copious manuscript grammar and dictionary has already been sent by the Rev. Messrs. Hahn and Rath, to Bonn. Its grammar is much the same as that of the Sichuana and Caffre languages; which are said to be kindred to that of nearly every known negro language in Africa. It is highly flexible, so that when a new word is once obtained they can express immediately and intelligibly every derivative from it. Thus if they learnt the word “bread” they would have no difficulty in forming the word a “baker.” The great clumsiness of the language is its want of comparatives and of adjectives. It has one great but not peculiar beauty in the prefix which every substantive possesses. These prefixes have all a special power which it is not easy to define, but which is soon caught up by the learner. To take a simple instance, Omu is the prefix that signifies manhood; Otji, a thing. Now Omundu is simply a man; but by saying Otjimundu, the idea of an inanimate thing is superadded to the idea of a man, and the word expresses an old crone. The prefix of the substantive which governs the sentence is continued or hinted at through all the declinable words in it, and gives a bond of union to the whole. The vocabulary is pretty extensive; it is wonderfully copious on the subject of cattle; every imaginable kind of colour—as brindled, dappled, piebald—is named. It is not strong in the cardinal virtues; the language possessing no word at all for gratitude; but on looking hastily over my dictionary I find fifteen that express different forms of villainous deceit.

[Illustration: DAMARA WEAPONS, ETC.]