ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN PRODUCTION NOTE University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library Brittle Books Project, 2013. COPYRIGHT NOTIFICATION In Public Domain. Published prior to 1923. This digital copy was made from the printed version held by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It was made in compliance with copyright law. Prepared for the Brittle Books Project, Main Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign by Northern Micrographics Brookhaven Bindery La Crosse, Wisconsin 2013 R- )3 dh1s~r THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY - 1 From the cll ection of JULIUS DOEJNER, Chi cago Purchased, 1918. UNVERSIT OF ILLINO S LIBRy AT URBAN A,. ..! SlCKS ~ I i I NARRATIVE OF AN EXPLORER IN TROPICAL SOUTH AFRICA. VACATION TOURS. The Minerva Library OF FAIO US BOOKS. Edited by G. T. BETTANY, M.A. I. CHARLES DARWIN'S JOURNAL during a Voyage in the ' Beagle.' 2. THE INGOLDSBY LEGEN'DS. 3. BORROW'S BIBLE IN SPAIN. 4. EMERSON'S PROSE WVORKS. S. GAL TON'S (FRA ,NCIS) TRA V'ELS IN TROPICAL SOUTH AFRICA. 6. MANZONI'S THE BETROTHED LOVERS. 7. GOE THE'S FA UST (Comnzlete.) Bayard Taylor's Translation. 8. WIALLACE'S (ALFRED RUSSEL) TRAVELS ON THE AllAZON. 9. DEAN STANLEY'S LIFE OF DR. ARNOLD, OF RUGBY. io. POE'S TALES OF ADVENTURE, M'STERY, AND IMA GINA TION. WARD, LOCK & CO., London, Nezw York., and Mlrelbourn. . THE LIBRARY OF THE / r/. THE MINERVA LIBRARY' OF FAMOUS- BOOKS. Edited by G. T. BETTANY, 1M.A., B.Sc. NARRATIVE OF AN EXPLORER IN TROPICAL SOUTH AFRICA BEING AN ACCOUNT OF A VISIT TO DAMARALAND IN 185 I BY FRANCIS GALTON, F.R.S. WiTH A NEW MAP, AND AN APPENDIX, BRINGING UP THE HISTORY OF DAMARALAND TO A RECENT DATE. Together with a Biographical Introduction by the Editor. ALSO VA CA TION TOURS IN I860 AND i 86 x BY SIR GEORGE GROVE, D.C.L., FRANCIS GALTON, F.R.S., AND W. G. CLARK, M.A. Elyirb (bifiot. WARD, LOCK AND CO., LONDON, NEW YORK, AND MELBOURNE. 1890 INTRODUCTION. FOR thousands of years men have believed in the benefits resulting from worthy parentage and the detrimental effects of evil ancestry; but it remained for the present century to produce an original thinker sufficiently capable and persevering to work out the subject of Human Heredity in its various branches, after Charles Darwin had illuminated the question of the progressive improvement and gradual transformation of species by natural selection. And fitly enough, it was a first cousin of Charles Darwin who took up this task, after having attained the front rank as a scientific traveller by his journey in South Africa, the record of which is here for the first time made accessible to the general public. Mr. Francis Galton, the third son of Samuel Tertius Galton, a banker in Birmingham, in whose family the love of statistical accuracy was very remarkable, and of Violetta, eldest daughter of the celebrated Dr. Erasmus Darwin, author of " Zoonomia," " Tne Botanic Garden," etc., was born on February I6th, 1822, and educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham, where he gained no great admiration for "the unhappy system of education that has hitherto prevailed, by which -boys acquire a very imperfect knowledge of the structure of two dead languages, and none at all of the structure of the living world " (" Art of Travel," 5th ed., p. 2). He thence proceeded to study medicine at the Birmingham General Hospital, and King's College, London; but lihe soon gave up the idea of following medicine as a profession, and entered at Trinit.y College, Cambridge, in 1841, graduating B.A. .in I844. Mr. Galton then turned his attention to science and travel, and in 1846-7 sailed or rode far beyond all the deserts, temples, and cataracts of Egypt into the Soudan, at that time little known to Europeans, but INTR OD UCTION. of late years so famous. The gratification then given to his love of sporting (for which Charles Darwin in his young days had also a great passion), led him in I849 to determine upon making the journey which is chronicled in the following pages. On his return from South Africa in 1852, the "Narrative" was given to the world in the early summer of 1853. It was at once recognised as a valuable contribution to know- ledge, written " in an excellent manly- style, and with much shrewd sense and humour," and the Royal Geographical Society showed its appreciation by the award of a Founder's Gold Medal to the author. In 1854 he was elected into the Council of the Society, which he has since served almost uninterruptedly as Councillor, Honorary Secretary (1857-63), and Vice-President In i855 he published his invaluable "Art of Travel; or, Shifts and Contrivances available in Wild Countries; " a book which is as enter- taining and instructive to those who stay at home as any book of travel, while the traveller who does not study it and follow its advice may be pronounced careless of his safety and well-being. Numerous improved editions have shown that Mr. Galton is indefatigable in his efforts to save future travellers from the troubles and annoyances he himself experienced in the absence of such aid. His " Meteorographica; or, Methods of Mapping the Weather," published in 1863, was illustrated by upwards of 600o printed and lithographed drawings, referring to the weather of a large part of Europe during December I86I. It was the first attempt to represent on a large scale the changes and contem- porary facts in the various elements of the weather. The results led him to propound the theory of anti-cyclones in a paper read before the Royal Society in 1863. The improvements by which it is now possible to have in our daily papers a map of the weather over a large part of Europe on the preceding day, and the methods of exhibiting the phenomena, are due, to a considerable extent, to Mr. Galton's work. Thus far our author's record was sufficient to leave a marked impress upon science; but his subsequent works place him still higher in the roll of original investigators. After several years of preliminary study of the most laborious kind, he published in 1869 "Hereditary Genius: an Inquiry into its Laws and Consequences." He was the first to apply the statistical method to this question, and to obtain sound numerical results on which to establish firmly the fact that genius-and, in fact, all considerable ability-is traceable more or less completely to ancestors. Mr. Galton's analysis has added an almost new element - vi INTRODUCTION.v to biographical study, and his study of the comparative worth of different races, and the influences that affect the natural ability of nations, must command the attention of historians and politicians. In' his concluding paragraph he says: "Our personalities are not so independent as our self-consciousness leads us to believe. We may look upon each individual as something not wholly detached from its parent source,-as a wave that has been lifted and shaped by normal conditions lin an unknown, illimitable ocean. There is, decidedly a solidarity as well as a separateness in all human, and probably in all lives whatsoever; and this consideration goes far, as I think, to establish an opinion that the constitution of the living universe is a pure theism, and that its form of activity is what may be described as co-operative. It points to the conclusion that all life is single in its essence, but various, ever-varying, and inter-active in its manifestations, and that men and all other living animals are active workers and sharers in a vastly more extended system of cosmic action than any of ourselves, much less of them, can possibly comprehend. It also suggests that they may contribute, more or less unconsciously, to the manifestation of a far higher life than our own." This work was followed and confirmed by Mr. Galton's next book, " English Men of Science: their Nature and Nurture" (1874), in which he gave an account of the ancestry, early education, health, stature, temperament, religious opinions, etc., of one hundred and eighty leading men of science, derived from their own answers to an elaborate series of questions. He completely proved all and more than all he had previously advanced as to the effects of inheritance, and incidentally showed how unanimous scientific men were in their dislike of the old-fashioned system of grammar school education. Meanwhile, in addition to his active work on the Geographical Society, Mr. Galton served the British Association as Honorary General Secretary from 1863 to i868, and was President of its Geographical Section in 1862 and 1872, of the Anthropological sub-section of Biology in 1877, and of the Anthropological Section in I885, after its separation from Biology. After having long been an important member, he became President of the Anthropological Institute in 1885, which office he continued to hold till 1888. His presidential addresses and other papers in connection with these societies have all marked distinct advancesin anthropological science. In 1883 Mr. Galton published what may be regarded as his most vil important work, " Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development," containing the essence of numerous previous memoirs. His general object has been to take note of the varied hereditary faculties of different men, families, and races, to learn how far history has shown the practicability of supplanting inefficient races by better strains, and to consider whether it might not be our duty to make conscious efforts to improve the human race. Those who have not read it can have but a faint idea of the varied interest of the subjects dealt with, the freshness, calmness, impartiality, and suggestiveness with which they are treated, and the number of original investigations of which the results are given. The method of composite portraiture, by superposing and combining on one negative photographs of different persons photographed in the same aspect and under the same conditions of light and shade; the results of the Anthropometric Committee of the British Association, and of the Collective Investigation Committee of the British Medical Association; the application of statistical methods to mankind; the qualities of criminals and insane persons ; the remarkable phenomena of mental imagery, which Mr. Galton was the first to investi- gate; the varying qualities of mind, consciousness, and conscience ; and the strange facts in the history of twins, are but a few out of many profoundly interesting questions dealt with in the book. In its later portion it rises to a high level of practical importance, and of mental and spiritual discussion. While many may dissent from Mr. Galton's statistical conclusions as to the efficacy of prayer for physical benefits, none can charge him with any but the most temperate, truth- seeking, and reverent spirit in his inquiries. Recognising in man the heir of untold ages, standing in the van of circumstance, he believes that man ought to be less diffident than he is, and to realise that he has a considerable function to perform in the order of events, and that his exertions are needed. He should use his intelligence to promote changes suggested by the ascertained tendencies of the progress of evolution; and "his kindly sympathy will urge him to effect them mercifully." He points out numerous directions in which improvements can be effected; and he sums up his book in the following words, unexpected by many who are not familiar with, nor habitually just to the true aims and teachings of science: " The chief result of these inquiries has been to elicit the religious significance of the doctrine of Evolution. It suggests an alteration in our mental attitude, and imposes a new moral duty. The new mental attitude is one of a viii INTRODUCTION. IN TROD UCTION greater sense of moral freedom, responsibility, and opportunity; the new duty, which is supposed to be exercised concurrently with, and not in opposition to the old ones upon which the social fabric depends, is an endeavour to further evolution, especially that of the human race." Mr. Galton's most recent work, "Natural Inheritance," deals with numerous technical points in his inquiries, many of the results being based on information gained through the Records of Family Faculties obtained in competition for the prizes amounting to �50o which he gave some years ago for the best extracts from Family Records. This work is too recent for us to discuss it here, but it will be found essential in all future exact anthropological work. The editor, in conclusion, desires to thank Mr. Galton for the generous kindness with which he has given him permission to include this Book of South African travel in the Minerva Library: and also for his careful revision of the work and preparation of a new appendix and illustrative map. This book occupies a relation to Mr. Galton's career similar to that which Darwin's celebrated "Journal of the Beagle" occupied in his lifework; it shows the early phases of the notable character and investigations which have been briefly sketched above, combined with a narrative of travel of special interest in itself. By the kind permission of Messrs. Macmillan & Co. and of the authors, or in the case of one much lamented scholar, the late Mr. W. G. Clark, of Trinity College, Cambridge, of his representative, the Rev. J. M. Clark, of Dulwich, this volume includes a selection from the series entitled "Vacation Tourists" which Mr. Galton edited in 1860-3, and which record the varied experiences of a number of cultured English travellers in vacation. Sir George Grove and Mr. Galton have revised the reprint of their contributions; Mr. Clark's "Naples and Garibaldi " has been reprinted as it stood. It is believed that many will still appreciate these vivid narratives, which in some parts rise to historical importance. G. T. B. ix PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION. THE following pages contain the description of a part of Africa hitherto unknown to Europeans, but which has recently been travelled over and explored by the Author. His journey was a tedious and a very anxious one, but happily brought to a close wiithout loss of life or serious accident to any member of his large party, which altogether amounted to nearly forty men. The result of this excursion has been to fill up that blank in our maps which, lying between the Cape Colony and the western Portuguese settlements, extends to the interior as far as the newly discovered Lake 'Ngami. The country of the Damaras-warlike, pastoral Blacks-was in the first instance explored; beyond them he found a broad tract, inhabited by aboriginal Hottentots; and, again, to the north of these, the Ovampo, a race of intelligent and kindly negroes, who are careful agriculturists, and live in a land of great fertility. " On his return southwards, a quick journey was made into the interior, near the line of the southern tropic, until a road, which had recently been travelled from the borders of the Cape Colony to Lake 'Ngami, was reached, and in this way a practicable route between the Lake and the Atlantic was proved to exist. Few new objects of natural history were either collected or heard of, as the tract in question was for the most part a high barren plateau, that supported but little variety of either animal or vegetable life. The journey may perhaps produce a useful result, by indicating a very favourable opening to missionary enterprise, namely, among the Ovampo. The writer has no wish to commit himself to extreme views either on this or on kindred subjects, but, if philanthropists continue anxious to promote African civilisation, the remarkable advantages of Ovampoland, as a leverage ground in these matters, slIould not be lost sight of. The healthiness of the clmate, the position of the country, the intelligence and orderly habits of the natives, their travelling and trading propensities, and, lastly, the ready access which it admits of from a healthy sea-coast, form most cogent recommenda- tion. In addition to, these, though bordering on slave-producing countries, Ovampoland is itself exempt from the scourge, and there would be one prejudice the less for Christian teachings to encounter. A traveller who, starting with the same views that the Author did, chose to start from Little Fish Bay, or elsewhere, in Benguela, and explore to the eastwards and southwards, would be likely to make a very successful journey. He would find shooting in abundance, and have opportunities of learning everything about as highly interest- ing a race of negroes as is probably to be found in' the whole of Africa. The Author's fate certainly led him over a great deal of barren country, and many monotonous days were passed; still he cannot regret that he undertook the journey, for, besides the enjoyment of robust health in Africa, habits of self-reliance in rude emergencies were acquired, Shich are well worth possessing, though an English education hardly tends to promote them. A question is commonly put to explorers, " Why could you not go further when you had already succeeded in going so far?" and the answer to this is, that several independent circumstances concur in stopping a man after he has been travelling for a certain time and distance. He must refit, for his cattle become worn out; his articles of exchange, which are his money, expended; and, indeed, the medium of currency among the people he at last reaches being unknown to him, has of course been unprovided for. His clothes, necessaries, luxuries, all become exhausted, and the capital out of which he has to support himself fast disappears. On the other hand, infinite difficulty is found in acquiring the confidence of a strange natior.; a new language has to be learnt; native servants refuse, and are unfitted. to accompany their master in countries strange and probably hostile to them, and whom months of joint labours had educated into a kind of sympathy with his cause; and so, when an explorer intends to cross the frontier of a neighbouring tribe, he finds that all his old travelling arrangements are more or less broken up, and that the further progress of the expedition will require nearly as many preparations and as much delay as if it were then about quitting the borders of civilisation. .. Xll PREFA CE, But his energies are reduced, and his means become inadequate to the task, and therefore no alternative is left him but to return while it is still possible for him to do so. It is therefore not to be expected that any large part of the vast unexplored region before us will yield its secrets to a single traveller, but, rather, that they will become known step by step through various successive discoveries; and as the experience of nearly a century corroborates these views, it is probable that for years to come there will still remain ample room in Africa for men inclined for adventure to carry out in them, if nowhere else, the metier of explorers. FRANCIS GALTON. 8, ST. JAMES'S PLACE, Aptril 27th, '853. The four Mimosas that, to the exclusion of nearly every other tre, or bush, form the vegetation of Damaraland, PREFACE. Xili PREFACE TO THE PRESENT EDITION. THE first edition of this little book was issued thirty-six years ago under the title of "Tropical South Africa." It was soon out of sale, even second-hand copies being rarely procurable though often asked for. A new interest has now arisen in the lands of which it treats, owing to recent political events, which included the establishment of a German protectorate over a large portion of them, and the posses- sion of Walfisch Bay by Great Britain. The present edition bears a more explicit title than.its predecessor, but in other respects its contents are reprinted almost without alteration. On first thoughts I was inclined to recast and to expand it, for I had a great deal more to say than was printed there, but further reflection showed that if I did so, whatever merit there might be in its freshness, would be lost. So the final conclusion was, to leave it alone. I have, however, added something of interest and of service to the reader; namely, an appendix and an index. The appendix consists of short extracts from various sources that will suffice to give an outline of the subsequent history of the peoples and individuals spoken of in the book, and the index will partly do away with the previous trouble of finding out particular remarks, that was due to the arrangement of the book in the form of a narrative. The map, also, is much more than a reprint of my own, reduced in size. It is based on the present state of our knowledge not only of Damara and Ovampo lands, but of the adjacent districts as well. The reader must recollect when he refers to it, that none of that knowledge was in existence at the time when the journey was made, except as regards Lake 'Ngami, which Living- stone had then recently discovered, journeying in company with Mr. Murray and Mr. Oswell from the south. FRANCIS GALTON. 42, RUTLAND GATE, LONDON, May, I889. CON TE NT S. CHAPTER I. 'AGE Determine to travel in Africa-Motives for the Journey-Preparations -Stock in Trade--An Emigrant Ship-Arrival at Cape Town- Dangers of the Road--Change of Route-Determine to proceed by Walfisch Bay-Necessary Outfit-Prospects of the Route-Travel- ling Cortege-Servants and Dogs-Arrival at Walfisch Bay-The Natives-Extraordinary Mirage-The Kuisip River-Tobacco- Ride-Oxen-Disembarking-Misadventure at Starting-Perils of the Desert-The 'Nara-The Mission at Scheppmansdorf . . I CHAPTER IIL Sand Fountain-A Lesson to the Natives-A Present-News of a Lion -Scheppmansdorf-A Narrow Escape-A .Missionary's Establish- ment-Native Huts-Missions-A Lion Hunt-Preparations for the Road--Native Trees-The Hottentots-Character of the Country- Mode of breaking in an Ox-Arrangement of the Baggage-A Pros- perous Start-The Swakop-Night Bivouac-Labours of the March -Loss of a Horse and a Mule-The Lions' Chase-Attempt to avenge the Loss-A Narrow. Escape-Animal Food-The Ghou Damup-Erongo Mountain-Intense Heat-The Tsobis River- Ride-Oxen-Native Servants-Their Cape Town Life-A Giraffe Hunt-Change of Country-An Ostrich Egg-Approach to Otjim- bingu -Hans Larsen . . 5 CHAPTER III. Hear Ill News-Engage Hans-Ride to Barmen-En route-Oxen versus Mules-Arrive at Barmen-Jonker's Attack-Previous History- Oerlams and Europeans-Hottentots and Bushmen-Establishment of Missions-Native Feuds-Dislike to Missions-Obstruction to Travellers-Write to Jonker-Buy Oxen from Hans-Breaking them in-Attacks of Distemper-Complete my Encampment-Digging Holes-Native Hunting-Oxen sent to the Bay-I go to Barmen -Damara Thorn Trees-Jonker writes to me-My Plans--The Ovampo-First Rain-Hottentot Beauties-Hyena's Insolence- Damara Ferocity-Cruel Murder-Mutilated Victim-Message to Chiefs-Their Replies . . . 36 CHAPTER IV. I go to meet the Waggons-Start for Erongo-En route-Damara Features -Gabriel in a Scrape-The Mountain Erongo-Chase Zebras- Ghou Damup Huts-A Black Coquette- Return to Waggons-Leave Otjimbingue-Mishaps-How to Encamp and Water Oxen-Arrive at Barmen, thence to Schmelen's Hope-Ride to Eikhams-A Doomed Sufferer-Visit Jonker-Conference with Him-Swartboy and Amiral-Ride on to Rehoboth-Umap's Judgment-Obtain Interpreters-Return to Rehoboth-Murder a Dog and Pay for it- Conference at Eikhams-Legislating-Proposed Conference-MuIcs run quite away-Schmelen's Hope-Dates . , r8 CHAPTER V. Personnel-Commissariat-Daily Allowances-Start on the Expedition -Damara Obtuseness-Inability to Count-Information withheld-- Kahikend sends to us-Arrive on the High Table-Land-Supersti- tions on Food-Meet Kahiken--His Difficulties-Gives me Advice --Information about the Road-Four Oxen Stolen--The Culprits are Punished-Recognising lost Oxen-Hear of another Road-- Reach Omatoka-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-Omanbond.-Hippopotami . . . 72 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 Okamabuti-The first xvi CONTENTS. Elephant-Waggon breaks down-Encampment made-Chapupa'6 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-onkomp6-Pronunciation of the letter I.- Salt, not a necessary of life-Damaras never eat it-Return to Chapupa's Werft-Arrange a present for Nangoro-Drcssed anil tanned leather-Hear of Kahikene's death-Damara Creed-Eand:.: and Omakuru-Ceremonies-Huts and Finery-Chaunts and Music -Damara Language-Prefixes . . .... . 99 CHAPTER VII. Damara Helpmates-Marriage Tie-Caravan to Ovampoland-Yearly Traffic-Otchikoto-Improvised Chaunts-Reach an Ovampo Cattle- post-Archery Practice-The Parent Tree-We reach Ondonga- Corn, Beans, and Palms-Fruit Trees-Native Beer-Density of the Population-Encamp by Nangoro's Village--Cannot obtain Pas- turage-Nangoro pays us a Visit-Ovampo Belles-We go to a Ball-Description of Dances-Charms and Counter-charms-Nan- goro's Palace-The Great River-Prospects-The King is crowned --His Lawful Successors-The Queen's Duties-Ovampo Dentists --Surgical Practice .. ....... 119 CIHAPTER VIII. We are ordered to return-Hesitation-The Slave Dealings here- Future of Ovampoland-A Field for Missionaries-Best Way of getting there-Slavery and Servitude-Giving Men away-Arrange my Packs-Start Homeward-Leave Ondonga-The Oxen suffer severely-Reach Okamabuti-The Waggons are Safe-Start for Omaramba-Okavare -Elephants visit us-Ice every Night-Pass Omagund-Reach Barmen . . . . . . . . 137 CHAPTER IX. The Waggons are condemned-Messengers to the Cape-The Kaoko- History of Damaraland-Ghou Damup Genealogies-Start for Ele- phant Fountain-Excessive Drought-Engage Eybrett-Sell my Ca*'t and Mules-Travel from Eikhams-Shooting Giraffes in the Dusk --Elephant Fountain-Numerous Pitfalls-Plundering Expedi- tions- The IFubabees reach 'Ngami-Trouble of taking Observations CONTENTS. lvil PAGE -Leave Waggon and ride to the East-Engage Saul--Hans and a Lion-We enter the Bushman Tract-Rhinoceros Skulls-Hear of the Kubabees Hottentots-Start foi 'Tounobis-Shoot a White Rhinoceros-Reach 'Tounobis-Elephant in a Pitfall-Prepare for Sport-Night-Watching for Gamd-RhinocerosVeal-Opera Glasses -Herd of Elephants-Fights and Frolics-Bulk of the Rhinoceros -A Picturesque Finale-Spring Hares-Remarks on my Route- Unicorns and Cockatrices-Bushmen Springes-Setting Guns at Night-Description of Plate-Poisoned Arrows . . . 151 CHAPTER X. tHear the Fate of my Two Oxen-Plan an Attack to avenge them- Make an Attack on Two Werfts-Catch some Culprits-Hottentot Passion for Onslaught-Return to Eikhams--Best Sort of Travel- ling Compass-MS. and other Almanacs--Watches and Alarums- Large Packs of Lions-A Tale learnt from Tracks--Accidents with Guns-Methods of carrying them on Horseback-Description of the Plate-Travelling Dress-Colours most suited for Sportsmen-Bright Colours of skulking Animals-Rationale of them-Join Hans' Party -Begin to break up the Expedition-Travel down the Swakop- Reach Walfisch Bay-Whales, Sharks, and Ostriches--Retrospects -Leave Africa . . . . ... . . . . 176 APPENDIX . " . s . . . . . . . I193 INDEX . , * *, a VACATION TOURS. I. A VISIT TO NORTH SPAIN AT THE TIME OF THE ECLIPSE OF i860 ... 217 II. NABLOOS AND THE SAMARITANS (in I86I) I . , . 241 III. NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (I860) . . . . . . 259 xvili CONTENTS. FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS. TROPICAL SOUTH AFRICA. PORTRAIT OF MR. GALTON . . ..... FonlzS liece MAP OF OVAMPOLAND, WI fH SMIALL MAP OF SOUTH AFRICA AS INDEX . ..... . Oo()~ri;t page r CAMP 1N OVAMPOLAND , , . . ,. ,, I28 HOTTENTOT METHOD OF CARRYING A GUN ON OX-BACK. - a 1 o * s IB VACATION TOURS. GARIBALDI'S BIRTHPLACE AT NICE . . . Opposite page 259 VIEW OF NAPLES , , , , ,, ,, 27I PORTRAIT OF GARIBALDI. " * . . ,, , 276 THE MARINELLA, NAPLES . . . . . ,, , 288, ILLUSTRATIONS IN TIlE TEXT. TROPICAL SOUTH AFRICA. THE THORNS OF DAMARALAND . .... . page xiii DAMARA WVEAP 'O\S ETC. . . . . . ,, I 18 OVAMPO WEAPONS, UTENSILS, ETC. . . . . ",, j6 VALTIN I I OU I SU . THE SUN'S CORONA: FIGS. I, 2 . . .. page 233 ,, ,, FIGS. 3, 4 . . ... . ..,, 234 SLEEPING-BAG: FIGS. I-4 . . . . . ..,, 238 PLAN OF SAMARITAN SYNAGOGUE . . . . . ,, 247 MAP OF OVAMPO LAND. N. B.-The dotted river beds indicate temporary terrents occurring some years only durine the keight of the season. At other times they are dry and sandy TROPICAL SOUTH AFRICA. CHAPTER I. Determine to travel in Africa-Motives for the Journey-Preparations- Stock in Trade-An Emigrant Ship--Arrival at Cape Town-Dangers of the Road-Change of Route-Determine to proceed by Walfisch Bay-Necessary Outfit-Prospects of the Route-Travelling Cortige- Servants and Dogs-Arrival at Walfisch Bay-The Natives-Extra- ordinary Mirage-The Kuisip River-Tobacco-Ride-Oxen-Disem- barking-Misadventure at Starting-Perils of the Desert-The 'Nara- The Mission at Scheppmansdorf. IT was in 1849 that I determined upon a long travel in Africa. I had been there once; and then, landing at Alexandria, sailed or rode far beyond all the deserts, temples, and cataracts of Egypt, until I had fairly entered the" Soudan," or country of the Blacks-that zone of the tropical vegetation to which the name of Central Africa properly applies. It was a tour hastily performed, but still sufficient to imbue or poison me with that fascination for further enterprise, which African tourists have so especially felt; a fascination which has often enough proved its power by urging the same traveller to risk his comfort, his health, and his life, over and over again, and to cling with pertinacity to a country which, after all, seems to afford little else but hazard and hardships, ivory and fever. The motive which principally induced me to undertake this journey was the love of adventure. I am extremely fond of shooting, and that was an additional object; and lastly, such immense regions of Africa lie utterly unknown that I could not but feel that there was every pro- bability of much being discovered there, which, besides being new, would also be useful and interesting. A large field lay open to any explorer who might wish to attempt the enterprise, and I chose to undertake the task. The discovery that was made of Lake Ngami, in South Africa, gave a direction to my plans; and in the beginning of i85o I fixed on the Cape as the point at which to enter Africa. Many South African travellers and sportsmen were then in London,. so that I received every information about the Bechuana country up to three hundred or four hundred miles north of the Orange River, which has been most successfully shot over by several of our countrymen; and through the very kind interest which several influential members of the Geographical Society took in my proceedings, I was readily enabled to start, perfectly aufait as to what was known and what was wanted to be known in South Africa. I now began my preparations in good earnest. Mr. Andersson, a Swedish gentleman and a naturalist, consented to accompany me; and to his perseverance and energy I have since been in the highest degree indebted. I collected together all the things I could think of, or that my friends were kind enough to suggest to me, as advisable to take. I knew that at least the first part of my journey would have to be undertaken in waggons, in each of which I was assured four thousand pounds' weight could be carried without risk across the country, so far as it had been penetrated, and therefore I was not necessarily stinted in the quantity of comforts I could carry from Europe; but as to the latter part of my expedition I was aware that the probability was that I should have to leave my waggons, and to travel either by boat or on the backs of some beasts of burden, or possibly even to walk, in which case I should have to content myself with far less luggage. I therefore collected my things together, on the principle of having them as light as possible, and in duplicate, the half of which I could leave en cache, when I had to quit my waggons, as a store to fall back upon should I happen to meet with robbery or accident. In my perfect ignorance of what would be the most acceptable presents, and what were the best articles of exchange among the people I should meet with, I made a great collection of all sorts of ornaments, so that I had a store like a pedlar's shop; for besides the more staple articles of guns, beads, knives, and gaudily-printed calico, I bought or collected looking-glasses, accordions, hunting-coats, my friends' old uniforms, burning-glasses, swords, gilt belts, immense bracelets, anklets, yards of picture chains for necklaces, Jews' harps, mosaic rings; lastly, 2 PA EPARA TIONS. [CHAP. I. ARRIVAL AT CAPE TOWVN. I explored the shops of Drury Lane for some theatrical finery, and a magnificent crown rewarded my search, which I vowed to place on the head of the greatest or most distant potentate I should meet with in Africa. On the 5th of April, I85o, everything was prepared; I and my boxes were on board an East Indiaman, my last adieu was said, the very last line sent off by the pilot boat, and we were off for thie Cape. I had plenty of occupation on board ship in arranging my things, trying to learn the Bechuana language, practising with a sextant, and reading up books; so that the time passed as agreeably as can be ex- pected in a sea voyage. It so happened that the ship in which I had taken my berth carried a number of emigrants-a fact which the careful agent only let us find out at the last moment-but I liked the crowding and bustle of it amazingly. The emigrants were not in the least in the way of the cabin passengers, for we, of course, had the poop to outr- selves; and looking down from it, the deck had all the appearance of a crowded fair. The emigrants were a squalid, starved-looking set at first, but six weeks of rest and good feeding made a wonderful change in their con- dition; and as we sailed into the warm weather, and they could sit about the decks, they began to think of their personal appearance, and to wash and tidy themselves and put their clothes to rights. It was amusing to see how soon they divided themselves into cliques, and how high and mighty the party that sat under the left corner of the poop were, and how they looked down on those who sat elsewhere. Any- how, we had a pleasant sail, though some eighty days had passed before we were in Table Bay, and among the white stone and green-shuttered houses of Cape Town. I intended to make a stay here of a few weeks, and then to sail on to Algoa Bay, whence my land journey was to have been commenced. I therefore took the earliest opportunity of presenting my letters oi introduction, and I hoped that chance would soon throw much informa- tion, valuable to me, within my reach. I cannot sufficiently express how much kindness I received during my stay in Cape Town from all my acquaintance there. Everybody that I was thrown with seemed to take the greatest interest in my excursion, and I was referred and introduced to all those whose experience or information might be of any use to me. I had not, however, arrived many days, when news came that CHAP. I.] 3 DANGERS OF TIHE ROAD. materially affected my plans, and in the end gave them a somewhat different direction. The- emigrant Boers-those Dutch colonists who had rebilled and run away from us-had broken out into open revolt. They invested the wh61le breadth of the habitable country north of the Orange River, through which the direct way to Lake Ngami lies; and information was received that they had resolutely refused the passage of any stranger from the colony through their country; that they had already turned back some travellers, and that in all probability they would send a " commando " to take immediate and exclusive possession of the lake country. Sir Harry Smith, then Governor of the Cape, was so good as to put me in immediate possession of the news, and strongly dissuaded me from attempting to pass them, not because there was any risk to my life, but because after the tedious journey of six weeks or two months that led to their country, I should be met by these Boers, and almost to a certainty stopped, robbed, and turned back. There was no road to the left of these people, because they live up to the verge of the great Karrikarri desert, which takes up all the middle of South Africa, whilst any party taking the road to their right would have to pass, in the first instance, through the whole length of the Caffre country, and then to the fever-stricken neighbourhood of the west coast. In fact, when the Boers chose to stop all communication from the Colony northwards, by the usual route, they were perfectly able to do so. In a few days the intelligence that had before been received about the Boers' intentions became more fully confirmed, and I had to think of other ways of getting to the tropical lands of South Africa. My first thought was to try the east coast, by Delagba Bay, but that plan was instantly abandoned on account of the fearful unhealthiness of the district. Next I thought of the Mozambique, and of landing at Quilli- maine-a plan which was warmly advocated by a Portuguese gentleman of the highest standing at that place, Signore Isidore Pereira. His father had crossed Africa from Mozambique to Benguela, and he himself had travelled much, and was in intimate relation with the chiefs of many of the surrounding parts. He chanced to be passing through Cape Town when I was there en route to Rio. He took the kindest interest in my plans, gave me very full information upon what he knew of the interior, and subsequently furnished me with credentials to different Portuguese gentlemen at the more distant of their settle- ments. If I had been under no sort of tie, I should have slaved at (cuP. . erniA. I . ROUTE TO WALFISCII BAY. learning. Portuguese in Cape Town until the first ship sailed for Mozambique; and then have gone by her-=but I was engaged to take my travelling companion: by some means of conveyance, by "which he could bring home a complete collection of the Natural History of the country; and Signore Pereira told me that no beasts of burden were used in the interior of Mozambique, but that all luggage was carried on men's backs, and the traveller himself in a palanquin. This way of travelling would never have answered the object Andersson had in view, and I therefore did not feel justified in proposing it to him. At last a plan was suggested, and very strongly urged upon me, chiefly by some merchants, of sailing to Walfisch Bay, and thence travelling with waggons; this was the idea I finally adopted. I heard that though all was desert by the sea coast between the Cape Colony and Benguela, yet that beyond this desert not only habitable but very fertile country was to be found. As to distance, Walfisch Bay was of all places most favourably situated for an excursion into the interior, and there were Missionary establishments already formed from near the coast to many days' journey inwards. I was referred to a person who had carried on for some years a cattle trade between Walfisch Bay and the countries near it and the Cape. He had built a store at the Bay, and had had a vessel of his own there; sometimes he sent the cattle by her to St. Helena, sometimes he sold them to the whalers and guano ships which then were numerous, and often put in to him for provisions, and lastly he had driven large herds of them overland to the Cape-by a road to the west of that Karrikarri desert of which I spoke a few lines back, and to the east of which the Boers and Bechuanas reside. All about this line of country the Namaqua Hottentots live, and up it some fifteen or twenty years ago Sir James Alexander was the first to explore a waggon road. My informant, the cattle-trader, had himself seen nothing but arid, worthless country, but he strongly stated his belief in the fertility of Damaraland, into which no white man had ever penetrated, but on the borders of which the Missionary stations are placed. I then went to the agents and friends of the Missionary Societies to which those stations belonged, and the trader's account was very fully confirmed by them. I was informed that the Damaras were considered by the Missionaries as a most interesting nation, and one well worthy of exploring, and that an expedition had long been contemplated by them to go through Damaraland, to see what field might lie open for NECESSARY OUTFIT. their labours beyond it. I was very kindly assured of every assistance cn their part, and my friends insisted on the great advantage that I should have if the first stage of my journey was made in company with persons who had experience of the country and acquaintance with the language. Moreover, a novice had just arrived from Germany, and was waiting for the earliest opportunity of being shipped off to join his future fellow-labourers. So far matters seemed promising enough; but one point was certain, that everything I might want must be taken from Cape Town, as nothing whatever but oxen could be bought where the Missionaries were. Servants, waggons, and things of every kind I must take with me, for the ship would land me on the desert sand-four tedious months' journey from Cape Town; and when she sailed away all communica- tion thence would, for at least a year, be at an end. Now if I had been going to travel in any of the usual ways, as with pack-horses, mules, camels, boats, and so forth, and with people I knew something about, I should not have had the least anxiety; but oxen were creatures I had no experience with, or of Cape half-castes either. Cape Town is proverbially the worst place in the Colony to get waggon-drivers and leaders from, and I did not much fancy the undertaking, but still go somewhere I must, and I could think of no other alternative but Walfisch Bay. I therefore consoled myself with the idea that, if the whole affair broke down at the very first, Andersson and I would still find protection from the Missionaries, and that if, on the other hand, we could push on at all, we could probably get a great way. So I began resolutely to make my preparations. I will try to put in a few words the whole of the information that I could get, and upon which I had to act. Walfisch Bay was perfectly desert, though traders had lived there. The nearest water was three miles off, and that in very small quantities. The nearest place where cattle could thrive was between twenty and thirty miles from the coast. This was the first Missionary station,-it was called Scheppmansdorf. Thence a journey of ten or twelve days inland over wretched country led to two other stations; they were the furthest; and all beyond them northwards was unknown. These last were in Damaraland; the Namaqua Hottentots lived between therm and the Cape. A small pen and ink map was also shown me, but it was blotted and not very intelligible. No oxen could be bought until I arrived at the furthest stations. If I bought them from the Damaras they were untaught; if CHAP I, MY TRAVELLING CORTEGE. from the Namaquas taught oxen; the horse distemper was very scv re, and no horse would live throughout the year. The Namaquas were always fighting with the Damaras, and it was very doubtful whether having travelled amongst the one tribe, the other would permit me to pass through their country. No money was used or known, nothing but articles of barter,--iron things, for the most part, among the Damaras, clothing and guns among the Namaquas. Lastly, that the great man of all the country, who could do what he liked, and of whom everybody stood in awe, was Jonker Africaner. It was said that he had a wholesome dread of the English Government, and unlimited respect for a large letter with a large seal, but that I had much better keep out of his way. This, I think, is a faithful summary of all that I could learn, and I soon set to work to act upon it. Cape Town abounds with mules, small well-bred-looking things, so I made inquiries, and bought eight that had been well broken into harness, and were in good condition; I could only buy one pack-mule, which made my ninth. Mules had withstood the distemper so well in Bechuana country, that I trusted that at least half of them would live until my wanderings were ended. I then bought a large strongly-built cart for them to draw, and with it I purposed to make my first expedition up the country, carrying the heavy articles of exchange and bringing back oxen. I also bought two waggons--I believe the only two travelling waggons in Cape Town-for nowadays the march of intellect has inspired even the ponderous Dutchmen, and they make good roads and use lighter vehicles. These were to be drawn by the oxen that I intended to buy in the country, and the mules, as I calculated, would be strong enough to pull them from VWalfisch Bay to Schepp- mansdorf, the first station, and thence to go on with the cart and articles of exchange. As there was no grass at Walfisch Bay, I took plenty of corn for my cattle, and a cask of good water for ourselves ; the mules would drink at Sand Fountain, the place three miles off. I only took two horses, as I knew they would be victims to distemper before the important part of my journey commenced; and I bought but few additional articles of exchange, for I hoped to obtain enough game to supply us with daily food, in addition to the few sheep we should take with us as slaughter cattle. This was a sad mistake, as I found out afterwards. I was aware I should require at least sixty waggon oxen,--two spans of from fourteen to sixteen for each waggon. As Namaqualand was out of my intended route, and as I had been so CHAP. I.] strongly advised not to go there, I took only enough clothing, etc., to buy some forty or sixty oxen there, and iron things enough to buy one hundred and fifty from the Damaras; the surplus beyond what I immedi- ately wanted being meant to coverthe unavoidable expenses of travelling. I had, as I mentioned before, from England, a large and indeed an expensive set of "presents," but my great error was in not taking far more things of known exchangeable value, and in having taken those " presents" which the natives really cared very little for. I felt quite sure that everything connected with my waggons was right, because I got more than one experienced friend to look them over; and having engaged my vessel, a schooner of some Ioo tons, all except my servants were at length in readiness. I wanted, in the first instance, a headman-one who had travelled with oxen and knew the work-a man with a character that he could not afford to lose, under whom I could put every detail, and whom I would pay highly; but I could find no such person in Cape Town. I, however, engaged a Portuguese, John Morta, a most thoroughly trustworthy man, who, though he did not in the least fulfil the conditions I have just mentioned, was honest in the extreme, and with whom I received an excellent character; next, I hired Timboo, a black, liberated by one of our cruisers years ago, on capturing a slave-ship in the Mozambique. He, too, had an admirable character, and could do a little of everything. I do not think he would have joined me had he not been suspected of too active interference (on the loyal side) during the late anti-convict movement, which made it convenient for him to leave Cape Town for a season. There was some story about his having had a personal conflict with an influential leader of the opposition. Timboo was an excellent groom, and had some acquaintance with oxen. Besides him, I got John St. Helena as waggon-driver, and his brother for leader; John Williams, a square-built, impudent, merry fellow, and a right useful servant, was another leader; and a young scamp, Gabriel, who clung to my heels wherever I went in Cape Town, and who undertook to be agent in getting me dogs, horses, or anything else, begged so earnestly to go with me, that I enrolled him also in my corps. I still wanted a second waggon driver, and at the last moment took a man out of a waggon-maker's shop, though I did not much like him. As for dogs, although I was assured that I could find any number in the country, still I thought that a few Cape Town mongrels would be of no harm, and Gabriel brought me a whole pack for approval, at an MY DOS. [CHAP. I. uniform rate of 2s. 6d. each; one good dog was given to Andersson. and by entreating that a sentence of execution, which was passed on a fine-looking Newfoundland, for trespassing in the barracks, might be commuted to transportation for life, I obtained him also. I had a fancy to take a small dog which could be carried in thel waggon all day, and would be wakeful at night, so I bought a spaniel, on which I lavished infinite affection, and who rejoiced in the name of Dinah. Andersson was most busy in packing and arranging my things. I don't know how I should have got through the work myself; the confusion seemed endless. At length, after we had been for three weeks or a month in Cape Town the schooner was brought close into shore; the kicking mules were boated into her; the heaps of wheels, axle-trees, etc., that belonged to the four vehicles of the Missionary and myself disappeared off the quay; all the boxes were on board, and, last of all, a cab-full of lamenting curs were embarked and sent away. In the second week of August, 1850, we set sail, and on the eve of the 20th the low sandy shore of the land we were bound for came in sight. We rounded Pelican Point (on which pelicans were certainly sitting) and came into a wide bay, the shores of which were dancing with mirage, and presented the appearance of the utmost desolation. The store-house was a wretched affair to have received so grand a name --being a wooden shanty, about the size of a small one-storied cottage -which we could not for a long time see from on board our ship. The name of the bay, " Walfisch," is Dutch, and means whale-fish: the sailors have corrupted it to Walwich, and, lastly, to Woolwich Bay, all which aliases may be found in different maps. There are a great many whales of the sort called "humpbacks " all about this coast; in coming here we passed through a "school" or herd. It was a magnificent sight; for the whole sea around us was ploughed up by them. We went up the bay very cautiously, for it has never been properly surveyed; and different charts give most widely different plans of it. At nightfall we anchored a mile or so off shore. We could see no natives; and not a sign of life anywhere, excepting in the immense flocks of pelicans and of flamingoes and other sea-birds. And this, it appears, is the.character of the entire coast between the Orange River and the Portuguese territory-a physical barrier which has saved the natives who live behind it from the infliction of a foreign slave-trade. The books of sailing directions say that no fresh water can be obtained on the coast for the whole of that distance; but this is a mistake, CIAP. I.] WHALES. as in Sandwich Harbour, some twenty miles south of Walfisch Bay, there is, at least at present, a copious supply. In the morning we saw some savages about, and brought the schooner as close in shore as seemed safe, about one-third of a mile from the storehouse; and at midday the captain, the new Missionary, and our- selves landed. A row of seven dirty, squalid natives came to meet us. Three had guns: they drew up in a line, and looked as powerful as they could; and the men with guns professed to load them. They had Hottentot features, but were of a darker colour, and a most ill-looking appearance; some had trousers, some coats of skins, and they clicked, and howled, and chattered, and behaved like baboons. This was my first impression, and that of all of us ; but the time came when, by force of comparison, I looked on these fellows as a sort of link to civilisation. They were well enough acquainted with sailors; and the advent of a ship was of course a great godsend for them, as they bartered, for tobacco, clothes, and all sorts of luxuries, the goats' milk and oxen which a few of them had; but they had been savagely ill-used more than once, and had occasionally retaliated. The captain of them soon made his appearance, and we became very amicable, and walked towards Sand Fountain, signs and smiles taking the place of spoken language. A letter was sent on to the Missionary at Scheppmansdorf, a cotton handkerchief and a stick of tobacco being the payment to the messenger for his twenty-five miles' run. We passed over a broad flat, flooded in spring-tides, following the many waggon-tracks that here seemed so permanent as not to be effaced by years, We were sur- rounded by a mirage of the most remarkable intensity. Objects two hundred yards off were utterly without definition; a crow, or a bit of black wood, would look as lofty as the trunk of a tree. Pelicans were exaggerated to the size of ships with the studding-sails set; and the whole ground was wavy and seething, as though seen through the draught of a furnace. This was in August, the month in which mirage is most remarkable here; it is excessive at all times, and has been remarked by every one who has seen the place. A year and a half later I tried on two occasions to map the outline of the Bay, which was then comparatively clear, but still the mirage quite prevented me; an object which I took as a mark from one point being altogether undis- tinguishable when I had moved to my next station. After proceeding half a mile we came to the bed of the Kuisip, a river that only runs once in four or five years, but, when it does, THE MIRA GE, [CHAP, I, Io sweeps everything before it. The bed was very broad, and hardly definable; there were marks here and there like the bottom of dried- up pools, where the ground has been made into a paste and afterwards cracked by the drought. Bushes (Dabby bushes I have always heard them called) not unlike fennel, but from eight to twelve feet high, grew plentifully; a prickly gourd, the 'Nara,* with long runners, covered numerous sand-hillocks; and lastly, high shifting sand dunes, on either side, completed the scene. We were so much out of condition, that the depth of the sand and the heat of the sun (at least, what we then thought was heat) gave us a good tiring, and we were heartily glad when Sand Fountain and its watering-place came in sight. My imagination had pictured, from its name, a bubbling streamlet; but in reality it was a hole, six inches across, of green stagnant water. It was perfectly execrable to taste, as many years had elapsed since the Kuisip last ran, and the water which drains from its damp sand to the hollow here had become almost putrid, and highly saline. However, it was drinkable, and I was satisfied that with plenty of digging enough could be obtained to water my mules. Some years ago, when the trader lived here, the water was copious and very good, but all these sort of wells are very uncertain, even more so than the flow of the river on which they depend. We came back much as we went, and bought five ostrich eggs that were brought to us, giving seven sticks of tobacco for the lot; but this was a piece of extravagance, five being the proper price. Cavendish tobacco is that which has been nearly always bartered here; it is, as most smokers know, in sticks, each stick weighing about an ounce, and worth a penny. I had taken only a hundredweight with me; but five hundredweight would not have proved at all too much. We took the captain and an ill-looking Hottentot, who appeared to be a relation of his, on board, as the two were inseparable; and we employed ourselves in picking bush tics from our persons, for the bushes swarmed with them. During the night a gun was heard on shore, and a fire was lighted, which proved to be made by the Missionary, Mr. Bam, and Stewartson, who had been a cattle-trader, but had lately lost everything, so that he, his wife, and children, could not afford to return to Cape Town, but lived at the same station with Mr. Bam. We had sent the letter at midday; they received it about nightfall, and had ridden down on * The comma before. the N means that the letter is preceded by a Hottentot click, THE KUISIP RIER. CHAP, I. ] 11 MISADVENT URE AT STARTING. oxen in five hours. I had up to that moment no conception that" oxen ever were, or had been, used as hacks, except possibly as a joke; but here were two fine-looking beasts, saddled, and with sticks through their noses, and a thin bridle fastened to the stick, and tied to a log of wood, and really they looked uncommonly well, and not at all out of their element. We at once proceeded to disembark. The horses and mule- had to swim; the sailors managed it rather clumsily, and nearly drowned one; but at last the creatures were all got on shore. Heavy packages had next to be landed in the dingy, and we got through a deal of work. In the evening I rode with Mr. Bam to the Hottentot kraal by Sand Fountain, and of course listened with great interest to all he had to tell me of the country. With the Damaras he had little or no acquaintance. He was born in the Cape; had made several overland journeys; spoke much of the difficulty of travelling here, both from want of food and the badness of the road; and did not hold out to me the slightest encouragement as regarded my journey. After sunset Mr. Bam returned on board to sleep, and to get a good substantial dinner there, which is not to be despised by a resident in these parts. I pitched my tent on shore, and slept in guard of the things. My men had worked with very good spirit throi.gh the day in landing them, though it was hard work, and they were wet all the time. Some slept on shore and some on board. I had a heavy spar, which lay on the beach, carried under the lee of the store-house, and picketed my mules and horses to it. The night was very chilly, damp, and windy, and the animals extremely restless. In the morning we found that my two horses had broken loose and escaped. Timboo and John St. Helena went directly on their tracks; but as hours passed, and they did not return, I became much alarmed. On Mr. Bam's coming on shore he advised me at once to send some natives with provisions after the men, as all was desert for forty miles and more round the Bay; the horses would never perhaps be overtaken by the men, who would possibly follow their tracks till they were exhausted, and so be themselves unable to return. I therefore sent two natives directly,-Mr. Bam interpreting for me,-one with provisions, and the other with orders to go on after the tracks, and bring the animals back. Late in the afternoon my men made their appearance, looking sadly exhausted. They had gone very far, until they dared not go further; and then, intending to return by a short cut back, socr., [CHAP. I. I2 became bewildered among the sand-hills, and quite lost their course. They were on the point of going altogether wrong, when the mist cleared away, and showed them the sea and the Bay, with the schooner in it, in the far distance. After a long walk they came to the waggon- tracks, which took them to Sand Fountain, where they obtained water, and there the Hottentots met them. The sailors had landed some of my things very carelessly indeed, dropping bags of flour into the sea. I made a great row, with much effect, about it. Some goats were driven down to sell. I bought two kids for a second-hand soldier's coat without the buttons. I had three dozen, and gave sixpence each for them at a Jew's shop in Cape Town. The horses were still missing. I sent the captain, " Frederick," and another man, on their ride-oxen upon the spoor-for I became extremely anxious for their lives; there is not a blade of grass or a drop of water where they are gone. Frederick would not go unless I promised him and his friend a really respectable coat and a pair of trousers, to be paid if they brought the horses back-not otherwise. The agreement was made, and off they started. I wish I had brought more old clothes. Two coats and the etceteras are a sad drain upon my wardrobe. Another accident happened: my large white dog, that I begged from the barracks, took fright at the waggon-whips which we had landed, and were cracking; he ran straight away, and was never seen by us again. Flamingoes gathered here in immense flocks; their flight is very curious; the long projecting neck in front, and the long legs behind, make them look in the distance more like dragon-flies than birds. I broke a pelican's wing with a cartridge of swan-shot, and had a chase of a good mile after him before I came up; the Hottentots ate him. The Bay seems, from all accounts, to swarm with fish; but, though I have a small seine net, I have no time now to set it. August 23.-The horses are found i They had strayed nearly forty miles (I saw their tracks long afterwards), and Frederick drove them to Scheppmansdorf for food and water, as it was much nearer for them than the Bay. He came to claim his apparel. I grudgingly enough gave him the only coats I could; they were the workmanship of Stultz: I had intended them for full-dress occasions at Missionary chapel-meetings, etc. But it could not be helped; and the greasy savages put them on, exulting in their altered appearance. esuP. I.] THE 'N ARA. '3 I have mentioned above the 'Nara, a prickly gourd, which grows here; it is the staple food of these Hottentots, and a very curious plant. In the first place, it seems to grow nowhere except in the tKuisip and in the immediate environs of Walfisch Bay; and in the second place, every animal eats it; not only men, cattle, antelopes, and birds, but even dogs and hyenas. It is a very useful agent towards fixing the sands; for as fresh sand blows over, and covers the plant, it continually pushes on its runners up to the air, until a huge hillock is formed, half of the plant, half of sand. I do not much like its taste; it is too rich and mawkish. The waggons that belonged to the Missionaries in the country came down to the beach to carry away their supplies, which had arrived by my ship. A vessel would have been chartered for them if I had not previously engaged it. They had arranged that one should be sent every two years to bring them their things of barter--clothes and groceries, and whatever else they might want; for the overland journey was found to be more expensive and less practicable, as it takes quite four months to reach Cape Town from Walfisch Bay, and the roads are so rocky that a waggon is seriously risked by the journey. The oxen, too, are probably much worn out, and, after all, only some r,5oo lb;. net weight can be carried in each waggon. On the other hand, a vessel from the Cape arrives in a week, and can, of course, carry anything. The trip costs about �xioo; it would be much less if it was net that the prevalent winds make it a matter of some four weeks to return. Chance vessels hardly ever arrive nowadays at Walfisch Bay; not one had come for more than a year. All our. things were at length landed; the wells at Sand Fountain yielded enough water for the mules; the storehouses both there and at the Bay were unlocked, and cleared out to receive my luggage; the waggons and cart were pieced together; and the schooner sailed away, __ _ __ SAND FOUNTAIN. CHAP. I. 14 A LESSON TO THE NATIVES. CHAPTER II, Sand Fountain-A Lesson to the Natives-A Present--News of a Lion- Scheppmansdorf-A Narrow Escape-A Missionary's Establishment- Native Huts-Missions-A Lion Hunt-Preparations for the Road- Native Trees-The Hottentots-Character of the Country-Mode of breaking in an Ox-Arrangement of the Baggage-A Prosperous Start -The Swakop-Night Bivouac-Labours of the March-Loss of a Horse and a Mule-The Lions' Chase-Attempt to avenge the Loss-A Narrow Escape-Animal Food-The Ghou Damup-Erongo Mountain-- Intense Heat-The Tsobis River-Ride-Oxen-Native Servants-Their Cape Town Life-A Giraffe Hunt-Change of Country-An Ostrich Egg-Approach to Otjimbingu -Hans Larsen. THE Missionary who had come with us from Cape Town went off at once to Scheppmansdorf with Mr. Bam, whose oxen fetched his waggon and all his things, and who very kindly promised to give me a help with mine, when the oxen were sufficiently rested, if I would first get the luggage as far as Sand Fountain. The mules were there- fore harnessed, and worked excellently, carting my heavy things through the deep sand; and they made sometimes two and sometimes three trips a day between that place and the Bay. Andersson and myself slept at Sand Fountain. John Morta cooked for us, and the others drove the cart, and took care of my store at the Bay. Mr. Bam told me I should have great trouble in first going up the country, unless I had a person to guide me, and that there was not a Hottentot with him who could go. I had no interpreter for them, and they were frightened at the Damaras. Stewartson said that he was going in about two months, and would then be very happy to show me the way. It appeared, on further conversation, that the business which detained him from going at once was that he had to make a fence round his garden to keep it from Mr. Bam's pigs. So I arranged with two of my men that they should go and help him to get through the work quickly, while my others were employed with me. After a week every- thing was returned to Sand Fountain. Andersson and myself had employed ourselves in walking about, superintending the work, The Hottentots of course crowded round us every day, but they did not at all trouble us; only one or two of them were impudent, and, as -I did not ciar. l.] know how much thrashing they would stand, I let them alone. I took some pains to exhibit and explain to them the mechanism of a spring rat-trap, and when they sufficiently comprehended its object, I gave them to understand that my boxes were all guarded by rat-traps, so that if they put their hands into them to steal, they would infallibly be caught. The black-and-white crows almost attacked our larder for food. They live on the dead fish that lie about the beach, which indeed is almost the only food hereabouts for them. The natives brought us milk every morning to barter for tobacco, and also some goats. Mr. Bam very kindly sent me a slaughter ox. It seemed to me the most princely of presents. Meat keeps wonderfully well here in this season (August and September), and even dries instead of tainting; but I subsequently found it otherwise in December. I had taken plenty of salt meat with me from Cape Town, and rice and biscuits-quite two months' ptovisions-for I knew it must be a long time before we could fall into the ways of the country, and find our own commissariat there. I gave the mules a day's rest, and then started with my first load to Scheppmansdorf. Andersson remained behind. Mr. Bam had sent me word that a lion had come over from the Swakop River, and was prowling about and very daring, and that a hunt should be got up at once. As we travelled sometimes in the soft sand of the river bed, sometimes on the gravelly plain, through which it runs, we kept a sharp look-out for the track that had been seen there; we found it after we had travelled ten miles. The natives amused themselves by cleverly imitating it; they half clenched their fist, and pressed their knuckles into the sand. It was curious to see to what a distance the lion kept to the waggon-road, walking down the middle of it as though it had been made for him. I listened deferentially to Timboo and John St. Helena, who were quite learned on the subject of tracking. Except some ostriches scudding about, some crows, lizards, and a few small birds, there was no other sign of animal life, but we saw spoors now and then of the little steinbok, a very pretty gazelle some sixteen inches high. We followed the waggon path till an hour after nightfall, when the damp feel of the air, distant lights, and barking of dogs, announced that we had arrived at Scheppmansdorf. Mr. Bam welcomed me most kindly, introduced me to his wife, gave me an outhouse for my boxes and myself, and we formed a very pleasant party that evening, more IS NEWS OF A LION. (CHAP. II. cHAP. In.] A Mts.e ONARY ESTABLISHMENT. especially as I heard that my horses were quite well and fat. We talked over the lion, and it seemed that he had been prowling about the station continually; that he was a well-known beast, who usually hunted the lower part of the Swakop, and had killed an immense number of cattle; many a time have I 'heard them reckoned over,-fifty oxen, three horses, one donkey, and innumerable calves and dogs. HIe had often been chased, but was too wary to be shot--and so forth. We talked over the lion at Mr. Bam's till a late hour: he assured me that the animal would prowl about that night, as he had done so every day for a week, and that if I wanted to try my rifle, I could track him in the morning. He and Stewartson had taken my horses the day before to hunt him, and they found him and gave chase; at last he came to bay, when they rode to the top of a sand-hill immediately above him, where the beast not waiting to be fired at charged them. Mr. Bam galloped off, but Stewartson's horse being thoroughly blown, would not stir a step, until the lion's head appeared over the sand-hill just above the astonished animal, who probably had no idea of what was taking place, for Stewartson seems to have been "craning" over the ridge of the bank. I was glad to learn, not only on account of Stewartson's safety, but also, as a proof of the discretion and speed of my horse, that the next second of time left the lion behind at a safer distance. Mr. Bam's household, which I may as well describe, as it gives a good idea of a Missionary establishment, was as follows :-Himself, Mrs. Bam, a numerous family, and an interpreter, who helped at the schools, could drive a waggon, and was the factotum, made the party that took their meals together, the interpreter being very deferential, and only speaking when spoken to. Besides these were a few hangers- on, more or less trustworthy, and always ready for a job. The house is a tolerably sized cottage or bothy, all on one floor, built of course by the Missionary himself, as well as he was able to build it; the workmanship was naturally very rough, but as it takes far less labour to use trees for the uprights and rafters than planks, it is also very strong. Chairs, a table, and a bureau were imported from Cape Town; the bed, bookshelves, and so forth, made here. The wife does the whole housework, cleaning the rooms, managing the children, cooking the dinner, and, what I never liked, waiting at table. These ladies have the hardest and rudest of occupations, but, I must candidly say, they seem to like this life extremely, and I am sure that Missionaries must find great favour in the eyes of the fairer sex, judging from the iy charming partners that they have the good fortune to obtain. As to the, natives, they make their huts as they like, and where they like. They plant sticks in a circle of six feet across, then bend the tops together and tie them with strips of bark; lastly, they wattle the sides and plaster them up. Scheppmansdorf is pretilly situated on a kind of island in the middle of the Kuisip River bed near a clump of fine trees, somewhat resembling elms. At one side stands the Missionary's and Stewartson's houses, in the middle is the white-washed chapel, and round the other sides lie the huts, twenty or thirty in number. All round is sand; to the south there is a perfect sea of sand-dunes from one hundred to one hundred and fifty feet high, to the north the Naanip plain. A small streamlet rises from the ground, and- runs through the place, watering about three acres of garden and field, and losing itself half a mile off in a reedy pond full of wild fowl. The natives crowd the church and sing the hymns, which, being about three-quarters articulate and one-quarter clicks, produce a very funny effect. The Missionary is, to all intents and purposes, lord paramount of the place, though he is modest, and refers matters as much as possible to the captain of the tribe. Savage countries are parcelled out by a tacit understanding between different Missionary Societies, priority of occupation affording the ground of claim, it not being customary for one sect to establish its stations in a land where another sect is already settled. Mr. Bam and the other gentlemen I was thrown amongst belonged to a German Mission, and were all of them Germans or Dutch. Further to the interior, and communicat- ing with the Cape, not by the sea, but overland, are some English Wesleyan stations. Subsequently, 1 passed through these, but at the time of my visit they were unoccupied. To return to the lion. When I turned into bed I listened long for a roar or some token of his presence, but in vain; and at last I dropped asleep. In the morning we found his tracks all about us; he had paid particular attention to a hut that was lying rather apart from the others, and had been prowling all round it. Stewartson volunteered to accompany me; he disapproved of horseback, and mounted his trusty ox. Mr. Stewartson's profession in early life was that of a tailor- subsequently a dissenting minister, and afterwards a cattle-trader. I confess that I felt, as I rode by his side, I had rather have been introduced to the genus "lion" by a person of almost any other calling, [CHAP. II. 18 SCHEPPMANSDORF. and carried by any other kind of animal than my bucolic friend's. I took two of my men with me, and off we set with a few natives. The lion had walked backwards and forwards so much in the night, that it was long before we found the last tracks he had made. We followed them very quickly, as his broad foot-print was unmistakable on the sand; there was a growing interest as we found how he had stopped and looked down and considered whether a bush by one side would suit him or not, but had decided in the negative and gone slowly on. We peered about and marched very silently; the bushes got thicker, and the pace slower, when we stopped short at a well- trodden part whence the lion had evidently just risen, for the sand was still warm from his touch. Had he gone away, or was he close by ? was the question. We were all mixed up together. Of a sudden the lion stood up, twelve paces in front, looked over his shoulder at us, made an easy noiseless bound, and was gone. His action was so steady, so smooth, so entirely devoid of hurry, that I could perfectly understand how a person might be seized through miscalculating the speed of his advance. As it was, he disappeared before one of our guns was well up to our shoulders. I am sure, if he had come at us, he could have done what mischief he liked. My horse would have shied on to the horns of Stewartson's ox, and in the narrow pass we should all have tumbled about and rolled one on another. The cover into which he went, and on the border of which he had been lying, was far too thick to be practicable for our further pursuit, though we did make several good attempts at dislodging him. I returned very crestfallen at our want of success, but I had now seen the animal, and better understood the elements of hunting him. As we rode back across the plain we saw vast numbers of old gemsbok tracks, although there are but few of these fine antelopes in the neighbourhood; but impressions made on this crisp gravelly soil take years to efface; they seem to be almost stereotyped; and a very few animals and waggons have produced an extraordinary number of spoors. I mentioned that Scheppmansdorf was built in a rude circle. To the middle of this the oxen of the place come of their own accord every night as the evening sets in, and lie there till the early morning; they find shelter from the wind, and are certainly sensible of protection. Besides this the ox is a sociable, domestic animal, and loves fires and the neighbourhood of men. The oxen, therefore, lay close up to the CHAP. II.J TRACKING THE LION. 29 doorway of the outhouse in which I slept, and the night was pitch dark. Now, after we had all gone to bed, and were fast asleep, there was a rush and an outcry, and people hallooing, and dogs barking, for the lion had got into the midst of the oxen. I confess I was glad there was a door to my outhouse, for fear the lion should walk in; however all became quiet, and I soon went to sleep again. A grand hunt was determined on in the morning; every available native was pressed into the service. Mr. Bam rode one horse, I the other, and Stewartson his ox. Johannis, Captain Frederick, and some other Hottentots, came mounted on their oxen, and we went off after breakfast with as many cur dogs as would follow us. The proceedings were much the same as before. After eight miles his spoor went into a bush; we threw stones in and shouted, and up he got about one hundred yards off. I purposely did not fire, as my horse was in a bad position for me to take as good an aim as I wished, and nobody else fired either; but we galloped after him in full view, the object being to bring him to bay or to get a nearer shot as he ran. This last I hardly expected whilst he was moving, for my horses were not accustomed to be shot from, and it took so much time to pull them up, that the lion had gained a long start again before I could do so. The bushes were in his favour, and we nearly lost him; but by most skilful tracking tho Hottentots came up and often helped us out when we were at fault. Some hours elapsed when, as Mr. Bam and myself were cantering on, we turned the corner of a sand-hill and saw the lion about sixty yards ahead, trotting on, looking over his shoulder. I got my long rifle up, and, sincerely praying that my horse would not kick me off when I fired, I pulled the trigger; the horse was too blown to start, and I placed my two-ounce bullet well into the lion's quarter. He growled and snarled, and bit the wound, but evidently had not heart to chase me, 'out turned to bay under a bush. There was a sand-hill opposite. We waited till the stragglers came up, and then went behind the sand-hill and dismounted; and Stewartson and ourselves crawled up to the top of it, right above the lion. He was in a tearing passion, and fifty paces from us, yet I could not see him as clearly as I could wish --wild beasts have such a readiness of availing themselves of the smallest bush or tuft of grass as a screen, which he did on this occasion; his head was between his paws, and his tail whirling up the sand. One single shot at the head, fired by Mr. Bam, struck him stone dead. He was a huge, gaunt beast, miserably thin, and had a dog of Stewartson's CCHAP. II. O20 A SECOND ATTEMPT, in his inside, which he had snapped up on the werft the night before. The dog was only in five pieces, not at all chewed or even digested; it had been bolted in a hurry. The meal must have disagreed with him. The lion was soon skinned. My bullet had passed right alongside the backbone, breaking its way through nearly half its length. Neither the oxen nor the horses showed that dread of his smell which they generally do. I even rolled up his hide like a valise, and carried it behind my saddle, without my steed showing any objection. I cannot to this day imagine why we dismounted and climbed up the sand-hill; but I put myself under the orders of my more experienced friends. It would have been much easier and much safer to have given the animal his finishing wound from horseback. The next day I had the skin dressed; it was necessary that the load which the cart had to carry up the country should be lessened, and I therefore was driven to pack oxen; and wanted a hide to cover my saddle bags; Stewartson was to make them for me, and the lion's skin came as a godsend, for I had only one other. I bought two oxen, a black and a red one, from Stewartson, both of which he engaged to break in, so far as to carry such things as would not injure if kicked off. He also'hired out to me another ox, and I bought a yellow ride ox, by name Ceylon, from Johannis, the interpreter. Groceries and a gown for his wife settled my account with Stewartson, and a common gun that with Johannis. The four oxen were to carry five or six cwt. between them, which would materially lighten the cart, but still leave it a load of about I,ooo lbs. I heard constantly from Andersson, who remained at Sand Fountain with most of my men, guarding the boxes till Mr. Bam's oxen were fresh enough to go down and take them. They had a monotonous time of it. A hyena paid them two visits at night, but got away in the dark unscathed. Little else happened. September I2th.-The waggons were sent for, full of things, and as some were still left behind, Mr. Bam kindly lent me his light waggon to fetch them. The oxen could hardly get it back, and to my extreme regret when they did so the axle-tree was found to have been strained; "it was, of course, a great annoyance to my worthy host, as no seasoned wood was to be had, from which my carpenter could make another one. There are, indeed, only two kinds of timber trees in Damara and the greater part of Namaqualand; one is the unna, which grows about Scheppmansdorf, and looks something like an elm; the other is the camelthorn, which also is a fine tree but more gnarled. Unna wood CHAP. 11.) 'URCHAS S OF' OXEN.. 21 CHARACTER OF MY MEN. is soft and porous, and of very little use; camelthorn is almost too hard to be worked, it is very heavy indeed, and very brittle; still for want of better wood it has to be used for most carpentering work. We therefore made an expedition with the cart in search of a tree, as none grew within some six miles of Scheppmansdorf. Mr. Bam, my carpenter, and myself, went with tools. After a long search we found one, and my best axe splintered sadly in cutting it down; it was quite a long job to fell it. As it lay we roughly shaped it; and even then had to use all our strength to lift the future axle-tree into the cart. When we got it home, I learnt how to season wood in a hurry: a trench was dug, a good fire made in it, and after a time the ashes swept out; then water was poured in, which steamed the hot earth; lastly, the wood was placed in the trench, covered up, and left to lie for a day. After two days' hard work the axle-tree was formed into shape, the necessary holes were bored through it, and Mr. Bam laid it by, so that if his present one fairly broke, he could, with a day's work and ordinary tools, put in the new one, which, in the meantime, was left to season thoroughly. = I began now to see something of the character of my men, and what they were fit for. They had, on the whole, worked willingly and well; but a great deal of pilfering had been going on. In the constant loading and unloading of many things, it was impossible but that several occasions should occur for the servants to steal them, and some had certainly done so. However, I said nothing, but Andersson and myself both kept a sharp look-out. Mr. Bam had assured me of the general honesty of the natives at his station in such strong terms, that I felt I could safely accept a kind offer that he made, and leave all my boxes .with him in the outhouse that I had occupied, and take the whole of my men with me. It seems that these Hottentots have a great respect for locks and keys; the wooden storehouse of the bay has been left entirely without protection for months, and although the natives knew that it was then full of the very things they valued so highly, no occasion was known of their having broken into it. The sandy soil is a great check upon dishonesty, for the spoor remains to tell of the thief and his where- abouts. I had made my first attempts at mapping. From the sand-hills above Scheppmansdorf Walfisch Bay could be seen clearly; end as CHAP. II, 22 BREAKING IN PACK-OXEN. many distant mountains were visible from both stations, I could begin triangulating. The mountains of the Swakop, on the other side of the desert plain to our north, were clear in the blue distance. - A few peaked hills were more in the foreground, and I took the bearings, as well as the natives could point out, of the place we were first to aim for. Our first stage is a very difficult one. It occupies sixteen hours' actual travelling, exclusive of all stoppages. There is no grass for the oxen, nor water either; though a few cup-fulls of the latter can be found in a granite rock after the first twelve hours' journey ; and there is generally so thick a mist on the plain, that, travelling, as people generally do, all through the night, there is every probability of losing the path. The consequence is, that the plain is covered with false waggon-roads in every direction, and a great number of oxen have died on the way. The natives of the place are no better than the strangers; as soon as they lose their road they go wandering about not only till daylight, but till the fog clears away and shows them where they are. Losing the way is the rule here, and not the excep- tion; and a person who has crossed the plain without doing so, rather plumes himself upon the feat. Stewartson, on his ox, was to be the guide. My men were all to walk; Andersson and myself to ride the horses, giving a mount now and then to the men. The chestnut mule and four oxen were to be packed with my belongings, one other ox with Stewartson's. The ceremony of breaking in the black ox had next to be performed, and in this way; the whole herd was driven close up together, and then, Stewartson, with a long thong of leather (a reim), noosed like a lasso, crept in amongst the creatures, and pushed the noose with a stick round the leg of the victim, holding on at the other end of the thong like grim death. The ox bellowed, and kicked, and galloped on three legs; the herd dispersed, everybody ran to help, and soon the animal, looking highly wroth and disgusted at the treatment, was brought to a standstill, and another noose thrown over his horns; then, by lugging at the thongs, the beast was tumbled over, his nose pierced with a stick; some old worthless bags were filled with sand, and tied firmly on his back, and he was let go, to plunge and bellow, and to vent his sulkiness on, and tell his sto y to his fellow-oxen. Next morning, the packing operation was again gone through, as the pack had become loose; and this was repeated for two or three more days. Now that the ox had a nose-stick, it was much easier CHAP. II.] 23 24 LIST OF BAGGAGE. (CHAP. li. to secure him; for when once lassoed by the leg, an active individual could soon snatch the stick. In this way the beast was secured fore and aft, and unless from sulkiness he lay down, could be packed standing. The little red ox was a far more awkward customer than the other. I never witnessed greater vice than the creature showed, and his horns were sadly annoying. At length, after various delays, the day on which we were destined to start arrived. The things taken were distributed as follows:- PACK OXEN. LOAD CARRIED. GROSS IN CART DRAWN BY 8 MULES. WEIGHT. lbs. lbs. Ceylon . . Canvas Bag, No. ,- Common guns. . . I12 Peas, 45 lbs. Baarrel full of presents 56 Sugar, 48 ,, f 97 6 pots and 2 kettles . szo Assegais . . . 56 Hiatchets and spearheads 25 Stewartson's Ox. Canvas Bag, No. 2,- Fore and after chests, Rice, 42 lbs. containing small things, Coffee, 4z ,, ) o knives, tobacco, tinder- Spelter, 25 ,, boxes, flints, choppers, and also calico and dresses . . . . g6 Black Oz . , Skin Bag, No. z,- Biscuits . . .. 53 Spelter, 75 lbs. 35 Tools . 23 Dresses, etc. 135 4 shooting guns (we carried the others) * 36 Clothes, books, and per- Red Ox . Skin Bag, No. 2,- sonal effects of Anders- Bullets, ) son and myself . .o Moleskin Clothes, , Astronomical instru- 2 Bars Lead, z3o ments, etc. . . o Shot, Powder, } Natural history instru- ments 4s Men's sleeping things Mule *. . Tent, 40 lbs. and clothes, about Water, so ,, 90 30 lbs. per man . . 2no etc. - xo89 Everything was weighed with a steelyard that I had taken. For meat, I only took with me five or six thin goats, as I was quite confident of finding game in the Swakop, where vast quantities had been formerly shot. The day was cool, and we started about eleven o'clock in the forenoon. We had been packing the red and black oxen since the early morning; for as fast as the bags were tied on, they kicked them off or loosened them. The red ox could CHAP. II.] OOSOP. not be held; he was lashed to a tree, and there packed. As soon as they let him loose, the brute ran about, looking for somebody handy to be tossed; he caught sight of me first, just as I was mounting, and trotted up. I had no idea he meant mischief till he was close by, when he made a most vicious dash at me; and if I had not had spurs, I could never have twisted my horse round enough in time to avoid his aim, for, as it was, the curve of his short sharp horn glanced along and bruised my thigh and the horse's shoulder; but we both escaped its point. The crisp sand of the desert was very pleasant to travel on; and we made great progress: the mules pulled very well, and all went cheerily. After nightfall we floundered about a little amongst some broken ground, and Stewartson lost his way for a time; but by keeping steadily on by compass, the rounded head of the Granite Rock showed itself against the clear sky, and we off-packed and out-spanned at eleven o'clock to drink coffee and to sleep. We were up before daylight; and the oxen, being very tired, were submissive, and we were off about half-past six. After four hours, we entered into the broken country that borders the Swakop; and making our bivouac at the head of a steep path that led down to the river bed, sent the animals down some four miles to eat and drink. This was the premier 5as of my journey; and I am sure we were all highly delighted at its success. The only drawback was, that the wretched goats were quite knocked up; and when we went down to the river bed we could perceive no signs of game. The first sight of the Swakop, in its deep hollow, charmed us; the plain on which we had travelled was nine or ten hundred feet above our head, and the crumbling rocks that flanked the gorge, which the river had made for itself, were magnificently abrupt. The bed was as smooth as a lawn, and as green with grass,-a little sand peeping out here and there,-a thick fringe of high reeds bordered the river bed, clumps of fine camelthorn trees were clustered wherever there was room for them, and a small rivulet of water trickled along, skulls of numerous buffaloes were lying about, and Oosop, for that was the name of the place, seemed a scene in Rasselas' Happy Valley. We stopped all day enjoying ourselves, and had a good bathe in a hollow beneath a huge rock, which the rivulet had filled with water. There was not a sign of game, not a spoor that was not many days old; and those that were there were chiefly of buffaloes, and all going down towards the mouth of the river. The Swakop is the artery of half Damara and Namaqualand; all the best watering-places are in it. It is the frontier between those two nations. There are three Missionary stations on its banks; and along its side is the only road that is known to be practicable at all seasons from the sea to the interior. The Kuisip leads into Namaqua- land, but the watering-places are few and uncertain; the road by it is execrable in places, and cannot bear comparison with the Swakop. No people inhabit Oosop, or the lower part of the river, except some straggling Ghou Damup, who live, like jackdaws, up in the hills. These are a very peculiar and scattered race of Negroes, who speak no language but Hottentot, and are frequently slaves to the Bushmen. Who they are, and where they came from, has been a standing enigma; but I subsequently found out much that was interesting about them. The Hottentots come over now and then from the Bay, when the 'Naras are not in season, and bring their cows and oxen to give them a good feed. The place Is not suited for savages, for there are no roots for them to grub up and feed upon, and the river bed is so deep, and the rocks so abrupt, that nothing would be easier thap to entrap a drove of oxen in it. Anywhere else, when a plundering attack is made, men and oxen scamper off in all directions, but here they would be "pounded." I had hitherto generally slept under cover, because at Scheppmans- dorf there was no place for a bivouac, and the night air was damp and chilly; but here I began to discard my tent, and to sleep by the side of the fire. A large driving-apron, waterproofed on one side and drugget on the other, made my rug, and a blanket and an eider-down quilt my coverlets. My men had pieces of oiled canvas, which I took for them to sleep on, and blankets or old horse-rugs to cover them. We slept round a fire as large as we could get fuel to make it, and on the lee-side of a bush. The cart stood five or six yards off, and the mules were tied by their halters, and the oxen by their nose-bridles, to the cart, and whatever else they could be tied to. My mules were very restless and noisy, kicking each other, and whinnying all night long; but the oxen were far more sedate, and lay down, looking at the fire with their large eyes, and chewing the cud. The stars were clear, the air was keen and bracing; we had been eating our last goat, and the mules were stuffed full of reeds and green grass. 26 THE SW AKO fP. CHAP. I. September 2st.---We were off at seven, for packing and harnessing took us about an hour and a half, and daylight now breaks about half-past five. We only managed to get a cup of coffee before starting. We had bivouacked on the, plain, just at the entrance of the gorge that leads down to Oosop, and our course to-day was parallel to the Swakop, and on to Davidep, another gorge, but not so deep a one as that of Oosop. The sun, from the first, was extremely hot; we seemed to have quite changed our climate, and the cool sea-breezes were evidently shut out. As the day wore on, the mules showed evident effects of their late change of diet from hard food (corn and dry grass) to green grass and reeds ;--all animals, when travelling, are extremely affected by causes like this, and the necessity of the change is often one of the great difficulties of a traveller. We had crossed a ridge; and a huge, rounded mountain (Tinkhas), that faced us, was the principal feature in the landscape. The ground we travelled on was still a crisp gravel, and extended far away to our right; on our left lay broken rocky ground, then the deep cutting of the river bed, which we often could see nothing of, though so near to it, and beyond, a complete chaos of broken crags and rugged hills; while level with the tops of these crags, and far beyond them, we could clearly see long reaches of another barren plain, the counterpart of the one we were travelling over. The fact is, we were in wretched travelling condition. An indolent life of high feeding and perfect rest on board ship is a bad preparation for a journey like ours. Now, on a sudden, we had begun to live without stimulants of any sort, to work hard, and to endure a sun which exhausted what little nervous energy was left us. We went down to the water, leaving the packs as before, at the top of the descent, which here is only two miles long, and drank excessively. The water seemed to do us some good; but as soon as we had walked a short distance from it, the thirst, and hunger, and faintness came on again, and we went back to drink, time after time. We could not see a sign of game, except the same buffalo tracks, which spoke of the beasts having passed by, and migrated to the mouth of the river some days since. There was no spoor of wild beasts, or any signs of life, except a few doves, that we tried in vain to shoot, by cutting up a bullet into slugs: they were too wary for us. After sundown the cart came: the men had left three mules behind, that had lain down, and would go no further. Andersson, Timboo, CGHAP. Ir.) DA VIEEP. s7 s8 MULE AND HORSE KILLED BY LIONS. [HAP. it. and John St. Helena took a hasty neal, and very pluckily went after them. They were absent two hours, but returned without the mules, who it seemed had got up again as the evening became cool, and had strayed, and were nowhere to be found. .There were many old zebra tracks "about the plain, which are as like those of mules as can be, and in the night quite undistinguishable from them. As for the six mules that had arrived they were, by Stewartson's advice, sent down into the river to eat, and rest themselves all night. He assured me there would be little danger, that we had seen no tracks of wild animals to injure them, and, what was very true, they must have food. I think it was the most foolish thing that I was guilty of during the whole journey, to leave the poor animals to shift for themselves two miles from us, and without the slightest protection; but I was new to the country, and thought it a far better plan to put myself under the entire guidance of my worthy friend until I had gained some experience, than to make a mess of the whole thing by trying to manage for myself. I ought to have gone with two or three men to the river, and watched the mules whilst they fed for a couple of hours, then tied them up, and given them a good rest the next day. As it was, I slept in happy ignorance of the fate-that awaited them. In the morning I sent a man down to drive them up: he was a long time absent, and at last returned with piteous news. He had found no mules, but, instead of them, the tracks of several lions; and going on, he came to where he saw the tracks of all the mules going full gallop, and by the side of them those of the lions. A little further on he heard something.in the bushes, and found my poor chestnut pack-mule half eaten, and a hyena devouring the remains of the carcase. At a short distance lay my largest horse, and a lion by him; the lion looked so savage, and walked so slowly away, that my man crept up the rocks, and waited there for a long time, which accounted for his delay, and then ran back to tell us. Andersson and myself took up our guns directly and ran down, and the others after us. We went to the chestnut mule-she had been left behind the night before, and her instinct led her to climb down to the river bed, into which she seems to have been watched, and seized by the lions the moment she got there. We then followed the tracks on to the dead horse, the mules and horses had all been galloping together : there were distinct tracks of six lions galloping by their side, and then had been the fatal spring, and the dead horse lay half eaten. The ATTEMPT AT REVENGE. other lions gave over their pursuit after a few paces. We next followed the mule tracks until they lay sufficiently clear of one another for us to count them, and see whether any more besides the two animals we had seen were dead, I was delighted to find nine tracks, so that not only the six mules, that had drawn the cart, and the little horse were safe, but also the two remaining cart mules which had been left on the road had found out their fellows during the night, and joined them. I sent Timboo and another man to fetch them back, and the rest of us returned to cut off as much meat from the mule and the horse as we could eat or carry, for we were now without any animal food. We then climbed up the cliff that overhung the place where the mule lay, to hide it out of the way of the hyenas and jackals, until we were going back to the waggons. We hunted about the whole day after the lions, but their spoors were lost among the rocks, and we could not see one of them. Andersson and I, therefore, determined to sit up and watch for them, as they were sure to return to the carcases in the night. There were two spots where we might lie in wait; the one a camelthorn tree, about fifty yards from the mule, but with a most difficult trunk to climb, so thick and straight, that ropes would be necessary; the other, a ledge in the rock, at the very spot where we had been hiding the meat. The cliff rose abruptly above us,-a man could easily climb it; but we agreed, in our innocence, that a lion could not. So, when the strayed mules and horses had been recovered in safety, we went to the cart, had our dinner, and brought down our warm coats and spare guns, as the evening closed in. Stewartson, with two dr three hands, came with us to carry back the horse-meat. It became rapidly twilight as the sun set behind the crags, throwing the deep gorge of the Swakop into shadow; and there was no time to be lost in getting down the meat and in choosing our positions, for the lions were due at nightfall. We walked quickly to the dead mule, and as we went, the men pointed out five or six deer, or something like them, that we could not clearly see, bounding along the rocks above us and parallel to us. We came to the place; the mule lay as we had left her. Andersson had gone to the other side of the river to reconnoitre something, and I left my guns, etc., at the bottom of the rock with Stewartson and the men, and ran up to fetch the meat. I was busy tugging out the last shoulder of my trusty steed, when the men called out, "Good God, sir, the lion's above you i" I did feel queer, but I did not drop the joint. I walked steadily 4 cHAP, II.] 29 THE GHOU DAMUP. [CAP. It. down the rock, looking very frequently over my shoulder; but it was not till I came to where the men stood that I could see the round head and pricked ears of my enemy peering over the ledge under which I had been at work. Stewartson made a very good shot at him, but too low, splintering the stones under his chin. It was far too dark for a good aim. It then appeared that the creatures we had thought were deer were really the lions. It was now useless to lie out where we had intended, as the lions knew all about us, and proved to be far better rock-climbers than ourselves; and, as we could not get up the tree, we returned thoroughly out-generalled. In the evening a waggon came down. It was en route from the Missionary station of Mr. Hahn to the Bay. The waggon driver had a small flock of slaughter sheep for his own consumption by the way; he kindly sold us two of them, which was all he could spare. In the morning, with a heavy heart and diminished cavalcade, we proceeded onwards; sometimes Andersson and sometimes I rode--but I had much the most riding of the two. The next day one of my sheep had to be killed for meat,-for some of the men had a most unac- countable prejudice against horse and mule flesh. The mule, I grant, was stringy, for she was old, and had done a great deal of work. But the horse was what butchers would describe as '' prime." SePtember 25th.-We came to a water-hole in the sandy river bed, at a place where it was flanked with deep reeds. Stewartson had made us travel in the middle of the day, and right in the midst of the deep sand of the river-he seemed to have a most marvellous dread of lions, though at this season of the year night is the only fit time for travel, and I saw clearly that the mules were knocked up; indeed, we only travelled three hours a day. There were lions roaring about us all night, and as there was a long reach of dry reeds, we set fire to it. It makes a glorious bonfire, frightens the wild beasts, and improves the pasturage very much. 26th.-Intensely hot. We passed some rhinoceros spoors, and had a long chase after him, walking or running many miles, but without success; the chase, fortunately, led us parallel to our course, so that we regained the cart pretty easily. In the middle of the day we met some Ghou Damup, and persuaded four of them to join us. I had a great curiosity about these natives. It was so peculiar to see Negroes speaking the language of a light-coloured race, the Hottentots, and that too in a far more northern part of Africa than Hottentots 3o were believed to exist in. All published maps up to the last two or three years place a dotted line no great distance north of the Orange River, with the remark, that that is the northern limit of the Hottentot race. Now not only were the Hottentots by Walfisch Bay natives in the country, but here were black people, a race living in amity with, but as inferiors to these very Hottentots, and also speaking their language without any other of their own. It seemed that these Ghou Damup have a stronghold of their own, a large table-mountain, inacces- sible except by one or two passes, which a white man in the country, by name Hans, of whom I shall have much to say by-and-by, had visited and gone up; he gave me a very interesting account of it. This mountain I had made Stewartson promise to accompany me to, to buy goats, after I had reached the Missionary station ahead. Now these very Ghou Damup belonged to it, and therefore we engaged them as guides. I found also the advantage of having natives to do the troublesome work, as carrying wood, watching the cattle,-which they have an aptitude for, and which similar servants do not like, and cannot be spared to perform. Erongo is the name of the mountain ; it was described as two days' journey, either from hereabouts or from the next Missionary station (Otjimbingus) that of Mr. Rath's. We had no difficulty in explaining our wants to the Ghou Damup, although Stewartson's vocabulary was extremely limited; few interjections, twenty or thirty substantives, and infinite gesticulation, are amply sufficient for a dexterous traveller to convey to an intelligent native his views and wishes on a marvellous variety of subjects. My thermometers had been packed so carefully that I had never hitherto looked at them, but to-day it felt very hot, and I took them out. I could not have conceived the heat--I43� in sun at three o'clock, and 95� in the shade. The poor mules cannot get on through the horrible sand. Andersson very nearly had a sunstroke. I found him very ill and with a racking headache, under a tree to which he had staggered,-it was the only shade near-and a very lucky chance for him that he reached it. In a quarter of an hour he was able to ride on, but was extremely poorly for the evening. We slept at the mouth of the Tsobis River bed, and eat our last meal of animal food. We had shot nothing, not even fired at game in the Swakop. The days passed by rather heavily, for we were not yet acclimated, but out of health and fevered. The least cut or scratch eHAP. nI., EXCESSIVE HEA T. 3t festered, and we were not fit for much exertion. Stewartson told us innumerable anecdotes of events in the country since he had resided there. He showed me all the points of an ox; explained how im- measurably superior that beast was in every respect to a horse-a fact which I cannot endorse--and every now and then gave me a mount. My first impression in riding an ox, was, that the saddle was ungirthed, for his skin is so loose, that hold on as you will it is impossible to be as steady as on horseback. I hated the animal's horns; they were always annoying the rider or somebody else, but nevertheless are dearly prized by Hottentots as an ornament. I learnt it would cast infinite ridicule upon me, in their eyes, if, when I had ride-oxen of my own, I should saw off their tips. The footfall of an ox is peculiarly soft. My men, I was glad to see, worked together pretty amicably, but there was no one amongst them with sufficient influence over the rest to be made into a head servant. John Morta, who had far the most character of them all, was unfitted to head the others from his ignor- ance of oxen and horses, and the whole of that very work that I especially wanted a head servant to undertake for me; I therefore made him cook and housekeeper, and gave him the principal charge of the stores. Timboo had attached himself to me from the first, as henchman and valet-de-chambre-that is to say, if I called out for anything, he would not let anybody but himself bring it-and he made my bed and saddled my horse, and so forth. I had intended Gabriel for that sort of work, but the poor lad was quite bewildered and frightened. He was also a great scamp. In Cape Town he had been the most impudent, self-possessed, and good-looking of young rogues, but the hard work and sense of anxiety quite dashed his spirits and his assurance, and he had relapsed into a timid, frightened boy, and used to talk to the men in a piteous way about his mother. Listening to the conversation of the men at our bivouacs I was quite shocked at the low tone of honour that pervaded it, and yet they must be taken as about the average of the working class in Cape Town. They were perpetually talking of the prison there, which they literally seemed to consider as a kind of club or headquarters, where a person had an excellent opportunity of meeting his friends and of forming fresh intimacies, but where he was at the same time subjected to considerable inconvenience. They positively reckoned dates by the epochs in which either they or their mutual friends had been confined, HALF-CICASrE MORAL., [CHAP. II. 32 They had no shame in alluding to these matters, even when I was joining in the conversation-in fact, the gaol was the chief thing that they talked about. I have no doubt that if, as an amusement, I had proposed that each man should tell a story, the beginning would usually have been-" When I was in prison," etc., etc. This feature In their character corroborated the suspicion of pilfering that I had entertained. But I soon saw that some were very far worse than the others, and I determined to take the first opportunity of weeding these out. I especially mistrusted one man, whom I believe to have been a regular gaol bird, and who had the worst of influence over the rest. John Morta's most perfect honesty, through any temptation, I was assured of, and though I had had less opportunity of observing him, I fully believed in Timboo's. I only wanted to get rid of two men, and to replace them if I could, and then I had hopes I should get on very well with the others. Our seven days' march was an affair of six hours, and up the Tsobis river bed. For the second time we had no animal food left; but imme- diately that we started we saw the fresh spoor of a giraffe. I doubted whether or no to go after it, as my horse was very thin and weak, and I could not tell where the giraffe might have gone to, probably far beyond reach; so we travelled slowly on. However, as I rode some little distance in front of the cart, I found that the track went straight up the river bed, which being now hemmed in with impracticable cliffs, the giraffe's path and our own must necessarily be the same. This made a great alteration in the case, and I cantered slowly on the spoor. My rifle was a little one (only 36 bore) but loaded with steel-pointed bullets. I was afraid of losing all chance of a shot if I wasted time by returning to the cart and getting a larger gun, and therefore I went on, as much for the pot as the sport. After a few hours' travel, during which I had kept a couple of miles in front of the rest of the party, so as to be well away from the sound of the whip and of the men's talking, the tracks turned sharp to the right, up a broad ascent, which there led out of the river, and in the middle of this, amongst some bushes, and under a camelthorn tree stood my first giraffe. I took immediate advantage of a bush, and galloped under its cover as hard as I could pelt, and was within one hundred yards before the animal was fairly off. I galloped on, but she was almost as fast as I, and the bushes, which she trampled cleverly through, annoyed my horse extremely; I therefore reined up, and gave her a bullet in her quarter, which handi- cHXP. n.] SIGNS OF A GIRAFE. 33 capped her heavily, and took some three miles an hour out of her speed. Again I galloped, loading as I went, but excessively embarrassed by the bushes, and fired again, whilst galloping, at thirty yards' distance, and I believe missed the animal. The riding at that time was really difficult, and my horse shied very much. Again I loaded, but my horse was becoming blown, and I rode parallel to the beast, intending to overtake and confront her. There was a watercourse in the way, quite jumpable, but my poor beast made a mess of if, and chested the opposite side; yet I somehow got him over, and then rode with all the skill I could. At last I steadily gained on the giraffe, then beat her, and passed her. The giraffe obstinately made for her point. I was forty yards in advance, and pulled up full in her path. She came on: my horse was far too blown to fidget, and was standing with his four legs well out. I waited as long as I dare-too long, I think, for her head was almost above me when I fired, and she really seemed coming at me with vice. I put my bullet full in her face; she tossed her head back, and the blood streamed from her nostsil as she turned and staggered, slowly retracing her path. I dare not fire again, lest I should fail in killing her, and only excite her to another run, which my horse was not fit to engage in. I therefore rode slowly after the wounded beast, and I drove her back to near where she came from, and there she stopped under a high tree. My horse was now frightened, and would not let me take my aim for the finishing blow at the brain, as it is but a small mark to shoot at; so I got off, and the unhappy creature looked down at me with her large lustrous eyes, and I felt that I was com- mitting a kind of murder, but for all that, I was hungry, and she must die; so I waited till she turned her head, and then dropped her with a shot. There was now a fine holiday feast for us. When the party came up we set to work flaying and cutting large steaks from the meat, and securing the marrow-bones, until as much was heaped on the cart as the mules could possibly struggle on with. Our Ghou Damup guides ran on to Tsobis, where many of their people lay, and who brought us six ostrich eggs and sweet gum, in return for the meat we had left behind. We now emerged from the deep gorges and high cliffs that for so long a time had shut us in, and could breathe more freely in the open country that lay about us. We had left the arid Naanip plain behind, and were arrived to where thorn-bushes and scanty grass over- spread the sandy country. Fantastically peaked rocks rose on every side, and huge masses of mountains, that indicated the course of the 34 HER DEATH. CHAP. nI. SEND FOR HANS LARSEN. Swakop, made a grand succession of distances; but there was a want, even painfully felt, of life in the landscape. The grass was withered, the bushes stunted and sear. No birds could be seen or heard; and every feature looked still and dead, under that most saddening of lights, a blazing sun in an unclouded sky. September 28th.-We rested a day, to have a really good breakfast and dinner. I have read in some old-fashioned books of fiction, entitled "Natural History," that an ostrich egg would feed six men; but I know that Stewartson, Andersson, and myself finished one very easily for breakfast, before beginning upon the giraffe. I confess, however, that we enjoyed the blessing of a good appetite. My mules had become sadly distressed: one was very ill; he had nearly been drowned when landed at Walfisch Bay, and never recovered the accident; he was therefore seldom harnessed, but was driven aldng with any other mule that I might be anxious to spare. I tried harness- ing my horse once, but his pace and step were so different to those of his comrades, that the work was too much for him. We were now only two days' journey from the Missionary station Otjimbingub, in which a man of the name of Hans Larsen was now encamped (he who had been to Erongo), of whom I had heard very much, and whom I had been most strongly urged by Mr. Bam to engage in my service, if I could do so, as he was excellently qualified to take charge of my expedition. My own waggon-men were very thoughtless and careless in their duty, and wanted strict overseering. Hans had been in the service of two cattle-dealers, who successively had ruined themselves by. their speculations. He had received payment of his wages partly in goods and partly in cattle, and was now living about the country an independent man, shooting, enjoying the possession of his cattle, and doing odd jobs for the Missionaries. He intended to drive his stock down to Cape Town as soon as the rains had set in, and to make what money he could by them. Hans had originally been a sailor, but begged to leave a ship that he had become disgusted with, and was allowed to do so at Walfisch Bay, where he entered into the service of the traders I have mentioned above. Having been seven years living about the Swakop he had had very many adventures there; and, as it appeared subsequently, had utterly shot off all the game in it. As it was very doubtful if the mules could struggle on much further, we determined, if they came to a standstill, to send on for Hans. CHAP. II.] The first day's journey from Tsobis was got through pretty well, but on the second the mules and cart came to a dead lock in a broad sandy tributary of the Swakop that we had to cross. We rode on to Otjimbingud, found Hans, who went directly back with oxen and yokes, and, before sundown, we were all encamped on the Swakop, at the Missionary station of Otjimbingu&. But now there was this difference, that no more yellow faces of Hottentots were about us, as at Walfisch Bay, but we had come among the black men-the Damaras-and a country that was, in a certain sense, generally habitable, stretched before us instead of a sand-desert. CHAPTER III. Hear Ill News-Engage Hans-Ride to Barmen-En route-Oxen versus Mules-Arrive at Barmen-Jonker's Attack-Previous History-Oerlams and Europeans-Hottentots and Bushmen-Establishment of Missions- Native Feuds-Dislike to Missions-Obstruction to Travellers-Write to Jonker-Buy Oxen from Hans-Breaking them in-Attacks of Distemper - Complete my Encampment - Digging Holes - Native Hunting-Oxen sent to the Bay-I go to Barmen-Damara Thorn Trees-Jonker writes to me-My Plans-The Ovampo-First Rain-- Hottentot Beauties-Hyena's Insolence-Damara Ferocity-Cruel Murder-Mutilated Victim-Message to Chiefs-Their Replies. OTJIMBINGUi is well situated for a Missionary station. Water, the first necessary of life, is here in sufficient quantity, as a small streamlet runs down the bed of the river. Grass, the next essential in the eyes of a pastoral people like the Damaras, is also in abundance, for the Swakop, at this place, instead of lying between abrupt cliffs, runs through a wide plain, that shelves for miles down its bed; and which, though covered with thorn bushes, affords a fair allowance of grass-bearing soil. The Mission-house was a temporary affair, a mud wall six feet high, and over it a round-tented ceiling of matwork, in shape like a waggon roof. A gigantic house was being built by Mr. Rath, the missionary, on the top of a little cliff close by. Mr. Rath and his wife received me with great kindness, and as this place, or its neighbourhood, wad to be my headquarters for some time, I chose my encampment with some deliberation. It .was among a OTJI11BINGUE 36 [c HA a. group of fine trees, and close by a good spring of water. The natives about the station were excessively annoying and troublesome, and I was strongly inclined to make an example of some of them; but I still followed a pacific policy. When my encampment had been planned, and the tent pitched, and bushes placed in a wide circle round the cart, I went to spend the evening with the Missionary, and to hear the news of the country. The first intelligence shocked me very much; it was that quite recently the neighbouring Namaqua Hottentots had attacked Schmelen's Hope (three long days' journey ahead), had murdered and mutilated the Damaras that lived there, and, naturally enough, terrified the resident Missionary into leaving the place. The cause of this outrage, as far as I could learn, was simply savage barbarism, a little robbery, and a demonstration of dislike to the Missionary cause. I mentioned, at the beginning of the book, the name of Jonker Africaner as the most important man among the Hottentots; it was he who headed the expedition. The effect of this attack, which had occurred after a long peace or pause from fighting', was to frighten every Damara who had cattle to lose into the far interior, so that hardly an ox was grazing within two days' journey north of the Swakop, and to seriously alarm the Missionaries, who had hitherto depended on these very Hottentots for protection from Damara insult. The Damaras that I saw were paupers who had no cows-people who chiefly lived, not on milk, but on roots like pig-nuts, and who collected round a white man with a vague hope of protection from him against their countrymen. I determined to start immediately for Barmen, the head seat of intelligence as regards Damara and Hottentot movements, and called upon Hans, the next morning, to get, not horsed, but "oxed," for the journey. I found him in the neatest of encampments, with an old sail stretched in a sailor-like way to keep the sun off, and in an enclosure of thick reeds, that were cut and hedged all round. The floor was covered with sheep-skin mats: shooting things, knick-knacks, and wooden vessels were hung on the forked branches of the sticks, that propped up the whole. A very intelligent English lad was acting as his "help." Natives squatted round at a respectful distance, and Hans sat on an ottoman, looking like a Mogul. I had some conversation with him, and saw at once that he was not only willing to accompany me, but that also he was the very man I wanted. I had heard but one enP. t.] HEAR ILL NEtWS. 37 RIDE TO BARMEN. LCHAP. III. opinion of his efficiency and honesty from the Europeans that I had seen, which satisfied me on those points, and the style of the man was exactly what I desired, for he was quiet, sedate, but vigorous and powerfully framed, showing in all his remarks the shrewdest common sense, and evidently, from the order around him, an excellent discipli- narian. We very soon came to terms, which were, that he should go with me to Barmen on trial, and that, if he suited, I would employ him as head servant. I was strongly urged to make a good enclosure (kraal) for mules and men, as the lions were extremely numerous about the low ground in which I had encamped, for the sake of the shade, though they seldom prowled upon the bare cliff on which Hans and the Damara huts were scattered. I therefore collected all the natives together that I could, and set vigorously to work, cutting down all the bushes I could find to strengthen my kraal with, and two days passed very busily. I then left Andersson in charge, and rode on with Stewartson and Hans towards Barmen, in the afternoon of the second day. Our little caravan consisted e'ntirely of Hans' animals, for all of mine required rest; besides our ride-oxen, we had one ox packed and one loose; three sheep, and two Damaras; our pace was a jog trot, and the Damaras drove the sheep and two oxen in front, while we rode behind and drove on the Damaras. We off-packed after three hours, but it was dark when we did so, and the sheep ran loose, and we could not drive them in together; one ran quite away, and was eaten, I presume, by the hyenas who disturbed us a good deal; one we killed, and the other we tied to a bush. Hans made me a much more comfortable bed than I had previously enjoyed, showing me how to cut the bushes and make a dead hedge of them; then he smoothed the ground, and plucking dry grass, strewed it thickly about; upon that he laid two or three sheepskins, over them my mackintosh, and lastly, my eiderdown quilt. This had become torn to rags by the thorns, and I intended on the first opportunity to get a caross instead of it. Sheep- skins and carosses are no incumbrance in travelling with pack-oxen, for they are carefully placed under the saddle-bags, and their use in keeping the animal's back from being galled is more than compensation .for their weight. I listened with much interest to Hans' tales and anecdotes. He had been the most successful sportsman in the country, and had lived the last two or three years in sole charge of an immense drove of oxen, once amounting to .seven hundred, with only one or two native lads to help him in the care of them. He had shot a great many lions out of the Swakop, six in the preceding year, and made it a much safer place than it used to be to drive cattle in. From his account, that river bed must have swarmed with game when it was first seen by Europeans; but I can easily fancy, from the confined character of the country, how in a short time one or two guns would entirely exterminate them. In the morning our remaining sheep could not be driven; he was too scared, and as time was much more precious than mutton, we killed him, took out his inside, and strapped him across one of the oxen, with hardly any delay. I was well mounted on an old ox, and really liked his walking pace very much. I think I can sit more hours on oxback than on horseback, supposing in both cases the animals to walk. An ox's jog-trot is not very endurable, but anything faster abominable. The peculiarity of the creature is, that he will not go alone, from his dis- position being so very gregarious. He is distressed beyond expression when any attempt succeeds for a time in separating him from the herd. It is with great difficulty that an ox can be found willing to go ahead of the others, even though he knows that his fellows are just behind him. Whipping and spurring has hardly any effect on the animal: he feels every cut most sensitively, as the rider cannot but be aware of; but the obstinacy of his nature is so wonderfully great, that pain has little or no influence upon his determination. His character is totally different from that of a horse, and very curious to observe; he is infinitely the more sagacious of the two, but never free from vice. The gregarious- ness of oxen and of sheep is of great advantage to the traveller; for it is not necessary to be perpetually counting the animals, to see if any have strayed; and at night, when the oxen are all loose about him, a constant anxiety is taken off the owner's mind, by knowing that if he sees one, all are there. My mules had given me a great deal of trouble, by requiring much more watching than the oxen, and I hardly know how I could have travelled with a large drove of those animals. I should not dare to let them loose at night, and the country seldom affords enough trees to tether them to. We made a tedious ride to-day, taking something to eat at noon, and going on in the evening. I began to see that being able to endure severe exertion for half the day without the breakfast we always have in England, was essential to our sort of life. At first it is very trying. In temperate climates it is easy enough ; but in tropical ones, when you begin work in the fresh cool of the morning, and become hungry and CHAP. III. OXEN T EI SUS IMULES. 39 exhausted at the very time that the sun is beginning to blaze most powerfully, the want of a restorative is more particularly felt. It is impossible in practice to ensure breakfast before you start; and con- stantly, when you least expect it, a series of accidents occur that keep you mounted, and put it off till two or three o'clock in the afternoon; but coffee, so long as you have any, can always be made before starting. We passed over very broken ground, and slept under some magni- ficent camelthorn trees: the meat we killed in the morning seemed a little tainted; so we cooked as much as we could in our iron pot, to prevent it from becoming worse, and gave all the rest to our two or three natives for a grand feast. The evening of the next day found us at Barmen, which, if I was to avoid the Hottentots, would probably be the starting-point of my exploring expedition. Mr. Hahn, a Russian by birth, and married to an English lady, and a Missionary of considerable influence, was the founder of this station. Mr. Kolbe and his young wife, who had been attacked by the Hottentots at Schmelen's Hope, had come here for refuge. They had lost nearly everything. It seems they had quite recently occupied the place, and that the poorer natives had settled in great numbers by them. Kahikend, one of the four or five principal chiefs in Damara- land, had also trecked there with many of his men and large herds of cattle. He had always behaved in a very friendly way to the Missionaries; but this was the first time that either he, or any of the influential Damaras, had encamped within easy reach of a Mission station. Kahikene showed no distrust, but lived in the friendliest relations with Mr. and Mrs. Kolbe, and they had sincerely hoped by his means to get a firmer footing than they then had in Damaraland. Just at this time, one night a troop of mounted Hottentots galloped up to the place, firing at and murdering all they could catch. Kahikend narrowly escaped: the Hottentots scoured the country in every direc- tion, and a most fearful night was passed. In the early morning, Jonker came reeling drunk to the Mission-house, ordered the door to be unbarred, and behaved in the coolest way,-demanded some break.. fast, and so forth; and then departed with his men, and the oxen, and what else they had robbed. It is very difficult to find out how many people are killed or wounded in occasions like these, as hyenas soon devour the dead bodies, and those who survive scatter in all directions, so that no clue remains towards the numbers nmissing, I saw two poor 4RRICI% A T BAREN. [CHAP. IIIu. 4o women, one with both legs cut off at her ankle joints, and the other with one. They had crawled the whole way on that eventful night from Schmelen's Hope to Barmen, some twenty miles. The Hottentots had cut them off after their usual habit, in order to slip off the solid iron anklets that they wear. These wretched creatures showed me how they had stopped the blood by poking the wounded stumps into the sand. A European would certainly have bled to death under such circumstances. One of Jonker's sons, a hopeful youth, came to a child that had been dropped on the ground, and who lay screaming there, and he leisurely gouged out its eyes with a small stick. I had no reason to think that this outrage on Mr. Kolbe's station was any worse than the usual attacks that the Hottentots and Damaras make upon one another; but the Damaras are savages, and are not supposed to know better, while Jonker is a British subject, born in the colony, and his best men are British subjects too. Missionaries and teachers in great numbers have been amongst them, or their fathers, for years and years; and the home of these people, though now they have trecked on to the tropics, is properly on the borders of the Orange River. I was very anxious to obtain something like an authentic history of these Hottentots, and of the Damaras, during the last few years, and I begged Mr. Hahn, who was eminently qnalified to give me one, to do so; and as it will illustrate my story I will now give its substance, mixed up and corrected with what I have since gathered from various quarters, or made out for myself. The agents in this history are Namaqua " Oerlams," or Namaquas born in or near the colony, often having Dutch blood and a good deal of Dutch character in their veins. Among these Jonker is a chief. The Namaqua " Hottentots" look at these Oerlams with great jealousy, and consider them almost as aliens; they do not approve of their intelligence and mixed blood, but nevertheless make common cause with them against the Damaras. It must be recollected that Hottentots are yellow, and not at all black. I could pick out many complexions far fairer than that of my own sunburnt face among them. But the Damaras are quite dark, though their features are good, and seldom of the negro type. Oerlam was a nickname given by Dutch colonists to the Hottentots that hung about their farms; it means a barren ewe-a creature good neither for breed- ing nor fattening, a worthless concern, one that gives trouble and yields CHAP. III.] P 7EIIOUS HISTORY. 41 HOTTENTOTS AND BUSHMEN. no profit. HIowever, all things are relative, and what these Oerlams were to the Dutchmen, that the Namaqua Hottentots are to the Oerlams. The Europeans that have visited the country between the latitudes of Angra Pequena and Barmen are some ten Missionaries, the same number of traders, five or six runaway sailors, who have acted as servants to these, and two travelling parties besides my own. The first was that of Sir James Alexander, who explored this country upwards from the Orange River--fifteen or twenty years ago, and whom the traders and Missionaries followed; the other was that of Mr. Ruxton, the well-known American traveller who sailed to Walfisch Bay, but was prevented by the traders that were there from entering further into the land, and who had to return in the same ship that brought him. There is no difference whatever between the Hottentot and the Bushman, who lives wild about the hills in this part of Africa, whatever may have been said or written on the subject. The Namaqua Hottentot is simply the reclaimed and somewhat civilised Bushman, just as the Oerlams represent the same raw material under a slightly higher degree of polish. Not only are they identical in features and language, but the Hottentot tribes have been, and continue to be, recruited from the Bushmen. The largest tribe of these Namaqua Hottentots, those under Cornelius, and who muster now I,ooo guns, have almost all of them lived the life of Bushmen. In fact, a savage loses his name, "Saen," which is the Hottentot word, as soon as he leaves his Bushman's life and joins one of the larger tribes, as those at Walfisch Bay have done; and therefore when I say Oerlam, Hottentot or Bushman, the identically same yellow, flat-nosed, woolly-haired, clicking individual must be conjured up before the mind of my kind reader, but differing in dirt, squalor, and nakedness, according to the actual term employed; the very highest point of the scale being a creature who has means of dressing himself respectably on Sundays and gala-days, and who knows something of reading and writing; the lowest point, a regular savage. Of the very smallest tribe of Bushmen I met none in my travels. The Oerlams, then, some thirty years since, were near the Orange River, and Jonker was a chief of secondary importance amongst them. He fought his way into notoriety, and with success his little tribe received fresh recruits. The Namaqua Hottentots asked his assistance in attacking their northern neighbours, the Damaras, the pretext being [cHAP. Its. 42 CAP. III.] ESTABLISHMENT OF MISSIONS. constant quarrels, the ill-treatment that their kindred the Bushmen were receiving throughout the country, and last, not least, the fine herds of oxen that only waited to be plundered. Jonker accordingly trecked up, helped the Hottentots, and then settled alongside of them. His tribe now became larger and more efficient; he bought guns and horses from the Cape with the oxen that he stole, and continued robbing the Damaras on his own account. In consequence of a representation sent by Sir James Alexander to two Missionary societies, stations were formed at Jonker's headquarters; and in I840 he had been so far influenced, that he agreed to leave tihe Damaras at rest, and to take care that the other Hottentots should do the same, for he had become by far theimost important chief among them all. The way in which peace was made and kept for three years was highly creditable to the Missionaries concerned in it; a great deal of trade was carried on in Jonker's werft. A blacksmith's shop was put up there, and iron things, assegais, choppers for cutting wood, beads, and so forth, were made in great quantities and sold for cattle, which again were exchanged with traders from the Cape for clothes, guns, and such like things. But this did not last long; the traders sold their goods on credit; Jonker and the others became deeply in debt, and as the only way of paying it off involved themselves once again in the endless Damara quarrels. It appeared that one Damara chief Wand his tribe had been invited to a feast, and when these were attacked, and nearly all killed, Jonker, after much persuasion, got a commando together to revenge the injured party, and started. Once on a raid, the Hottentots did not much care whom they attacked, and began by robbing a werft under Kasheua, who had nothing to do with the matter in question, drove off their cattle, and rode after the natives-men, women, and children, shooting them down in all directions; this he repeated elsewhere till a large herd of cattle were brought together, and then he returned. Cornelius's tribe of Hottentots, hearing of Joonker's success, followed his example; they rode in a friendly way to one of Kahikene's villages (Mr. Kolbe's friend at Schmelen's Hope), and as the Damaras were employed in bringing them milk after the usual fashion, they attacked them and massacred all they could. From thisetime up to the Schmelen's Hope affair, nothing else had occurred but fightings and retaliations between the Namaquas and Damaras. I have the details in full of many of them, but they are all alike, with little more than the name and place varied. The consequence is, that 43 although the Namaquas have no trade whatever with the Damaras, a steady export of Damara oxen goes on southwards to our colony in droves of from 2oo to 8oo head of cattle, which are bought here with far too little inquiry as to how they have been obtained. In fact, I am assured in every quarter that of late years the news of a trader's waggon being on the road has been the signal for a general raid upon the Damaras. Jonker had up to the present time acted very fairly, but rather despotically, to all the whites. He had always protected their persons and property, and had often stood their friend against the other Hottentots. Even the Damara Missionaries were greatly indebted to him for the security they enjoyed; for the belief was, that any harm done to them would be instantly retaliated by the much-dreaded horsemen of the Hottentots. But Jonker liked to have his own way, and soon became heartily tired of advice and admonition; and more lately his plundering disposition and that of the Hottentots had become so thoroughly roused, that the rebuking presence of the Missionaries was felt to be extremely irksome and galling, and he constantly expressed his determination to rid himself of them. Still they enter- tained no personal cause for alarm, but the attack on Schmelen's Hope had placed the matter on a different footing, and their position was become avowedly very perilous. The Damaras, from their suspicious nature, always believed the Missionaries and other white people to be merely a species of Hottentot, and acting as spies to Jonker. They argue thus-" You come and go without harm, passing through their country; you must therefore be as one of their people ;" and now that the Damaras had been killed all round Mr. Kolbe, and he himself not murdered, they firmly believed that he went there merely as a decoy to bring Kahikend within Jonker's reach. There was nothing revolting in such a line of conduct in the Damara mind, for they seem to have no perceptible notion of right and wrong; but it was considered to be a simple fact, and as such they acted upon it, by entirely gutting the Schmelen's Hope house the instant that Mr. and Mrs. Kolbe had made their hurried retreat from that place to Barmen. Jonker had never, even when on the best terms with the whites, permitted any of them to enter Damaraland; the traders were per- emptorily refused permission to go there; and more lately, when Mr. Hahn had got everything in readiness at Barmen, to explore the DISLIKE ?'O MISSON.S. CHAP. III. 44 interior, a troop of men were sent who drove away all his ride, pack, and waggon oxen, and detained them till the season for travelling was gone by; the reason being, that if a free intercourse were established betwveen the whites and Damaraland, the Damaras would soon buy guns and weapons, which would place them on more equal terms with the Hottentots. It can easily, then, be conceived with what temper Jonker and the others had heard of my landing, and intention to explore; a plan of sending men down to Walfisch Bay, and to cut me off there, was, as I found out afterwards, publicly discussed. Help or countenance from the Damaras was the last thing I could expect, for they would treat me as a Hottentot; and again, my men were so totally undisciplined and devoid of pluck, and had already cast back so many longing regrets toward the Cape, that I felt that the least check, in the first instance, to my success would dash the whole enterprise. At the Cape my plans had already been thwarted by the emigrant Boers, who chose to cut off all communication with the north by the one side of the Karrikarri desert; and here were the Oerlams, their offset, as it were, trying to do the same on the other. The cases were as similar as could be; both parties were guided by British subjects,- both were effectually barring out civilisation and commerce from Central Africa, and what I felt most peculiarly vexatious, both were barring out me. Now when I was in Cape Town there was a very general feeling that the interior of South Africa would become an extensive and open field for colonial commerce, since the discovery of Lake 'Ngami had shown a way to it. Hence it was doubly annoying that the emigrant Boers, whose treatment of the blacks was not very many shades better than that of the Oerlams, should not only keep us from these countries, but also generate a hatred on the part of the blacks against white faces, which years of intercourse on our part might not efface. His Excellency the Governor, guided by these views, took advantage of my intended expedition, and also of Mr. Oswell's, who was then in the neighbour- hood of Lake 'Ngami, by formally requesting each of us to establish "friendly relations," on the part of the Cape Government, with the black tribes, who were subject to the attacks of these marauders. We were simply to convey expression of good will and strong assurances that the proceedings of the Biers met with no countenance on the part of the colony. I, therefore, knowing that Jonker still felt some fear of and respect for the Cape Government, wrote him a long letter 5 CHAP. Isu a I WRI7'L TO J4NKER. 45 BUY OXEN FROM IANS. in legible characters, which I was assured could be deciphered by some of his people. I told him how much displeasure the emigrant Boers had caused,-that his actions were as bad as theirs,-and that therefore he would probably be regarded with the same displeasure as they, if he persisted in attacking the Damaras now that he had been warned. I ended with an assurance that I should call the Damara chiefs together, and express to them what I had been requested to do in the case of the nations threatened by the emigrant Boers. After I had written my letter in English I had it translated into simple Dutch, and written on a magnificent sheet of paper, and, finding a messenger, sent it by him to Jonker, who lived fifty miles off, under a high range of hills which was distinctly visible from Barmen. Mr. Hahn spoke highly of Hans, and strongly advised me not only to take him into my service, but also to buy up his stock of oxen and sheep, as it would save me infinite trouble, and this I did. I paid him, by cheque on Cape Town, � 7I for fifty oxen and a hundred sheep and goats. Of these about fifteen were more or less trained, and two or three were ride oxen. It was the best bargain I could possibly have made, for a month's barter among the Damaras would never have bought so many. The poverty of the land began to strike me, and the extreme inconvenience of having no currency, which makes bar- tering a very different matter from buying at a shop. I was grieved, too, to find that very many of my articles of exchange were ill-chosep and worthless, and also that I should require a very large troop of slaughter oxen, as hardly any game seemed to exist in this part of the country. I only stayed one whole day at Barmen, and then returned to my cart at Otjimbingue, riding the sixty miles between the two places in a day and a half, which is very fair travelling for an ox. I found every- thing in order under Andersson's management. I heard that the night I left them some lions were roaring in the most awful manner close round the encampment. They seemed to be trying to get at the mules, who, luckily, did not break loose. The men were excessively frightened, as well they might be, for they could see nothing in the dark night, and the lions could at any moment have leaped over the slight fence into the midst of them. The morning showed their spoors, as they had crawled round, and close to the bushes that made the fence. Hans was now formally installed in his office, and the breaking-in of the new oxen for the waggons began. Yokes were borrowed from the Mlis- 46 [enAP. m. ATTACKS OF DISTEMPER. sionary, and a heavy tree felled for the animals to draw. The first ox that we lassoed by the leg was very vicious: he threw himself down, and broke his thigh bone, and I had to shoot him. The next sprained his ankle, and then got savage, and chased everybody, running upon three legs. He at length took refuge among some thick dabby bushes, which were thronged with hornet. and, what between the mad charges of the animal and the stings of the hornets, we were fairly beaten off, and had to leave him the whole day by himself. This was a bad beginning; but after infinite labour three or four were inspanned: they were caught, then made fast between two tame oxen, and there yoked. The same operation was repeated for a few days; but we did not make much progress, the animals were so very fresh and vicious. It must be recollected that Damara cattle are far wilder animals than those we see in England, and infinitely more difficult to break in. There is a game- like and thorough-bred look about them. Many of them will face and charge a lion, as a buffalo would. My ride ox, Frieschland, who had once been badly scratched and bitten, became furious if he heard a lion's cry near him. Hans suggested driving them down to the Bay, and then, when a little tired by the journey, and accustomed to having a number of white men about them, they would be more submissive; I decided on trying this plan, and an early day was fixed for the start. In the meantime we had ceased to stare at the strangeness of our new friends, the Damaras. Numbers came to my kraal every day, to look in at us in a friendly manner, and to see if there was anything for them to pilfer. Timboo began to make himself intelligible to them, and was quite delighted at each word or phrase that he found to be the same as in his own language. The mules and horses were just recovering their condition, when that fatal scourge, the distemper, broke out amongst them. First one fine mule was found to be ill, and to stand with difficulty; a little froth gathered about his nose and mouth; in an hour he was lying on the ground, and in another hour dead. I was distressed beyond measure, as I knew the disease would not rest with him; neither did it,-two more mules were infected, and died also; but my last horse still was in good health. He gave me one good gallop after a giraffe. I saw him far off, coming down the long slope on the other side of the river, and cantered round him. As I got nearer and rode gently, I passed two other individuals, each stalking the same beast; one was my faithful Hans, and the other, a brute of a lion. I galloped up to the giraffe, CHAP. Im.] 47 and put a large bullet through his ribs, which sickened him at once. I then rode in front of him, as he slowly kept on his road at a pace between a walk and a trot; but when I began to re-load, I found to my intense disgust that my powder-horn had jolted out of my pocket. I could not turn the giraffe; he forged steadily on at about seven miles an hour, and, as the evening was closing in, I had to leave him to go where he pleased. I offered a good reward for my powder-flask, which I could not easily spare; and men, women, and boys ran off the next day on my horse's spoor, and found it. I ndver carried a powder-flask loose in my pocket again. Other Damaras followed, and got my giraffe for themselves. In return for the meat of the dead mules, the Damaras worked at strengthening my kraal, building me a hut in it, and digging a well. I had logs of wood or branches of trees planted upright in the ground at intervals all round, and plenty of dabby bushes wattled in between them. I made a good gate to the whole; for I wished to feel, that when Timboo, John Morta and I remained behind, and the rest of the party were gone down to the Bay to fetch the waggons, I might have a place of security against pilferers and night marauders. When the holes had to be dug for planting the uprights, I was infinitely amused at the adroitness with which the Damaras made them. I should have used spades, and, in default of those, I really do not know what I should have done, but the natives each took a common stick, pointed at one end, and, holding it like a dagger, broke up the ground with it; they then scratched out the loose earth with their left hand, working in this way until holes were burrowed deeper than the elbow, and only some six inches in diameter. Savages have so many occasions for scratching up the ground, as in digging for deep roots, for water, when the wells are partly choked up, and such like, that the Damaras often carry a stick for the purpose among their arrows, iin their quiver. The Bushmen do the same, and this method of digging is called in Dutch patois "crowing "the ground; thus, "crow-water,'" means water that you have to crow for, and not an open well, or spring. To return to my horse; the day arrived when he was doomed, and the fatal distemper made him its last victim. It appears that distemper is most fatal in the months of September, October, and November, and that it generally ceases with the first rains. The Hottentots were hardly able to contend with it at first, but by degrees places were 48 IDlGGI1G OL .S. [CHAP. Iil. found in the Hottentot country, one on a high table-mountain, where the sickly season could be passed by them in safety; some few horses had had the distemper and recovered, and these were kept at hand. Jonker had always a few of these about him. The exchange price of a horse among the Hottentots here is from eight to ten oxen, but they were hardly ever sold, as a horse is invaluable for marauding purposes. Cattle cannot be swept off by a few men without their aid, for as soon as the attack is made, the oxen run off in all directions, and it is almost out of the power of a man on foot to overtake and turn them, but they are quite at the mercy of a few horsemen. There were large herds of zebras about, that came down nearly every afternoon to drink, but I soon gave over trying to shoot them. It here . required a very long stalk, as the broad open river-bed had first to be crossed; and there were four or five hangers-on about the place with their guns, who would run down and have their shots; besides these there were savages with their bows and arrows. Often, after an hour's hard and careful manoeuvring, the game was seen to be startled, and a ball from a zealous sportsman was whizzing at them from some ridiculous distance. The captain of the werft made good and steady bags of game with his bow and arrows, getting a zebra about every other day; but then he had to slave at it, and often follow the wounded animal's spoor for great distances. The lions also killed several, and they supplied the natives pretty well. The Damaras were always on the look out, and, guided by the vultures, appropriated in the morning whatever beasts the lions had left half eaten. I employed myself in breaking-in my remaining mules to carry packs and saddles; they were too few now to draw my cart, but use might be made of them in some other way. They were troublesome, sensible creatures, not kicking at random, but always with an aim. We had several tumbles, but succeeded in teaching them the elements of their duty. It is much more difficult to break-in animals in the open country than it is in an enclosure, because, when you let them go, which you cannot help doing sometimes, they gallop off, and it takes a very long time, often an hour, and plenty of running, to turn and catch them again; besides this, each chase scares and frightens them all the more. Eight days had now passed since I had returned from Barmen, and a fortnight since the cart first arrived here, in Otjimbingud. The time had been spent pretty actively, a great deal had been learnt, one very bad character weeded from among my men, and on the evening of the CHAP. III.] NATIVE HUNTING. 49 ninth day all the party, except Timboo, John Morta, and myself, went down under the care of Andersson to the waggons. They took all the oxen and a sufficiency of slaughter sheep with them, the remainder being in charge of John Allen, the English lad whom I found living with Hans, and doing work for him. John Allen was not yet in my service, but I engaged him afterwards; he was a most trustworthy, hard-working clever lad, and originally a sailor. There was now no anxiety about the food and safety of the Bay party, for Hans knew every inch of the road, and was thoroughly au fait in all that related to oxen; but I did anticipate with much fear that the animals would never be broken-in within any reasonable time. Everybody prophesied ill; but they had done so from the beginning, and I felt convinced that the hardest part of the journey, the first step, was over. I now had an establishment of oxen and men, and a few good servants amongst them, and it was precisely in possessing myself of an establishment that my great difficulty had lain. There was a ride-ox for every man that went to the Bay, and they trotted off on the evening of October 17th. Stewartson went back with them. I was very sorry to part with him, as he had been an amusing comrade and of great service to me. My proposed expedition to Erongo had therefore to be postponed, and I determined to go there on Hans's return. I now lived in great part at Mr. Rath's house, copying his dictionary of Damara words, and hearing the results of his observations on the people. Timboo continued learning the language: and I waited with anxiety for an answer from Jonker. The time passed pleasantly enough. I put my map of the country, so far as I had gone, into order, practised a good deal with my sextant, but made very little progress indeed in the language; I could find no pleasure in associating and trying to chat with these Damaras, they were so filthy and disgusting in every way, and made themselves very troublesome. My mules were watched and taken out to graze by two natives, whom I fed and paid at the rate of a yard of iron wire per month. After a time, no reply having arrived from Jonker, I engaged a Hottentot, who had four or five trained oxen, to take me to Barmen. He was a respectable old gentleman, who spoke Dutch perfectly, and every now and then earned something by doing odd jobs for the missionaries. 1ijs honesty was unimpeachable; his family large; the ladies of it were thoroughly Hottentot, and the younger ones were I GO TO BARMEN. [CHAP. III, 5o JONKER WRITES TO MifE. dressed in leather skirts, that showed off their peculiar shapes to great advantage. Half of my things were put on ox-back, half on the mules. Timboo and I rode an ox and a mule between us. John Morta got a mount now and then, but he disliked both animals exceedingly. The 'mule curved his back and cocked his ears and switched his tail much more than was pleasant among the sharp rocks and abominable hakis thorns. These hakis thorns have overspread the whole country on this side of Tsobis ; the tree is seldom more than fifteen feet high, with a short straight stem and a spreading bushy head; the thorns are all curved (hakis is the Dutch for hook), and, consequently, they do not hurt you like other thorns when you tumble into a bush, but only when you try to get out of it. My hands were cruelly torn with these thorns, and as I was still in bad condition, all the scratches festered; it was very painful, I could hardly close my hands for pain. Besides these there were the " black thorn" and the "white thorn" (I take the names as I heard them); the first produces crisp tasteless gum in great abun- dance, the other a very sweet gum, that tastes and feels exactly like jujubes, but has a great tendency to ferment. We travelled on very quietly to Barmen, as John Morta was lame, and there was no hurry. We were four days in going there. I like gipsying work excessively, making a temporary home of a pretty spot and then going on without regret at leaving it. A heavy thunderstorm swept by us, the first we had yet seen, and the harbinger of the rainy weather that was to provision me, as far as water was concerned, for my approaching journey. Deluges of rain and peals of thunder passed down the Swakop, such as only tropical countries can show. Jonker's answer reached me at Barmen; it was rambling and unsatisfactory, begging that I would come to his town and discuss the matters. The letter, instead of having been sent by a direct messenger, had been passed from one person to another, so that it had occupied a month in travelling from the blue hills that bounded the horizon before me. I thought this highly disrespectful, and hardly knew how to act, when three days later brought intelligence of a Hottentot raid of a more murderous and extensive description than any that had taken place previously. Eleven whole werfts had been swept away; the Hottentots had passed within twenty miles of where I was, and fugitives came from every side telling of their misfortunes. Now this was too bad; but I determined to have patience for a little time-a traveller must learn patience-and I wrote Jonker another CHAP. III.] 5I civil letter. I took the ground of supposing that he had not under- stood, my last one, and I explained myself over again. My intentions were simply these : if he still intended to obstruct the way to Damara- land, in spite of the long, the carefully worded and well indited letters that I had sent him, and which explained fairly enough what the feelings were with which the Cape Government regarded marauders like himself, I would try if I could not do something personally to further my own plans of exploring as I liked. I had no idea of undertaking a piece of Quixotism in behalf of the Damaras, who are themselves a nation of thieves and cut-throats; but I was de- termined that Jonker's contempt of white men should not be carried so far as to jeopardise my own plans. In fact, if he did not care a straw for me, as the bearer of the wishes of our common Govern- ment, I would take my own line as an individual who had a few good guns at command, and would do my best to force my point. Whatever I was to do must be postponed till my men came, so I busied myself as usual with the milder occupations of latitudes and longitudes and mapping. I built a wall, on the top of which I mounted my tent; a hut was made opposite for my two men, and the whole was well bushed in with thorns. I dined most days with Mr. Hahn who gave me most full and accurate information about both Damaras and Hottentots. Timboo improved very much in the language, and was the life and soul of the place, while John Morta watched over my kraal like a dragon, and made the very children cry out with terror when he scowled at them. Mr. Hahn and I had numbers of the natives up to question them about the country to the north, but very little could be learnt At last a man came to Mr. Hahn and said there was a great lake ten days off, of which he heard I had been in search, and that he would take me there, and the name of the lake was Omanbond6. Its direction was some- where between north and east. This was just what I wanted-a point to aim at, something to search for and explore. It seemed so very absurd to bring a quantity of men and oxen, and charge the scarcely penetrable hakis thorns which hemmed us in on every side, without something definite to go after. The name was pretty; the idea of a lake in this dusty sun-dried land was most refreshing, and, according to my temperament, I became immediately sanguine and determined to visit it. A nation called the Ovampo were said to live in that direction, 52 MY PLANS,. CHAP. III a very interesting agricultural people, who, according to Damara ideas, were most highly civilised. I wished much to go to them; they were the only people worth visiting that I could hear of; but I could find out very little regarding them. These savages were a ignorant of the country two days' journey off as an English labourer usually is. My friend, who told me of Omanbonde, told me also that I could get to the Ovampo by way of that lake, and he told me much more. He mentioned most particularly a remark- able nation, who were deficient in joints both at the elbows and knees. They were therefore unable to lift anything to their mouths by themselves; but when they dined, they did so in pairs, each man feeding his vis-d-vis. We had, after a lcng dro-glt, a most terrific thunderstorm; the lightning flashed so continuously that I could read a newspaper by its light without stopping, my eye taking in enough words by one flash to enable me to read steadily on until the next one. It lightened in three different parts, and we were in the middle. There were some flowers in front of me, and the lightning was so vivid, and its light so pure, that I could not only see the flowers, but also their colours. I believe this is a very rare thing with lightning. There were four savages running in a line, about one hundred yards off, on their way to their huts: after one of the flashes, only three remained; the other was struck dead. Mr. Hahn and I picked him up. It is curious how little a negro's features are changed by death ; there is no paleness. His widow howled all night; and was engaged to be married again the succeeding day. The Swakop ran violently after this storm, pouring vast volumes of turbid and broken water for three days down what had hitherto been an arid sandy channel. Mr. Hahn's household was large. There was an interpreter, and a sub-interpreter, and again others; but all most excellently well-behaved, and showing to great advantage the influence of their master. These servants were chiefly Hottentots, who had migrated with Mr. Hahn from Hottentot-land, and, like him, had picked up the language of the Damaras. The sub-interpreter was married to a charming person, pot only a Hottentot in figure, but in that respect a Venus among Hottentots. I was perfectly aghast at her development, and made inquiries upon that delicate point as far as I dared among my missionary friends. The result is, that I believe Mrs. Petrus to be the lady who ranks second CHAP. III.] FIRST RAIN. 53 among all the Hottentots for the beautiful outline that her back affords, Jonker's wife ranking as the first; the latter, however, was slightly pass6e, while Mrs. Petrus was in full embonjfoint. I profess to be a scientific man, and was exceedingly anxious to obtain accurate measure- ments of her shape; but there was a difficulty in doing this. I did not know a word of Hottentot, and could never therefore have explained to the lady what the object of my foot-rule could be; and I really dared not ask my worthy missionary host to interpret for me. I therefore felt in a dilemma as I gazed at her form, that gift of bounteous nature to this favoured race, which no mantua-maker, with all her crinoline and stuffing, can do otherwise than humbly imitate. The object of my admiration stood under a tree, and was turning herself about to all points of the compass, as ladies who wish to be admired usually do. Of a sudden my eye fell upon my sextant; the bright thought struck me, and I took a series of observations upon her figure in every direction, up and down, crossways, diagonally, and so forth, and I registered them carefully upon an outline drawing for fear of any mistake; this being done, I boldly pulled out my measuring-tape, and measured the distance from where I was to the place she stood, and having thus obtained both base and angles, I worked out the results by trigonometry and logarithms. Mr. Hahn gave me a very interesting account of the first establish- ment of the Damara mission. He was permitted to leave Jonker's place after much trouble, and encamped amongst the negroes in com- pany with Mr. Rath and Mr. Bam. None of them knew a word of the language. No European had ever as yet learnt it, and the natives laughed at them and annoyed them most excessively; they were mobbed, and could do scarcely anything. At last a lazy fellow with his nose half-bitten off by a hyena attached himself to them. He happened, besides being lazy, to be also a particularly intelligent man, and soon understood what the missionaries were driving at, when they endea- voured to get at the pronouns and tenses of this tongue of prefixes. He was of the greatest use to them, and, mainly through his aid, they have, after five or six years' labour, fully acquired the language. Their grammar and dictionary were to have been sent in I852, to the pro- fessor of philology at Bonn, and have probably been received by this time. This man's nose was seized by a hyena while he was asleep on his back, very unpleasant, and an excellent story to frighten children with. [CHAP. III. HYENA'S INSOLENCE.. 54 I could hardly believe it, until a case occurred quite d fropos. An old Bushwoman, who encamped under the lee of a few sticks and reeds that she had bent together, after the custom of those people, was sleeping coiled up close round the fire, with her lank feet straggling out in the dark, when a hyena who was prowling about in the early morning, laid hold of her heel and pulled her bodily half out of the hut. Her howls alarmed the hyena, who quitted his hold; and she hobbled up the next morning to us for plaisters and bandages. The very next night the old lady slept in the same fashion as before, and the hyena came in the same way, and tugged at her heel just as he had done the previous evening. The poor creature was in a sad state; and I and one of Mr. Hahn's men sat up the next night to watch for the animal. I squatted in the shade of her house, my companion covered a side path, and the woman occupied her hut as a bait. It was a grand idea, that of baiting with an old woman. The hyena came along the side-path, and there received his quietus. All along the country about us was in the utmost confusion; but we were not annoyed at Barmen. Once indeed men came with the news 'that a body of Damaras had been seen prowling behind the rocks that form a broken background to the station; and we got everything ready for an attack, and watched through the night, but nothing came. The fugitives from a lately dispersed werft were staying at Barmen; their cattle had been scattered all about the country, and three men went out on a three or four days' excursion to look after them. When they returned they came to the station yelling and leaping, and the whole population turned out and joined them in their war-dance. I never witnessed a more demoniacal display.; their outrageous move- ments, their barking cries, the brandishing of the assegais, and the savage exultation of man, woman, and child at the thoughts of blood- shed, formed a most horrible scene. We heard that the meaning of it all was, that the Damaras, who were looking after their lost cattle, had found two of the robbers in the act of driving some of their herd a few miles from this place, and that they had caught the men and killed them. The story seemed improbable on very many accounts, and as the scene of slaughter was no great distance off, the interpreter and two or three men were sent on the spoor to find out what they could. They returned with the tale that in the middle of a river bed they had come to a place where the sand was much trodden down, and some blood was dashed about, and from that spot footsteps led in two cHAP. III.] CRUEL MURDER. 55 MUTILA TED VICTIM. directions, and with each set of footsteps there was the mark of something being dragged; the first spoor led to a bush on one side of the river where a man lay dead the other to a thick hakis thorn cover, but nothing could be seen under it though the sand was disturbed. Looking further they found a spoor that went thence by itself right up the river bed. The interpreter followed it; it was that of a person crawling and dragging himself, and the wretched man whose track it was, was found a mile off under a tree in a most pitiable state, with the back of his neck cut through to the bone. It was in the forenoon of the day before that he had been wounded, and it was now past the early morning, but he was still able to speak. He said-and further inquiries corroborated the story-that he and the man that lay dead were loitering about digging roots, when they saw a fire and the three Damaras, from Barmen, eating meat over it; an ox lay slaughtered by their side. They offered to feed them if they would help to carry as much meat to Bhrmen as they could, so they agreed and went on. Arriving at the river bed, the three men fell upon their two porters, knocked them down with their knob kerries, and struck them till they were nearly insensible, and then hacked at their necks with their assegais. This one was left for dead, but he recovered, and succeeded in crawling from under the thorn bush to where he was found. The tenacity of life in a negro is wonderful. The object of the murder proved to be simply this. The three Damaras had found cattle belong- ing to their werft but not to themselves; they were hungry and killed an ox to have a good gorge, and then, not knowing how to get out of the scrape of having killed their friends' cattle, they determined to lay the guilt upon these two unhappy men, and therefore murdered them It would never do to leave this man to die where he was, so I went with water, a litter, and some bandages. The first man's throat was cut quite through, and he had long been dead; the second man I found under the shadow of a tree with his head between his two hands on his knees and insensible, but we roused him up, his lips were cracked with thirst, and he could not speak. I could never have believed that a man with a wound like this could have survived an hour; all the back sinews of his neck were severed to the bone, and the cut went quite round his neck, but only skin deep near the jugular vein and windpipe. The head was perfectly loose upon his shoulders, and heavily bruised, and his skin was torn with the hakis thorns. I put him on the litter, but his head rolled so shockingly from side to [CHAP III. side as the litter moved that I was obliged to make two cushions of grass one on each side of his head, to steady it. At Barmen he was not able to give any further account, as he became delirious and died in a few hours. I had sent messages to the different chiefs trying to explain what the instructions were that I had received at Cape Town. The way of authenticating messages in this part of the world is curious; it is by giving some token to the messenger which he shows as a guarantee that he really comes from the person he professes to represent, just as our ancestors who were not clever at writing sent their signet rings. 1 could not tell what to send; it ought to be something very character- istic and not worth stealing-an article that neither grease, rain, nor dirt could spoil, and impossible to be broken. All my things were reviewed, but none were suitable except a great French cuirassier's sword in a steel scabbard, one that I had bought years before in Egypt. This was just the thing. The Damaras adore iron as we adore gold; and the brightness of the weapon was charming in their eyes. They had no idea of its use, as swords are unknown to them, but they considered it as a large knife. I therefore girded my messenger with it in the presence of his companion, and Mr. Hahn translated for me a short message to this effect--That I came from a great chief and a large nation who did not rob as the Namaquas did, but wished to be friends and not enemies with the Damaras, and to send traders into their country; that our land was very fertile, and we did not want any other, but we wanted cattle, and our traders would bring iron and buy them; that the Damaras must not think when our people come that they are spies, for they are friends, and they must treat them kindly. The messengers then repeated what they had heard, to show that they recollected it, and were given a sheep to cut up and carry for their provision, and started off. I received civil answers on the messengers' return; but the Damaras are all so hostile to each other, tribe against tribe, that I found it impossible to bring the chiefs together. Still I was glad that I had sent my messages, as it was a demonstration, and that might be of some immediate good to me. CHAP. 111 . M SSA GL T I1l'Ir;'S. 57 I GO TO MEET THE WA GGONS. CHAPTER IV. I go to meet the Waggons-Start for Erongo-En route-Damara Features -Gabriel in a Scrape-The Mountain Erongo-Chase Zebras-Ghou Damup Huts-A Black Coquette--Return to Waggons-Leave Otjim- bingu-Mishaps-How to Encamp and Water Oxen-Arrive at Barmen, thence to Schmelen's Hope-Ride to Eikhams-A Doomed Sufferer- Visit Jonker-Conference with Him-Swartboy and Amiral-Ride on to Rehoboth-Umap's Judgment-Obtain Interpreters-Return to Reho- both-Murder a Dog and Pay for it-Conference at Eikhams-Legislating -Proposed Conference-Mules run quite away-Schmelen's Hope-- Dates. [N the last week of November I received the welcome news of Andersson's arrival at Otjimbingue with the waggons. The oxen had taken them up in five long stages from Scheppmansdorf, working by night, and resting thirty-six hours between each pull. It was impossible for me to leave Barmen, as matters were now pending between me and the native chiefs, and I daily expected to hear some news of Jonker's movements. On December 4th Andersson rode over to me, and his and Hans' performances with the unbroken oxen and two heavy waggons were loudly praised by everybody. All had gone well; Andersson had shot his first rhinoceros, my men had worked fairly, all except one waggon-driver, who, besides laziness and inso- lence, had been caught in the act of stealing to a great extent. He was a man I had determined to get rid of some time before, and I now only waited until I could engage somebody to take his place before I did so. Nothing in particular transpired. I failed in learning more about Omanbondb, and returned to Otjimbingue. I went a few days before Andersson, as I wished to visit Erongo with Hans, before starting with the waggons. I left the mules at Barmen, and rode back on ride- oxen which Andersson had brought for me. The mules were trouble- some creatures, requiring too much watching; they conistantly tried to run away, and when off, their pace was so good that the men I ad runs of many hours before they could overtake and bring them back. They gave me great anxiety at first, but now I was quite tired of their tricks, and hardly cared what became of them. I arrived at Otjimbingus about the Ioth of December, and found (CHiAP. 1V, the waggons drawn up on the cliff under a thick roofing of reeds, and with reeds stacked all round them. Everything looked most perfectly in order, and I felt delighted with Hans' management. My waggon gear had required much putting in order; the trek-tows or ropes to which the yokes were fastened were quite rotten; they were remark- ably good pieces of rope when I bought them in Cape Town, so much so as to attract the critical eye of the sailors; but nothing of hemp or cotton stands this climate. I do not know why, but string, yarn, shirts, and thread all become useless after a short exposure to the air. Hans had therefore saved the hide of every ox that had been slaughtered, and had either dressed it to make reims and suchlike things, or else twisted it up raw to make it into a trek-tow. We still wanted one hide, which a gnu was kind enough to afford us. Hans wounded him after a long stalk; but though the animal got off for the time, he was steadily followed by Hans and John Allen for hours, till nightfall; they then slept on the track, and took it up again the next morning; in a couple of hours they found the beast on three legs, at bay, under a stone, where he was shot and flayed. Gnu is literally the only hide, besides that of oxen and koodoos, that is fit for a trek-tow; almost all other animals have either too small and too thin skins, or else the opposite extreme, while gemsbok and zebra hides, which are of the right thickness, are the worst of leather. I stopped a day at Otjimbingud, and then rode off with Hans, John St. Helena, and Gabriel, to the mountain Erongo; it was partly an excursion to buy oxen and sheep for my journey, and partly to see the country, and that remarkable stronghold of the Ghou Damup. The drought was so great, no constant rain having fallen, that troops of Damaras were flocking in from all sides to the comparatively abundant water of the Mission station. One of the captains, who was in advance of the rest of his people, offered to go back with me as guide. He said he would take us to different werfts on our road, where we might barter as much as we liked, but that he dare not take us to Erongo, as his people and the Ghou Damup who lived there were always fighting together. I took a few articles of exchange, some of each of the different things that I had, and we all started in the afternoon. Our native followers included two Ghou Damups, who were to introduce us to their relatives on Erongo, in the same way as the captain was to recommend us to his friends on the road. We emerged from the broad valley of the Swakop, after three hours' CH A. tiV.J .S fAR fi t OR ERONGO. 59 DAMARA FEA TURES. travelling, then scrambled along a very stony road, offpacked for a couple of hours in a watercourse and travelled on till daybreak, when we came to the first Damara village, where, after a good deal of explanation and long waiting, we were tolerated and allowed some milk. Hans was my only interpreter. A little bartering took place here, and some sheep were bought. We then rode on down a broad grassy plain, bounded on the left by high mountains, and some more bartering took place at midday; our oxen on each occasion being put under the charge of the captain of the tribe, who had them watered and sent out to grass. I felt nervous at being amongst such numbers of armed ill-looking scoundrels as these Damaras are; their features are usually placid, but the least excitement brings out all the lines of a savage passion. They always crowded round us and hemmed us in, and then tried to hustle us away from our bags and baggage. They have an impudent way of handling and laying hold of everything they covet, and of begging in an authoritative tone, laughing among them- selves all the time. It is very difficult to keep them off; the least show of temper would be very hazardous among such a set of people, and it is hardly possible to amuse and keep them in order without a ready command of their language. I must say that these savages are magnificent models for sculptors, for they are tall, cleanly made, and perfectly upright; their head is thrown well back, and their luxuriant but woolly hair is clustered round an open forehead; their features are often beautifully chiselled, though the expression in them is always coarse and disagreeable. Their whole body shines with grease and red paint (if they can afford those luxuries), and though they are the dirtiest and most vermin-covered of savages, yet the richer class among them are well polished up, and present an appearance which at a short distance is very imposing and statuesque. They call clothes by the same name that they give to the scum of stagnant water; and I must say that in personal appearance, these naked savages were far less ignoble objects than we Europeans in our dirty shirts and trousers. We arrived at our guide's werft in the afternoon, and I was thoroughly fatigued from heat and want of sleep, and a pretty long ride; but Hans kept watch and bartered perpetually. I could find no shade-there scarcely ever is shade ini Damaraland-but dropped asleep for two or three hours in the full sun, which made me sick and poorly. Gabriel had recovered a little of the spirits that he had lost by travelling, and was now becomi rg impudent to the Damaras; he had a quick angry (CHAP. IV, THE MOUNTAIN ERONGO. temper when annoyed (having already tried to stab two of his fellow- servants), and now that the Damaras were thronging round us and teasing us a great deal, I was in much alarm lest some imprudence of the lad's should give them pretext for an attack. If fighting had once commenced, we should have been as full of assegais as St Sebastian ever was of arrows, and our guns would have availed but little. Just at this time, as we were all squatting in a ring, except Hans and John St. Helena, who were a little to one side and out of the way, some hungry native dogs paid our saddle-bags a visit, and gnawed at the leather. Gabriel took a rhinoceros-hide whip to frighten them off, and one snarled, but retreated to his master through the middle of the ring. Gabriel rushed, quite daft, after the dog, and gave a tremendous slash with the long supple whip at him, but he quite over-reached his aim, and the chief got the benefit of the cut full on his legs. Another instant and Gabriel was prostrate, while the chief, like a wild beast, glared over him; the muscle of every Damara was on the stretch Every man had his assegai. My gun lay by my side, but I had sense enough not to clutch at it. I tried with all my power to look as steady and unconcerned as I could, and I must partly thank the sun, which had baked my face into a set expression, for success. It was a fearfully anxious time to me, though it lasted but for a moment; gradually the savage's grasp relaxed, the Damaras around fell back into nonchalant attitudes, and at length the ferocious expression of the chief's face somewhat smoothed down, and he rose and allowed the disconcerted Gabriel to sneak off, but kept the whip as a trophy, and possibly as a memento of wrongs received. When we were about to start, I made myself as civil as I could, and then gently took hold of the whip, and he allowed me to coax it out of his hand, so all ended well. We had bought four or five oxen and a few sheep, which we in- tended to drive with us to Erongo, the broad table mountain that now lay eight hours in front of us and bounded the horizon. It was five hours' travel to the next water, but it took us much longer, for we had some hunting by the way. The heat became fearful, and fever was upon me; I could hardly sit the journey out, and was extremely glad to get to the bed of the Canna river (a tributary of the Swakop), where an hour's "crowing" and digging gave enough water for the oxen. After a good meal, as the evening was clear, we were again in the saddle, and pushed on for the mountains, the length of whose escarp- ment from east to west was fifteen miles. Its height by rough sextant 6 CHAP. Iv.] 6t. measurement was 2,800 feet. In one part of it there was a break, the mountains rising like parapets on either hand, and to this break we steered. It was pitch dark when we got there, and glad I was to lay my throbbing head to rest. In the morning I dispatched the two Ghou Damups up the hill to tell the inhabitants of our arrival, and to request guides from them. I spent the morning in sleeping under huge overhanging slabs of lime- stone, enjoying to the full "the shadow of a broad rock in a thirsty land." In the afternoon we rambled about trying to climb the hill, and to obtain a good view of the adjacent country. The rocks that composed Erongo were here in huge smooth white masses-often hundreds of feet without a fissure-the hill seemed built by some Cyclopean architect. Immense round boulders of the same stones were strewed here and there at its base. Our Ghou Damup returned in the evening with a promise that guides should be sent us early the next day. We put our articles of exchange into small packs, as men had to carry them up the steep mountain by the foot-road. When cattle are sent up, they are driven round to a different and more distant entrance, which we did not care to visit. It is just practicable for oxen and no more. We had a grand chase after some zebras in the early morn; a large herd had ventured into the recess in which we were encamped during the night, and as they returned smelt our fire and headed back. We heard them, and everybody ran to cut them off, some with guns and some without; the zebras made a round, and galloped through a narrow gorge within arm's length of those who were there. We could not carry our sleeping things up the mountain, as they were too heavy, but I took a small plaid. I was very unwell, but tried to battle off my fever. John St. Helena, Gabriel, and the Damaras were left to watch the cattle below-while Hans and I and the Ghou Damup climbed for two hours over smooth slabs, most of the time with- out shoes for fear of slipping. The slabs over which the only path lay were disjointed from the main rock, and enormous fissures lay between them and it. When we travelled along the side that sloped towards these fissures it was to me very nervous work, for my feet would not grasp the rock, and if I had tumbled I should have explored much more of the mountain than I desired. The measurements of these slabs is not in feet but in hundreds of feet. Once on the top, the air was deliciously cool, and the boulders strewn about gave shade to sit under when we pleased. Leopards are very numerous here; they have CHASE ZEBRAS. [CHAs. IV. 62 nothing wild to feed on except baboons and steinboks; however, the Ghou Damup have plenty of sheep and goats, and these the leopards attack. The summit of Erongo is a succession of ravines clothed with thorn-coppice and a great deal of cactus; the effect is pretty, and I should much like to live there for summer quarters. Along the ravines a few wild fig-trees grow. After a couple of hours of up and down walking, in which we started a magnificent leopard, we arrived at the chief's werft, and I liked its situation and effect very much,-it was not in the open flat, like those of the Damaras, who fear the neighbourhood of any cover which might conceal an advancing enemy, but among trees. It was also built more durably. The Damara huts have but one room; they are like those I described at Walfisch Bay; these were rather complicated. The frame-work of the hut was generally made by growing trees, a clump of which was selected and their lower branches thinned; then the tops were bent down and pleached together; the trees in the middle dividing the huts into two or even three rooms. The shape on the outside was like a snail-shell, the entrance faced to the leeward. Going into the chief's hut, the entrance led straight into the main apartment, on either side of which were rooms, one of them for the chiefs wife. There were plenty of utensils about, such as wooden milk-bowls, pipes, and so on; there was a stuffed ottoman, and the whole place had a great appearance of comfort. The chief was a gentleman, and very courteous. Though Hottentot was his language, yet he spoke a little Damara, in which language we talked to him. He had a charming daughter, the greatest belle among the blacks that I had ever seen, and a most thorough-paced coquette. Her main piece of finery, and one that she flirted about in a most captivating manrer, was a shell of the size of a penny-piece. She had fastened it to the end of a lock of front hair, which was of such length as to permit the shell to dangle to the precise level of her eyes. She had learnt to move her head with so great precision as to throw the shell exactly over whichever eye she pleased; and the lady's winning grace consisted in this feat of bo-peep, first eclipsing one eye and languishing out of the other, and then with an elegant toss of the head reversing the proceedings. Her papa would sell me no oxen nor sheep; he insisted that he had none, though the place was full of tracks. But these people are very trunning to strangers, lest the stranger should think proper to steal their cattle. I very much regretted that I had not a good interpreter, as I had taken a fancy to the chief, and should have liked to have had a CHAP. IV.] A BL 4CK CDC UETTE. 63 LEAVE OTJIMBINGUE long conversation with him. He was not paramount over the mountain, but there were one or two more captains. Indeed, he assured me he could not give me guides over the hill, as his men dare not travel about it, I was obliged to return for I had my time limited in many ways; else I should have liked to have fully explored the place. The fever that was on me increased hourly, and I was anxious to return. The night was bitterly cold, but I curled myself in my thin plaid round the fire, and got through the long hours somehow or other. The chief and I interchanged presents; we bought a few goats, and returned as we came. The rocky slabs looked more dangerous and slippery than ever, but no accident occurred. The next evening we slept at the werft, where Gabriel had distinguished himself. I felt wandering, and was delirious during most of the night, but could sit on ox-back well enough the next day-it was Christmas day, but I dared not stop to do it honour. We rode on five hours. Hans shot four zebras. The Damaras gave us milk in exchange for their meat, and that was our dinner. The next night I was again ill, but less so than before; and the ensuing day I rode through to Otjimbingub: the distance between it and Erongo is about twenty hours' travel. The result of my journey was, that I bought twenty-five oxen and thirty or forty sheep (four common guns had been bartered for twenty oxen), which was a material addition to my stock. Andersson, who had had a slight fever like myself, was there in full vigour; he had been in an almost hand-to- hand combat with a lion, for the beast was on one side of a small bush, growling at him, whilst he was on the other. He shot the lion. A stirring night scene had occurred here, which Andersson witnessed. As the evening closed in, some people saw a lion kill a giraffe on tlhe opposite side of the river: the alarm was given; everybody took fire- brands; and it was quite dark when the mob arrived at the place. They ran unconcernedly up to the giraffe, and frightened the lion off it, who kept roaring and prowling about them close by, whilst they cut up the meat. I determined to leave my cart at Otjimbingub, as I had hardly mules enough to take it; neither could I spare Timboo to drive it. It was thatched over against the side of the Mission-house: and Mr. Rath kindly took charge of the mule's harness. Two days after my return from Erongo, my first experience in waggon-travelling began: I hated it from the first, and never became reconciled to it; I disliked its slowness, and the want of independence about it. In a rugged ana [CHAP. IV. wooded country long detours have to be made to avoid obstacles which ride- and pack-oxen go across without difficulty. Roads have to be explored, bushes cut down, and the great stones rolled out of the way. The waggon is a crushing, cumbrous affair, and according to my ideas totally unfitted for the use of an explorer, except in moderately level countries. I was never happier than when I left it behind, and took to the saddle. The oxen were excessively wild, and seemed to have quite forgotten what they had learnt. It took us from an hour and a half to two hours to inspan the two waggons, notwithstanding we had so great a force of men, most of whom were acknowledged to be thoroughly acquainted with the management of oxen. We had a succession of mishaps the whole way to Barmen: it took us seven days to go the seventy miles; and my men had no light work of it. The rainy season was daily expected, and when it comes, violent torrents con- stantly sweep down the Swakop; this was unpleasant, as its bed had to be crossed perpetually, and it was invariably in the midst of its deep sand that the oxen came to a halt, and resolutely refused more work for that day. On one occasion the sticking-point was a steep sand-pitch, of about six feet high, out of the river-bed. The oxen drew the waggon till its fore-wheels reached the top of the pitch, and there it stuck. We tried everything, but the pull was entirely beyond their power; indeed, they were far too wild to exert themselves together. It really seemed as though we should remain fixed there, till the oxen had been thoroughly broken in by other means, or till the river swept us away; however, I recollected the manner in which our ancestors, in the times of the Druids, are said to have managed their large stones, and tried that plan on my waggon : that is to say, I lifted one wheel with the lifter, and had a flat stone put under it, then the other, and did the same to that, so I continued raising the hind-wheels alternately, until the back end of the waggon was lifted up some three feet on two piles of stones. I had of course to be careful in making my buildings very firm, and in scotching the fore-wheels, lest the waggon should run back. I now built a causeway from the piles. up to the fore-wheels, and lastly, put smooth stones not only under these, but also for a few paces in advance of them. That completed the task, which only required two hours to execute for there were plenty of flat stones about, and I had ten or twelve men to carry them. I then inspanned a team, who trotted away with the waggon quite easily along my pavement. CHAP. iv.] MISHAPS. The water was all "crow-water," and my herd of oxen and sheep were all watered by hand. The way we set about choosing our place for encampment and making it, was this: as the waggon still moved on, we kept a look-out along the river bed, till some indications were seen of water, such as holes or small wells dug by Damaras, who had been camping about. If the yield of water appeared sufficient, and if there was any show of grass near, the waggons were outspanned. The place chosen was by a tree or at the side of some bush, where the requisites of a smooth ground to sleep upon, shelter from the wind, abundant thorn-bushes to make a sheep's kraal of, and neighbouring firewood, 'vere best combined. The Damaras were then sent with axes to cut thorn-bushes for the kraal; the white men went with spades .to dig a couple of wells out, and make them broad and deep, and the cattle watchers were off with the oxen and sheep to grass-two men to each flock or herd. They often fed a couple of miles away from us. Any idle hand fetched enough firewood to start two cooking fires, on one of which the iron pots for the dinners of myself, Andersson, Hans, and John Morta, were placed; on the other, those of the waggon-men. The Damaras had an iron pot between them, but they never had food given them till late, or else they stopped working, in order to eat it at once. Usually we had to slaughter something. The waggon- driver and the men's cook generally killed the sheep; if an ox was wanted I shot him. Thus a great many different things were going on at the same time: the men were digging wells, slaughtering and cutting up, cooking at two fires; the Damaras were watching cattle, cutting thorn-bushes, and carrying firewood. When the wells were deepened sufficiently, a hollow trough was scooped out in the sand, and a piece of canvas laid on it; the oxen were then sent for, and while Damaras stood in the well with a wooden "bamboose," a sort of bucket, ladling out water into the canvas, the oxen were driven up by threes to drink. But unless the ground is very porous the canvas sheet is hardly necessary. In this way one gives drink at the rate of about an ox a minute at each well--and sheep drink very fast indeed; it seldom required an hour to water my herd after the wells were once cleared out. The thorn-branches for the kraal are laid round a circle, each along- side the other, in the direction of radii; the cut ends are inwards, and the broad bushy heads, not the sides of the branch, make the outer circumference. Sheep and goats pack into so small a space, that their 66 .HOI TO ENCAMP [CHAP. IV. ARRIVE A T BARMEN. kraal has never to be more than twenty feet diameter; but they must have one, or else every kind of accident would occur, for they are by no means so domestic as oxen, and very stupid. If it were not for a kraal the hyenas, who serenade us every night, would be sure to do constant mischief, and scatter the flock over the country. Oxen, unless thirsty, or hungry, or cold, or in a restless, home-sick state of mind, never leave the waggons, but lie in a group round the fire, chewing the cud, with their large eyes glaring in the light, and apparently thinking. We made no kraal for them. To continue: as the evening closes in the sheep are driven into their kraal, the door is bushed up, the Damaras get their meat, and make their own sleeping- places, and we get our dinner. Then I make a few observa- tions with my sextant, which occupies an hour or so, and everybody else has some mending or some other employment. Timboo gets out my rug and sleeping-things; the firewood is brought close to the fire; and we lie down in two large groups, Andersson, Hans, John Morta. and myself, round one fire, and the -waggon-men and Damaras round the other, and all gradually drop off to sleep, the Damaras invariably being the last awake. It is a great mistake to suppose that "early to bed and early to rise" is the rule among savages. All those that I have seen, whether in the north or south, eat and talk till a very late hour. I grant that they get up early, but then they sleep half the day. When we outspanned a few hours from Barmen, I rode on in the evening, very anxious to learn if anything new had been heard from Jonker. It was all very unfavourable. No actual attack had taken place, but the Damaras were scattered, and bands of them were prowling about their country. Not one of my Damaras would go on with me. A guide that I had picked up at Otjimbingue refused to proceed. There was a growing fear among my own men; and Jonker's previous personal threats to me, such as they were, were corroborated. I therefore determined to make some sort of demonstration which would bring him into better order ; and in doing this I was confirmed by a rather humble request which I had received from him when I was at Barmen, that I would visit him at his place, from which I gathered, either that he intended to play some tricks upon me there, or else that he felt he had gone too far, and was penitent. In either case my presence would bring matters to a crisis, and get rid of that uncertainty and delay which would breed discouragement among my men, and be fatal to my scheme of travel. I wished to CHAP. IV.] THENCE TO SCHMELEN'S HOPE. force some open admission from the man that his late conduct to- wards the missionaries and the Damaras had been infamous, and to do it in such a way that the Damaras should hear about it, and understand that I was in no mood either to abet or to obey the Hottentots. Barmen was a bad place for me to encamp at as grass was extremely scarce; so I moved on to Schmelen's Hope, which was the Ultima Thule of discovery in Damaraland; there a strong ox. kraal was made, and the deserted and half pulled-down house put in order; and leaving Andersson in charge, I took Hans, John M orta, and one of the waggon-men, -who spoke very good Dutch, and started for Jonker. I previously gave it out among the Damaras that I was gone to make peace between the Hottentots and them. I packed up my red hunting-coat, jack-boots, and cords, and rode in my hunting-cap: it was a costume unknown in these parts, and would, I expected, aid in producing the effect I desired. I started on the I6th of December. It was about a three days' ride; but as none of us knew the road, we strayed a little, which made us longer. I saw a horrible sight on the way, which has often haunted me since. We had taken a short cut, and were a day and a half from our waggons, when I observed some smoke in front and rode to see what it was: an immense blackthorn tree was smouldering, and from the quantity of ashes about, there was all the appearance of its having burnt for a long time: by it were tracks that we could make nothing of; no footmarks, only an impression of a hand here and there. We followed them, and found a wretched woman, most horribly emaciated; both her feet were burnt quite off, and the wounds were open and unhealed. Her account was that many days back she and others were encamping there; and when she was asleep, a dry but standing tree, which they had set fire to, fell down, and entangled her among its branches: there she was burnt before she could extricate herself, and her people left her. She had since lived on gum alone, of which there was vast quantities about; it oozes down from the trees, and forms large cakes in the sand. There was water close by, for she was on the edge of a river-bed. 1 did not know what to do with her; I had no means of conveying her anywhere, or any place to convey her to. The Damaras kill useless and worn-out people: even sons smother their sick fathers; and death was evidently not far from her. I had three sheep with 68 (CHAP. IV me, so I off-packed, and killed one. She seemed ravenous; and though I purposely had off-packed some twvo hundred yards from her, yet the poor wretch kept crawling and dragging herself up to me, and would not be withheld, for fear I should forget to give her the food I promised. When it was ready, and she had devoured what I gave her, the meat acted, as it often does in such cases, and fairly intoxicated her: she attempted to stand, regardless of the pain, and sang, and tossed her lean arms about. It was perfectly sickening to witness the spectacle. I did the only thing I could: I cut the rest of the meat in strips, and hung it within her reach, and where the sun would jerk (i.e., dry and preserve) it. It was many days' provision for her. I saw she had water, firewood, and gum in abundance, and then I left her to her fate. We had a little shooting on our way, and I also had an opportunity of climbing a high hill, which is a very conspicuous landmark, whence I had a wonderfully fine view both of the country I had visited and also a glimpse of that which I hoped soon to explore. We scrambled over some very rugged and thorny ground for five hours, having quite lost our way, but making a cast, came down on the waggon-road at a place which was recognised by Hans as being three or four hours from Eikhams, Jonker's village: it was an immense kraal, formed by a strong stockade, in which Katjimasha (a Damara chief) intrenched himself once when he and Jonker were allies, and robbed the other Damaras in company. Some years back they had dissolved partner- ship, and Katjimasha not feeling safe, absconded with all his men to Damaraland, of which he is now one of the principal chiefs; here I made my toilet, and refreshed my trusty ox, and in the cool of the evening rode down upon Eikhams. Hans knew the place, though not the road we had travelled to it, and pointed out a hill, round the corner of which the village lay. Even Ceylon (my ox) caught the excitement, and snuffled the air like a war-horse. We formed together, gained the corner of the hill; Hans recognised Jonker's hut, and we, I cannot say dashed, but jogged right at it. An obstacle occurred and happily was surmounted, which might have much disconcerted the assault: it was a ditch, or little ravine, that a torrent had made; it was rather deep and four feet wide; but I was in hunting costume, and I am sure Ceylon knew it, for he shook his head, and took it uncommonly well; in fact, oxen, if you give them time, are not at all bad leapers. The others followed in style. So far was well. The huts of the place were CHAP. IV. A DO1MED SUFFERER. 69 all in front, and Jonker's much the largest. Everybody saw us, and was looking at us. There is great etiquette in these parts about coming to a strange place, but we defied all that, and I rode and rode, until my ox's head not only faced, but actually filled the door of the astonished chief. Conceive the effect. My Dutch was far from fluent, so I rated him in English, and after a while condescended to use an interpreter. He never dared look me in the face, as I glared down upon him from my ox. I t.hen rode away in a huff, and took up my quarters in the village, and received in great state the humble messages which he sent me. Now all this may seem laughable, but Oerlams are like children, and the manner which wins respect from them is not that which has most influence with us. To go a step higher,--to the burly broad-limbed Dutch colonists; I must relate a rather amusing instance of the views some acquaintances of mine among them entertained of the physique of those high officials in England, whose enactments wielded their destiny. It was after the anti-convict agitation; and the friends I allude to expressed the utmost surprise and even disbelief, at hearing that the then Colonial Minister was not a person of six foot stature, else how could he have dared to oppose their wishes. I inquired further, and found that report commonly painted his lordship as a kind of ogre or violent giant. I desired Jonker to come to me with his chief people, and I lectured them soundly. We had three or four interviews. I spoke in English, and was interpreted both into Dutch and Hottentot. I saw clearly that I had made a favourable impression upon them. I insisted upon a full and ample apology being written to Mr. Kolbe, and an assurance given of future forbearance and justice being shown towards the Damaras. Jonker begged that Cornelius, the chief of the red people, should be called to his place, and such other people of importance in these parts as could be brought together; and he also mentioned his willingness to enter into any feasible plan for the establishment of better order in the country. The four chiefs here- abouts are Jonker and Amiral, who are Oerlams; Swartboy and Cornelius, who are pure Hottentots. Messengers were at once des- patched to Cornelius and Amiral; and I, wishing to see Rehoboth, rode over there, and undertook to bring back Swartboy. His tribe is a large but not a strong one. A long time ago he was as bad as any of the rest, if not worse; but Sir James Alexander, when he came into VISIT JONKER. CHAP. IV. yo RIDE ON TO REHOBOTH. the country, frightened him into order, and since that time missionaries have- settled in his place, and obtained considerable influence over him. Swartboy's present position was merely a passive one; but his character carried much weight with it, and I desired to make him a party to what Jonker and Cornelius should arrange together. I wished also to make him friendly to myself. The other chief, Amiral, an Oerlam, was far off. He had always treated the whites particularly well; but his own son and heir and part of his.tribe were said to have been robbing the Damaras of late. Neither Jonker nor any other Hottentot has supreme power in his tribe; for these people are most tenacious republicans, and insist upon a council of elders finally ratifying everything that is proposed. But Jonker is by far the most influential man in the whole country, and has his own way in every- thing. I believe that on great emergencies he dispenses with the deliberations of .the council. I had a long conversation with Jonker upon those parts of Damaraland which he had seen. He had made two long excursions with a large body of men on each occasion: one by Erongo, to somewhere near Cape Cross; the other, in which he tried to reach the Ovampo, but was unable to proceed further than Omanbond6, on account of the exhausted state of his oxen. He and his men had brought back all kinds of wonderful and impossible reports about the lake Omanbond6; but the information which he gave me himself was, so far as it went, perfectly accurate. He spoke much of the native Bushmen that he found there, and who went freely among the Ovampo. This surprised me much, as I had no idea that the Hottentot race existed so far to the north. Jonker was perfectly familiar by report with the river that formed the further boundary of the Ovampo. A very intelligent Englishman, a blacksmith, who lived at Rehoboth, was returning there at the time I proposed starting from Jonker's, and I travelled in his waggon. A great part of the distance, we went through broad plains, bordered by high and distant hills, and full of grass, but hardly any water. The last stage, from water to water, was eleven hours' travel, with a little pool from a previous storm in the middle; but this failed on our return. Rehoboth is situated on a bare white limestone rock, with a hot spring of mineral water gushing out-a situation anything but pleasant; yet the village is very orderly and neat. I heard the full particulars of a late judgment and punishment by CHAP, V.] 7t Umap, an independent chief of a very small tribe, though he had, at least, an equal claim with Cornelius to the chiefdom of the red people. Umap's son became ill, and wasted away; the guilt was fastened on some neighbouring Bushmen, who were accused of charming away his life. Umap, therefore, had a pit dug, about five feet across, and seven or eight deep, and he made a bonfire in it; then he took the eight Bushmen and women, on whom his suspicion had fallen, and put them down alive into this pit, covered them over with hot earth, and made a second fire above their grave. The incident occurred before I landed at Walfisch Bay, but I had not had the story corroborated till now. Umap is not considered otherwise than as a very respectable Hottentot; but he is classed as one of the old school. I met Swartboy travelling in his waggon, and we had a couple of hours' conversation, in which I was very favourably impressed with him. He was a reasonable, good hearted, but rather timid old man. He promised to use his influence, as far as he could, towards furthering any arrangements which would lead to peace in the country, and said he would meet the other captains at Eikhams at the time appointed. I was excessively annoyed to hear of the doings of the man I had dis- carded as being a confirmed bad character. He had been making an improper use of my name, declaring that I had sent him on some special message; and that unless he was well fed and taken care of, I should come with a complete army of men, etc., etc. lHe had frightened Swartboy's people into great civility, and then stole cattle from them, and drove them off, while Swartboy's people dared riot punish him. He was said to be fifteen hours off, and, though I had but two days and three nights to spare, I was determined to ride after and catch him if I could. I am for flogging men for stealing, or attempt at murder; and this was a case which came within my code, so I borrowed oxen and was off. The night was too dark to start in, till about one o'clock in the morning, when I rode very fast in three stages to the place, which we were able to reach during the late afternoon of the next day. To my grief the fellow had trecked southwards in the morning, and was now many hours further; and had also stated his intention of travelling steadily on. :My oxen were knocked up, and so were we; and over- taking him now was out of the question, hungry as we were. As soon as the pot was put on the fire, we all fell fast asleep, and forgot our dinner till the midnight chill awoke us. Trotting on oxback for many hours s very severe work if the animals, as they usually do, require UM 4P'S JUDGMENT. [CIAP, IV. 72 RETURN TO REHOBOTH. much urging. The creatures had eaten, and were fit to return on the forenoon of the next day; and we returned late in the night to Rehoboth. I there obtained some valuable additions to my stock of oxen. Timmerman, the one I had just ridden, I bought off-hand: he was a tame sturdy ox; I also got two couple of front oxen, and some hind oxen. These are the important ones of the team; and if good, the rest are easily made to do their work. I also hired a black waggon-driver, Phlebus, who knew nothing of his own language, but had been a trained Hottentot and Dutch interpreter; and Swartboy very kindly gave me his henchman, Onesimus, who, besides being by profession his life-guardsman, was his interpreter to the Damaras. These two were most accurate renderers of whatever they were told to say, as could be easily judged from the answers of the persons addressed. Timboo inter- preted loosely from either English or Dutch into Damara, but he knew none of these languages well; he had a patois of his own. People at first find conversation by interpreters a bore; but after a little use it becomes no greater hindrance, as it is no greater delay, than dictating or writing a letter. Savages, who are naturally sententious, fall very readily into the system; and here, where the Hottentots and Damaras are so often brought into contact, every chief is well accustomed to it. We were a good deal troubled for the want of water on our return " the little pool I mentioned was dried up, and we had taken no water with us, for want of a vessel to carry it in. Our Damaras, who drove the cattle, were quite knocked up under the excessive heat, and a Ghou Damup, whose charge it was to carry the iron pot, lay down somewhere altogether exhausted. At night we arrived, and all of us drank water till we were quite ill. I continued resolving to drink no more, and then rewarded my resolution with one more mouthful. One cannot help drinking, the water seems to have no effect in quenching the thirst. The next day we rode but a short distance, as we had to wait for the two men who were missing, and they might be badly put to it. How- ever, they never came. We thought the Ghou Damup had stolen the pot, and absconded in an old soldier's coat, with which I had just rewarded his fidelity. There was considerable doubt if we should find water for the remainder of the journey ; and, as our stomachs had been thrown out of order, I hardly liked to go so far without taking some: could not think what to use as a water vessel, when my eye: fell upon a useless cur of ours, that never watched, and only frightened game by CHAP. I I 73 CONFERENCE A EIHAMS. running after them, and whose death I had long had in view. Dogskin is the most waterproof of hides, so I despatched the cur and skinned him. His death was avenged upon me in a striking manner, for during the night a pack of wild dogs came upon us, scattered our sheep who were not well kraaled in, and killed them all. We traced the carcasses of some in the morning by the vultures that settled upon them. Two goats alone remained, which I had bought at Eikhams. Oddly enough, just as we were starting, the goats disappeared: we beat every bush for half an hour, but could not find them. At last we became tired of the search, and continued our journey, reaching Eikhams at night. To our wonder and amazement, as soon as we arrived, we met the faithful lost Ghou Damup, not only with the iron pot on his head, like a helmet, as he usually wore it, and red coat on his back, but also driving the identical goats we had lost, and which were under his peculiar charge. He had found them walking along the waggon spoor; they must have run on ahead before we first lost them, and then fallen .into the hands of the Ghou Damup, who had himself passed us without knowing it. He felt he had done wrong in staying behind, but he said he was very tired. He had found some roots on the way, and lived on them. After his story, he brought me a whack- ing big stick, quite as a matter of course, that I should beat him for what he had done. The water-skin I had made was not of much use, as the day was comparatively cool. Being fresh from the animal it had to be used with the hair inside. It held the water very well, but gave a "doggy" taste to it. Swartboy and Cornelius were waiting for me; the latter was anything but a chief, either in manner or appearance. Nothing had been heard from Amiral; it was barely possible that any answer should have been received, owing to the distance. Besides the three chiefs present, there were a great number of the influential men. I used as interpreters, Phlebus, my new waggon- driver, a missionary schoolmaster, and a Griqua: these all spoke Hottentot and Dutch perfectly, and the last two a little English also. I knew enough Dutch myself to be able to check any gross mistake in the rendering from English to that language, and the three interpreters were checks upon one another in the rest. The schoolmaster spoke; the others interrupted if he was not accurate. We met together more than once. The meetings were long and very orderly, many people speaking, and all to the point. These men [cxAr. Iv. 74 evidently felt they had gone much too far, and openly acknowledged that the system of robbing had done much mischief to themselves. No planting or sowing was going on; the Hottentots were idle and restless ; there was no law in the country; and the Damaras harassed them with frequent retaliation. They begged me to suggest some system on which they could proceed; and also to draw up some laws which would at least meet the common cases of cattle robbing and murder. I was rather diffident of success; but in these wild parts a trained legislator is hardly to be expected to travel, and the best must be made of what materials are at hand; so being convinced that I had already gained a favourable footing amongst them, and that what I said would be attended to, I thought the matter well over, and made my Sdbut as a lawgiver. As every one of my new friends were robbers by profession it would never do to make much ado about theft," for if I did nobody would enforce the law. I therefore simply made theft finable at double the number of oxen stolen, together with a mulct upon the people of the werft to which the criminal belonged, if, as was usually the case, they concealed him. The spoor is so certain and honest a witness, and facts become so notorious, that there is little difficulty about questions of evidence. In this spirit I drew up a few laws which Cornelius and Jonker discussed, and to which they fully assented. I also endeavoured to restrain the 'jealousies and quarrels between the Oerlams and Hottentots by inducing Cornelius and Jonker to make a mutual agree- ment that criminals should be punished by the captain of the country where the crime was committed, and not, as heretofore, by his own captains. The greater part of the Hottentots about me had that peculiar set of features which is so characteristic of bad characters in Engh. .nd, and so general among prisoners that it is usually, I believe, known by the name of the " felon face ;" I mean that they have prominent cheek bones, bullet shaped head, cowering but restless eyes, and heavy sensual lips, and added to this a shackling dress and manner. The ladies have not universally that very remarkable development which was so striking in Petrus' wife at Barmen. It is a peculiarity which disappears when one of the parents have European blood, while other points, more especially the absence of white at the root of the finger nails, remain aftex many crosses with the Dutch. Some few of the lads and girls have remarkably pleasing Chinese-looking faces. CHAP IV.] LEGISLA TING_. 75 MULES RUN QUITE AWAY. Jonker is decidedly a talented man, and seems in full vigour though upwards of sixty years of age; his remarks were particularly shrewd, and his descriptions concise and graphic. He came out quite as a diplomatist in the long conversations I had with him, artfully trying to turn the conversation to his own ends. I could not make out that there were more than forty horses belonging to Jonker and his men; neither they nor any others would sell me one; they said they could not possibly spare them. Those I had seen were sorry, half-starved creatures, but with many good points about them. They were all from the country about the Orange River. I endeavoured to appoint a general meeting at Schmelen's Hope for the Hottentot and Damara chiefs, where I would feed them well, and cement peace between them, as far as such an affair could do it. A time was fixed-about a fort- night thence-but it never came off. Everybody mistrusted his neighbours, and only Swartboy, who was my guest there for a couple weeks, was present. Kahikend sent a very friendly message, and I was quite enough satisfied with what I had done. The missionaries were highly gratified at my good fortune, and I had great pleasure in sending to Mr. Kolbe the apology and the promise that I had made Jonker write to him. Matters now looked more sunshiny. There were nearly one hundred oxen in my kraal, and sixty or seventy sheep. My waggon-driver, who had stolen and who latterly had been insolent, I paid in articles of exchange and dismissed. Gabriel at his own wish was left behind. A dozen Damaras agreed to go with us up the country, and Kahikend, our friend, lay in our way. Hans and I rode short exploring excursions to find a road by which we could take the waggon out of the bed of the Swakop, and found one with great difficulty. Andersson then rode a wider sweep to see whether the country away from the Swakop looked open enough for a waggon. He went over a great deal of country, and returned with favourable news in five days, but he hardly saw a Damara, the land was so thinly peopled. We then made ready for our start, though the five mules had run quite away; they were traced through Barmen and Otjimbingue to Tsobis, a distance of more than one hundred miles, and there the chase was given up. I may as well anticipate my story and mention that they, or rather three of them, arrived at Scheppmansdorf; they had crossed the Naanip plain by instinct. The whole distance these runaways had travelled by them- selves, viz., that from Schmelen's Hope to Scheppmansdorf is eighty- 7. (CHAF. IV. five hours' travel very nearly, which at the rate of two-and-a-half miles per hour gives two hundred and twelve miles. A few incidents occurred at Schmelen's Hope; first a plague of caterpillars that covered the ground, then a swarm, but not an utterly destructive one, of locusts, and, lastly, a flight of migratory storks, who made great war upon the locusts. We were perpetually teased by some hyenas-they came most impudently in amongst us as their peculiar spoors showed (the hind and fore feet being of unequal size), but we never could catch them; at last the dogs overtook one on a bright moonlight night and held him at bay. I was asleep and was quite undressed when their sharp barks awoke me, and I had only time to put on my shoes. The dogs and hyena were on the other side of the Swakop, which here is exceedingly broad, about three hundred yards, and by the time we had floundered through the sand to the other side the animal had retreated among the rocks and "hakis thorns into the deep shade, but the dogs held well to him. I sorely regretted the leather trousers that were left behind, as my bare legs were scarified and bleeding. I could not see the hyena, except one glimpse when he brushed against my leg. At last the dogs surrounded him in a patch of moonshine, four or five feet from where I was, and I put a bullet through his backbone. The chase and the skurry made as exciting a piece of sport as I ever witnessed. We had some rifle shooting at geese and ducks, and Andersson slew a pau-the African bustard, and probably the best flavoured and most tender game that exists: John Morta cooked it with the utmost skill. I had returned from Jonker's on the 8th of February, and for three weeks we remained at Schmelen's Hope, waiting for the Damara chiefs, breaking-in the oxen, and hoping for the rains. It is a charming place, and almost a sufficiency of game was killed to feed us. CHAP. Iv.] SCHMELEN'S HOPE. 7y PERSONNEL. CHAPTER V. Personnel-Commissariat-Daily Allowances-Start on the Expedition- Damara Obtuseness - Inability to Count -Information withheld - Kahikend sends to us-Arrive on the High Table-Land-Superstitions on Food-Meet Kahikend-His Difficulties-Gives me Advice-Informa- tion about the Road-Four Oxen Stolen-The Culprits are Punished -Recognising lost Oxen-Hear of another Road-Reach Omatoka-- 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-Omanbonde-- 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 canvas 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 heaving 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 retmailun servants. Myv 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 be- yond the powers of our alphabet to represent;--the second, that they wt*,e invariably christened afresh by my men as soon as they 7g [CHAP. V, 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 Otjimbingue. "Bill". ... .... .Andersson's henchman Picked up by chance. K Excellent runner, used " Sent me by Mr. Rath. Kernerootie ( on every emergency Kahoni . . . . . Anything . ...... Picked up by chance. Old Kahoni . ..... Nothing .. . . ,, His Son ...... Cattle Watcher .... . ,, ", , { Timboo's friend, a run. Piet from Mozambique . Conversational .... away 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 be- sides. The oxen and sheep we drove with us were to be our sus- tenance, 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 1 CHAP. v.] COMMISSARIA 7. 79 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 there- fore 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- I Springbok, or roebuck . . . equal to I sheep. I Hartebeest . . . . . ,, 2 ,, I Zebra, or gnu, or gemsbok . . ,, 4 ,, I Giraffe . . . .. . ,, 2 oxen. I Black or Keitloa rhinoceros . ,, 3 ,, I 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 every- where 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 8o D 4ILY ALLOIhANC"ES [cHAP. v. CHAP. iv.] DAMARA IDEAS OF NUMBER. 8. 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 calcula- tion as a sliding-rule is to an English schoolboy. 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 manl 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 minp is bent upon number, it is too much occupied to dwell upon quantity; INFORMATION WITHHELD. 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 informa- tion 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 Otjimbingub, had helped me to the utmost of their ability, and yet, on starting, I could not tell whether Omanbond6 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 [CHAP. V, 82 ClIAP. v.] ARRIVE ON THE HIGH TABLE-LAND. 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 Otjim- bingue told me, that if I started now to Omanbondb, 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 watershed of the Swakop, was surmounted, and quite new scenery lay before us. In front rose the two magnificent cones of Omatako, each appearing 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 Omanbondb. The sandy soil was covered --with thin dry grass, and a scanty thorn coppice, without underwood, overspread the land. As we travelled on, some messengers met us. They were sent from the Chief Kahikend, 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 six thousand 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 Okaroschek4, 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 83 SUPERSTITIONS ON FOOD. 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 some- what refined practice that they have is, that no hunger will drive them to eat raw or even underdone meat. They have numberless super- stitions 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 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 Damaraland. 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 84 CHAP. V. MEET KAHIKENE. reasonable to suppose that a day's provision of meat would be ex- changeable for one of nmilk, 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 th'e 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 I3th.-We had arrived at the place where Kahikend 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 Kahikend 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, Omagunde'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, Kahikene was the most powerful chief in Damaraland, 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 in- terested 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 Omagunde's son, and the usual superstitious enAP. v., ceremony was gone through of dragging a berry bush after him wherever he went. I offered to go to Omagundd'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 Kahikend 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. Kahikend assured me, and I had heard from other quarters also, that Omagunde'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 expostu. lation had passed he condescended to return them, but cut their tail off before doing so, and kept them as trophies. I asked Kahikend about the country ahead, and he gave me much information very concisely and well; his intellect and manner con- trasted 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 Omanbond6, and to quite a different part of their country to that which I proposed visiting. GIVE'S ME iJ ICE. 86 CCHAP. V. His trading paities 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 Omanbonde, but between where we then were and Omanbondd, Omagunde'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 Kahikent 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 Kahikend 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 Kahikene'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. Kahikene 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 Kahikend 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 CHAP. V. FO fR OXEN STOLEN. 87 THE CULPRITS ARE PUNISHED. 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 handcuffed 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 suffi- cient, 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. Kahikena's men had in the meantime frightened mine about Oma- gunde'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 Kahikene's headquarters. We passed by a great many kraals, in few of which were there more than ten houses, generally only five or six-probably one hundred 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. 88 [CHAP. V. HEAR OF ANOTHER 'ROAD. 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 five hundred or six hundred 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 Omagunde'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 Kahikene'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 Omagunde's people. I took a few men from his werft, and by dint of constant bartering, started with one hundred oxen, twenty-seven goats, and thirty sheep. Poor Kahikend ! 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 tole-ated a few others, but became really attached to him. CHIAP. V.] 8) CHIPPING THE FRONT TEETH. March I8th.--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 trecked 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 one hundred hartebeests in one place, and Andersson four hundred 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 daytime, 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 Kahikend'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, [CHAP. V. 9o VIEW FROM ESHUAMENO. but off-packed among some thick thorns, where the most pitch dark of nights brought us to a standstill. 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 Omagund&'s people. Except my cattle, I had not one day's provi- sion; 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 Kahikene. A month of drought would exhaust every vley on the road, and then unless I rode right through Omagunde's country, the journey would be quite impossible CHAP. V.j 91 92 CLIMB OMUVEREOON.--A SNAKE. [CHAP. V. 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 per- suade 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 Kahikene 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, CHAP. v.] SERIOUSLY OBSTRUCTED BY THE THORNS. 93 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 wonder- ful 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 Omanbonde, 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 watershed 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 thfew the whole team into confusion: the oxen plunged and tossed, and got their heads out of the yokes; and often the waggon-men conld not get up to the fighting creatures on account of the thorns. Flogging is of little or no use; the animal is essentiallyperverse and vicious and calls for almost superhuman patience. From II A.M. till nightfall 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 Kahiken&'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 half off, full of running water, and like a trout-stream, with meadows of grass about it. It came out from a cliff of Onmuvereoom. In the evening we brought the waggons up, and encamped beside itt about two miles from the hill. Here we stayed two days, in happy 8 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 instanee 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 fireplace 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 spoonful 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 ha d; 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 Otjimbingu ; 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 29t1.-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 out-spanned, 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 3oth.--We again started early, and strayed a great deal; for we ,had no certain point to aim for, and our chief object was HOW TO M IAKE SOAK'' 94 [CHAP. V CHAP. v.] LEARN A LITTLE AND TRAVEL ON. 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. VVe 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 Omanbonde 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 3Ist.-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 95 ARRIVAL AT A WERFT. 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 Omoramba river-bed. It was on the upper part of this river-bed that Omagunde'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 Omanbonde,-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 Omanbonde. He said that 96 CHAP. V. 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 the 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 Omanbonde. 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 five hundred yards across--this was the Omoramba; up it was a projecting rock, and round that Omanbonde. On a hill-top in front was a cluster of camelthorn trees (Omanbonde 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, OMANBONDA, cHAP. V.] 97 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 Omanbonde, 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 Omanbonde, 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 Omanbondb; one a few years back actually travelled up to Okaroscheke, 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 appear- ance of Damaraland during the dry season, one would as soon expect a hippopotamus to have travelled across the great Sahara as from Omanbond6 to Tsobis. There is not a drop of water, except in wells, (which the beast could not get at,) between Omanbonde and the little fountain two hours from Schmelen's Hope. We encamped by the side of Onanbonde 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. 98 HIIPPOPOTAMI. (CHAP. 9, CIHAP. VI.] MISTAKE A LION FOR AN ANTELOPE. 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 Okamabuti--The first Elephant-Waggon breaks down-Encampment made-Chapupa's history-Savages versus Europeans-Ride on to the Ovampo-Method of searching for YW' ater- Damaras are bad Guides-Find some Bushmen-We start, but are ordered back-The Ovampo Caravan-Chikorongo-onkompd-Pronunci- ation of the letter M-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 Kahikend'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 Namaqualand had ever seer. for they had travelled as far as Omanbonde in one great expedition; they went in great numbers and returned in some distress after a few months' absence. Curiously enough I arrived at Omanbonde 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 stayed two days at Omanbonde 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 two hundred 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 99 zoo EXPLORE A ROAD.-REACH PALMS. [CHAP. VI. 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 fright; 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 Omanbonde 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 recom- menced; 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 Omanbonde 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 im- practicable, 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 unre- freshed 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 CHAP. vI.] EXPERIENCES OF AFRICAN TRAVEL. Omanlond., where I airle1 blefore dusk on the Ioth. On the Ia2th 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 dis- lodged 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 time, 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 m:nds. 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 goodwill of the reigning savage be once obtained, but in a place like Damaraland, 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 IO1- o2 GUIDE DECAMPS AND WE FIND ANOTHER. [CHAP. vi. 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 Ih: 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 com- mand 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 17tl.-We arrived at Okamabuti, where the werft of the princi- pal chief of these parts, Chapupa, was then lying. We were assured that there were elephants about, who drank regularly at some neigh- bouring 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 Damaraland, 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 Bush- man 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 treck 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. CHAP. VI.] THE F-IRST ELEPHANT, Io3 WAGGON BREAKS DOWN. 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 woodwork-and there we were I 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 out-spanning worked diligently at making a regular encampment. It would never have done to appear dis- heartened. 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 breakdown should lie 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 encamp- ment and making it comfortable. The space between the waggons was awned over, the stumps of bushes rooted out of the ground, the CHAP. vi. zo4 CHAP. VI.] SAVAGES VERSUS EUROPEANS. fore part of the broken waggon prized up, the wheels, etc., 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 suchlike 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 with- out a rug to cover them. The mid-day 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 himr to rights again after his forced exertions; but where there is no such to5 RIDE ON TO THE OVAMPO. rest, but in its place a steady continuous strain, then he fails unless to a considerable degree he adopts our dress and habits. April 261th.-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 tcc k half a dozen Damaras with me. We passed vast numbers of old elephant tracks, but saw no fresh spoors, and halted after pro- ceeding 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 Bushmen 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 iot only dry rushes but also a troop of baboons. This was a sure sign of there being water some- where 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 thari three hours from water. Plovers I have seen much further. Fresh converging tracks of men or animals of course indicate it, bit zo6 CHAP. VI, CHAP. vi.] DAMARAS ARE BAD GUIDES. xo old paths only mislead; these generally are made when the ground is soft during the rainy season, and lead to some valley 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 subse- quent 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 lie seem to recollect it. Thus, if you say: " 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," etc., etc., 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 climbin3 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 suchlike 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 nightfall 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-exFected 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 rOS FIND S01IWE BUSHMEN. [CHAP. VI. THE OVAMPO CARA VAN. ' 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 meantime 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-onkomph (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 9 CHAP. VI.] rog I I CHIKORONGO-ONKOMPA. [CHAP, V . rain-makers were in great request in Ovampoland, 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 Swas 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-onkomp6, 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 nicknamed 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 rot 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 cer- tainly 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 CHIAP. VI.] SALT NOT A NECESSARY OF LIFE. 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 everybody 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 sheep-skins 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 salt-pans, as I afterwards found out, in Ovampo- land, and also in the far east, but none whatever in Damaraland. In Europe it is generally supposed that salt is a necessary of life, but here v:e never find 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 Euro- peans. 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 III DAMARAS NEVER EAT IT 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.* 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, one hundred and five, 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 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 headquarters had no chance of being removed turther to the north unless I met with a sufficiency of game in Ovampoland 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 teads, 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 am informed that certain New Zealand tribes not only eat without salt, but actually look upon it with distaste and aversion. [CIHAP. VI. u2 CHAP. VI.] DRESSED AND TANNED LEATHER. 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, one hundred and fifty 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 a 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 II3 HEAR F KAHIKENE'S DEATH. 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 Kahikend's fine black ox. I did so because news arrived one evening that Kahikene was killed, and I wished to keep a memento of him, and not to eat his present. It appeared that he went to Omagunde's son's werft immediately after we had parted, and made a bold charge. When the fighting was at its thickest, all Kahikene'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 Kahikene; and as he fell to the ground, Omagunde'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 Damaraland 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 the 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 (cHAP. VI, 1i4 EANDAS AND OMAKURU. double, because there is one at Omaruru, and another near Omutcham- atunda), and out of this tree came Damaras, Bushmen, oxen, and zebras. The Damaras lit a fire, which frightened away the Bushmen and the zebras; but the oxen 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. 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 boyliood the lads are circumcised, but at no particular age. Marriage takes place at what appears to be the ages of fifteen or sixteen, 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 CHAP. V.] I 15 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 de- scribed 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 framework; 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 person, 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 I16 curs N FIN Y. [CHAP. VS. 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. Ihave seen one guitar amongst them, but it was, I think, an Ovampo importation; their only musical instru- ment is their bow. They tie a piece of reim round the bow-string and the handle, and bind them 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'auvre, 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 south 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 cHAP, VI.) DDiM 4R L 4NGU 4GE. Ix1. 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 sub- stantive 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. \ \ z ~\\~\~\~~ Y$% 1II~ \ _ __ 7 c~pgjvy,, DAMARA WEAPONS, ETC, xII8 PREFIXES. CCHAP, VI. DAMARA HELPMATES. CHAPTER VII. Damara Helpmates-Marriage Tie-Caravan to Ovampoland-Yearly Traffic -Otchikoto-Improvised Chaunts-Reach an Ovampo Cattle-post-- Archery Practice-The Parent Tree-We reach Ondonga-Corn, Beans, and Palms-Fruit Trees-Native Beer-Density of the Population-- -Encamp by Nangoro's Village--Cannot obtain Pasturage-Nangoro pays us a Visit-Ovampo Belles-We go to a Ball-Description of Dances-Charms and Counter-cliarms-Nangoro's Palace-The Great River-Prospects-The King is crowned-His Lawful Successors-- The Queen's Duties-Ovampo Dentists-Surgical Practice. May 22nd.-The Ovampo and ourselves were all in readiness, and we travelled for a couple of hours to a place of general rendezvous. I was very curious to see what our caravans would consist of, as it would give an accurate idea of the amount of trade and communication that goes on northwards from Damaraland. There are four of these caravans yearly,--two to Chapupa's werft, and two that travel between those Ovampo and Damaras that severally live near the sea. Kahikend had told me of these last; and I have since heard much fuller particulars about them. We had fifteen ride- and pack-oxen, eight slaughter; two cows, one calf, thirty sheep, and three goats. Goats are very useful to furnish leather, in case anything should be torn, or bags have to be made; they do not, however, travel quite so well as sheep. We encamped as usual at night, letting the oxen graze about us, not dreaming of any accident, when a Damara, who was going through the trees, luckily came upon a lion, who was crouching at one of my ride- oxen, almost within springing distance. The lion, of course, decamped, as lions always do when they are discovered at their wicked practices, and we had the satisfaction of hearing him roar hungrily throughout the night. The cry of a lion as he walks about, when he is baulked of sport, is plaintive, and not unmusical; but I never heard them utter it in the menageries in England. It was quite a new sound to me when I first listened to it; and I should never then have guessed it had come from a lion unless I had been told so. Another very peculiar cry is that of the zebra; at a distance it sounds more like the roo-coo-cooing of a dove than anything else. We cut bushes and kraaled in the oxen during the dark; and as I had now only a small drove with me, and plenty of Damaras, I came to a resolution to make a kraal every night for the CHAP. VII.] In g oxen, and so relieve myself of all anxiety about them. I had found it such a luxury both at Schmelen's Hope and Okamabuti, to have kraals to drive the cattle safe into at nightfall, for, dismissing from our minds all care about them, we could then sleep undisturbed throughout the night. The men of my party were, besides myself and Andersson, John Allen, John St. Helena, and Timboo. I had five picked Damaras with four wives. The women are very useful, for they carry the men's things, and make their huts, and cook for them, leaving the men unhampered and disengaged, ready to run and drive the oxen, and do anything that might be wanted. Damara women have not much to complain of; they are valuable helpmates; and divorce themselves as often as they like. The consequence is that the marital rule depends not upon violence nor upon interest, but upon affection. A wife costs a Damara nothing, for she "crows" her own pig-nuts, and she is of positive use, because she builds and plasters his hut, cooks his victuals, and carries his things when he moves from place to place. A Damara seldom beats his wife much; if he does, she decamps. This deference of husband to wife was a great difficulty in the way of discipline ; for I often wanted to punish the ladies of my party, and yet I could not make their husbands whip them for me, and of course I was far too gallant to have it done by any other hands. They bored me to death with their ever- lasting talking; but I must own that there were many good points in their character. They were extremely patient, though not feminine, according to our ideas: they had no strong affections either for spouse or children; in fact, the spouse was changed almost weekly, and I seldom knew, without inquiry, who the fro temfore husband of each lady was at any particular time. One great use of women in my party was to find out any plan or secret that the natives I was encamped amongst were desirous of hiding. Experience tells us of two facts; first, that women delight in communicating everybody else's secrets to each other; secondly, that husbands and wives mutually tell one another all they know. Hence the married women of my party, when- ever I stayed near a werft, had very soon made out all the secrets of the inhabitants, which they retailed directly to their husbands, and they to me. It was a system of espionage which proved most effectual. A difficulty arising from women's gossipings had occurred at Okamabuti, in which Chik behaved very well. My man Kambanya told his wife, who told other wives, who told their husbands, that the Ovampo intended to rob and murder me as soon as I arrived in their country. The story, 120 MARRIAGE TIE. CHAP. VII by passing through so many hands, had acquired several circumstantial details, quite enough to make it worth inquiring into; so I, not knowing the origin of the tale, had Chik up in judgment before me, and taxed him with what I had heard. He protested his innocence; and then I said that to clear himself he must investigate the report, which he did in a most masterly manner; and traced the whole affair down to the unhappy Kambanya, who had fabricated the story to dissuade me from going, and from taking him to Ovampoland, so Kambanya was whipped, and my friendship with Chik cemented all the stronger. May 23rd.-We rode on six hours, to the second place of rendez- vous, Ootui, and there found all the Ovampo at their encampment, and parties of Damaras under every bush; and as we travelled. on next day, I counted in our caravan eighty-six Damara women, nearly half of whom had yelling babies on their backs, and ten Damara men. Our party consisted of fourteen, and the Ovampo of twenty-four; making about one hundred and seventy souls in all; two hundred and six head of horned cattle were driven along, independently of my own, and were the result of Ovampo barter; and of these three-fourths were cows or heifers. The eighty-six women went on various speculations,-some to get work in Ovampoland, some to try and get husbands, others merely to sell their ostrich-shell corsets. Chik thought the caravan a little above the average; therefore, as there are altogether four caravans, we may consider eight hundred oxen as the annual export of Damara- land to the north; in exchange for which at least half of the Damaras are kept supplied with weapons and ornaments, the other half deriv- ing theirs from the Namaquas and the Missionaries to the south. The Damaras have no communication whatever with any other country, a broad land dividing them from the natives to the east, and the sandy tract by the sea-shore bounding them to the west. May 24tk.-Arrived at Otchikango, the baboon fountain, passing a very curious circular hole in the middle of a chalky patch of ground; it was exactly like a bucket, ninety feet across, and thirty feet deep: its name was Orujo: the sides were perpendicular, the bottom flat; and in the middle was a small well, down to which a person could easily scramble. All the ground about is limestone; and wherever there is a bare patch of it, numbers of circular holes, like miniature Orujos, are to be seen: generally they are about the size that would just admit a round lucifer-box; some a few sizes larger; several about CHAP. VII.] YEARLY TRAFFIC. I2i a foot across; and in these trees are often growing just as they would in a flower-pot: those that are open make dangerous pitfalls. The effect is very curious. Mr. Oswell tells me that by Lake Ngami he has met with the same things. May 25th.-For the third time we left Otchikango, and travelled all day, till four p.m., passing over some very rugged ground and dense thorns, such as no waggon could get across: it was a pass over a low chain of hills. The encampments at night were very pretty. There were fires in all directions. Everybody was in the best of spirits. The Ovampo sang their manly choruses with charming effect. We had no water, but were to reach a wonderful place, Otchikoto, on the morrow, at eleven,-which we did. May 26tk.-Without the least warning we came suddenly upon that remarkable tarn, Otchikoto. It is a deep bucket-shaped hole, exactly like Orujo, but far larger, for it is four hundred feet across: deep down below us lay a placid sheet of water which I plumbed, leaning over from the cliff above, to the enormous depth of one hundred and eighty feet, the same depth within five or six feet at four different points of its circumference. The water could be reached by a couple of broken footpaths, to the top of one of which the oxen were driven to drink out of a trough, and a line of men handed up bambooses of water from one to another to fill it. There were small fish in the water; it is curious how they got there. I was told that fish were also to be found in the fountain-head of Otjironjuba, but I did not see them. There were infinite superstitions about Otchikoto, the chief of which was, that no living thing which ever got into it could come out again. However, John Allen, Andersson, and myself, dispelled that illusion from the savage mind, by stripping and swimming all about it, under the astonished gaze not only of the whole caravan, but also of quantities of Bushmen who lived about the place, and who came to greet the Ovampo, with whom they are on the best of terms. Although the Ovampo live on the borders of a great river, yet none had ever been seen swimming. It appeared that alligators were so numerous in its waters that the natives feared to venture in. Chik had been extremely friendly up to the present time, but he now began to look with some suspicion upon us; the fact of our having swum about Otchikoto alarmed him,-it looked like magic. Again my Damaras were always teasing the others by saying that we were cleverer than Ovampo-a fact which these would not admit; but now it was proved OTCHIKOTO. [CHAP. VII. 122 IMPROVISED CHA UNTS. beyond doubt, and the whole eighty-six females sang songs about us; one matron improvised, and all the others joined in a shrill chorus, like " tirri-tirri-tirri." The self-esteem of the Ovampo had certainly been wounded. Chik at first ridiculed guns. He had seen guns in Benguela, but they must have been worthless affairs, and badly handled, for he laughed at any comparison between them and arrows; however, by degrees he became frightened at seeing what they really could do. There was a duck swimming about the water, not more than sixty yards off, but it looked very much further, as things below one always do, and I shot him very neatly with my little rifle; and again, the next day, Andersson was shooting some birds on the wing for specimens, and Chik became so frightened that he would not pick them up. We had great fun at Otchikoto; there was a cave there full of bats and owls, which we swam to and explored. The place swarmed with doves, and every now and then a white hawk swooped in amongst them. The Bushman captain fraternised with me, and we interchanged smiles and small presents. May 27th.-We travelled through the everlasting thorns and stones for nine hours, and offpacked at wells-wretched affairs, that we had to sit up half the night to clean and dig out. May 29th.-We came on ox spoors. Old Netjo, who is a family man, was beside himself with joy, and kept by my side pointing out all the indications of the neighbouring Ovampo. Passing a reedy, boggy fountain, we came an hour after to Omutchamatunda, which then was thronged with the Ovampo and their cattle. We were received very hospitably, and had a tree assigned us to camp under. The Ovampo gave us butter to grease ourselves with; but as it was clean, and as they also brought corn, I preferred eating it. There was a little game about, and we had some shooting, and also a bathe, and a battue of ducks and partridges. No corn was grown here, neither were there any women; it was simply a cattle-post, and far from the corn country of the Ovampo. May 3oth.-We passed the grave of the god, Omakuru; the Dainaras all threw stones on the cairn that covered it, singing out Tati-kurul Tati-kuru! (Father Omakuru). Came to Etosha, a great salt-pan It is very remarkable in many ways. The borders are defined and wooded; its surface is flat and effloresced, and the mirage excessive over it; it was about nine miles in breadth, but the mirage prevented CHAP. VII.] I23 my guessing at its length; it certainly exceeded fifteen miles. Chik said it was quite impassable after the rainy season; and it must form a rather pretty lake at that time. We arrived late in the evening at another werft, on the south border of the grand flat, Otchikako-wa- Motenya, which appears to extend as a grassy treeless estuary between wooded banks the whole way hence to near the sea. The Ovampo here could not believe that I was able to express sounds by writing on paper, so I jotted down the names of a number of people, one after the other, then read them out. I may as well give a few of them, as a guide to the rhythm of the languge: Kangtird, Entong6, Epingh, Angbrb, And.ihe, Akoosh. I planned a shooting match; there were a great many naturalised Bushmen on the spot, and as all the Ovampo carry bows, I had a large archery meeting. I put up a sheep-skin (which gives a target of about three feet by two), and placed the men eighty paces from it. The prize was tobacco; there were twenty competitors, and each shot six arrows, so that one hundred and twenty shots were made; but out of these one hundred and twenty only one hit the target fairly, and another brushed it. At very near distances, as from five to ten yards, the men shot perfectly. I have frequently given prizes to Damaras, Bushmen, and Ovampo, to shoot for, but I have only seen wretched archery practice, far worse than that of our societies in England. I suppose 1 have been unfortunate; but though I have taken some trouble to see good practice, not only with bows and arrows, but also with rifles, I have never witnessed per- formances that approached to the accuracy which shooters often profess to attain, although I have certainly seen lucky shots made, and indeed have made them myself. Andersson made a beautiful one at an ostrich in Damaraland. The bird was standing two hundred and eighty yards from him, in a thick but rather low cover, which concealed its body, while its neck stood high, in bold relief. Andersson stalked up to within that distance, but as the creature was alarmed, and the ground immediately in front was exposed, he could not get nearer. He aimed of course, high up the neck, intending to hit the body, but the elevation was a little too great, yet the aim proved so perfect, that he shot him dead through the neck. Katondoka was sent on to tell Nangoro the news of the approach of the caravan, and to carry a message from me to him; and now came our hardest stage of all. It was nineteen hours' actual travel, and told cruelly on the oxen; for they were weak, and had been badly 4RCHERY PR 4CTICE., [CHAP. VI. X124 CORN; BEANS, AND PALMS. off for grass on the road. We crossed the flat in four hours, keeping close by its easternmost margin; to the west it widened out, and stretched to the far horizon. Four hours from the north border of the flat we passed a magnificent tree. It was the parent of all the Damaras. The caravan stopped awhile, and the savages danced round and round it in great delight. We slept without water. In the morning we had some delays with the oxen, but travelled from early day-break, passing an empty well at eleven, and another a little later. We pushed through thick thorns the whole time, and had begun to disbelieve in Ondonga, when quite of a sudden the bushes ceased: we emerged out of them, and the charming corn-country of the Ovampo lay yellow and broad as a sea before us. Fine dense timber-trees, and innumerable palms of all sizes, were scattered over it; part was bare for pasturage, part was thickly covered with high corn stubble; palisadings, each of which enclosed a homestead, were scattered everywhere over the country. The general appearance was that of most abundant fertility. It was a land of Goshen to us; and even my phlegmatic waggon-driver burst out into exclamations of delight. Old Netjo's house was the nearest, and he therefore claimed the right of entertaining me the first, and to it we went. Hre had two or three wives, and a most wonderfully large family, to every member of which he presented us. Then he took Andersson and myself over the establishment, and showed us his neat granaries and thrashing-floors, and his cocks and hens: the pigs, he regretted, had been sent out of the way; and lastly, Mrs. Netjo, No. I, produced a dish of hot dough and a basin of sour milk, on which we set to work, burning our fingers as we pulled off large bits, which we dipped into the milk and swallowed. Then we went on to Chik's house, who encamped us under a magnificent tree, and took our cattle under his charge. He told me that we were still a long day's journey from Nangoro, and that the whole of our way there would lie through a corn country like this. The harvest was now over; but the high stubble was still standing, and in it the oxen were allowed to feed. There was at this time hardly any other pasturage for them. The Ovampo have two kinds of corn; one is the Egyptian doura (or exactly like it), a sort of hominy, and the other is a corn that was new to me, but kindred, as I am told, to the Indian "badjera;" its head is cylindrical, and full of small grey seeds, which, though not larger than those of millet, are so numerous that each head contains a vast deal of nutriment. Both IO CHAP. vI.] kinds of corn grow to much the same height, about eight feet; and in harvesting the reapers bend down the stalks and only cut off the heads. As we journeyed on the next day our surprise at the agricul- tural opulence of the country was in no way decreased. Chik told us a great deal about the tenure of the farms, and the way they dig them. Each farmer has to pay a certain proportion of the tobacco that he grows to Nangoro (tobacco is the chief circulating medium in Ovampo- land); but the corn can be planted without any drawback upon it. The fields are hoed over before each sowing season, and the corn planted. The manure from the cattle kraal is spread over the ground. They plant beans and peas, but adopt no systematic rotation of crops. The palms that grew here were of the same sort as those that I saw near Omanbond6; but the fruit of these was excellent, exactly like those of the Egyptian doum, while that of the others was 'oitter. The other trees that I observed were fruit trees: they were sparingly scattered over the country; but nearly all that I saw were of magni- ficent size, as large as those in any English park; their foliage was so dense and green that a real shade from the sun could be obtained, which never is the case in Damaraland, as the straggling stunted thorn, with its few shrivelled leaves, offers little more of a screen to its rays than an English tree in winter time. The fruits are of two kinds, one, which I never saw myself as it was not the season for it, was a kind of cherry according to Timboo's authority, who recognised at once all the produce of his own country (Masapa, by Moviza) here in Ovampoland. The other is a very acid fruit, not unlike an apple in shape, colour, smell and size, but with a stone in it. No other tree stands in the corn country of the Ovampo, or at least gives any feature to the landscape. Ondonga, for that is the name of the land, is most uniform in its appearance; and I should think no stranger could recollect his way for any distance in it. I don't know what we should have done here, if I had brought my waggons. We could never have taken them across the Ovampo fields, trespassing everywhere. The roads that the natives and we travelled were only pathways through the stubble; and we were particularly requested to keep to them. There was hardly any grass whatever, it was perfectly eaten up; and the Ovampo oxen had been sent away to distant cattle-posts on every side to get food. They were now being driven back in small herds to eat off the stubble upon the farms of their owners. By each homesteal FRUIT TREES. [CHAP. VII. 126 CHAP. vii.] DENSITY OF THE POPULATION. were five or six cows and a quantity of goats, very small, but yielding a great deal of milk. To give water even to these was a great difficulty, for the wells have to be dug twenty or thirty feet deep through the sandy soil before water is reached; and then it oozes out so slowly that only a very limited supply can be obtained. There had been great trouble in getting even my small drove of cattle watered; but Chik said that there were some vleys still left, which were Nangoro's property; but to which he would probably allow my oxen to be driven. The Ovampo make a great fuss about water : if I wanted any to drink I had to buy it with heads. I was greatly pleased with the mutual goodwill and cordiality that evidently existed among the Ovampo ; they were all plump and well fed; even the blind old people, who are such wretched objects in Damaraland, were here well tended and fat. They looked shy at me; but Chik had been impressing upon me during the whole of our journey that his countrymen would all keep away until Nangoro had seen and approved of me, then they would come from all sides, and be as civil as possible. Chik introduced me to some of his most particular friends, who were very hospitable indeed, stopping us on the road, and giving us beer and biscuits, and suchlike luxuries. The beer is not to be despised, although it is very thin and sweet; it is made from crushed corn and water, and takes two or three days before it is quite ready. I should think that a person must drink immense quantities before he could become intoxicated with it, but two or three tumblers full make one sleepy. We travelled short stages, sleeping one night at the house of one of Chik's friends who kraaled our oxen in. I was much afraid of their straying in the night, as if they did so they might cause all sorts of damage. I felt ill at ease in Ovampoland, because I was no longer my own master. Everybody was perfectly civil, but I could not go as I liked, nor where I liked; in fact I felt as a savage would feel in England. My red coat was the delight of all the little boys and girls, plump merry little things, who ran after me shouting and singing as happy as could be. The Ovampo took much interest in seeing the oxen packed and ridden; they had never seen them used in that way before, and carefully examined the saddle-bags, and the way they were put on. To gain some idea of the amount of the Ovampo population I counted the number of homesteads that I passed, and found that I saw, on an average, thirty in each hour's ride, about three miles. From the undulat- 127 ENCAMP BY NANGORO'S VILLAGE. [CHAP. VI. ing nature of the country, and from the number of palms, I considered that I could only see a mile and a half on either side of me, and there- fore these thirty farms would take up a square of three miles in the side, or nine square miles; that is, in round numbers, three farms would occupy a square mile; allowing from thirty to forty souls in each farm, it gives a population of a hundred persons to a square mile. There is no town whatever in Ondonga, for the population is entirely rural. Travelling on we passed a few Damaras who had lately arrived from Omaruru to make amends to Nangoro for some thefts which the natives on that side of the country had been committing against the Ovampo. A little further we met four Ovapangari who had come south from the great river; they were frightened and suspicious, and Chik would not interpret for me to them. At last a particularly fine clump of trees came in sight, and there Chik said we were ordered to stay, Nangoro's palisading being only a quarter of a mile further. Here we off-packed, and made a kind of encamp- ment. I pitched my tent, and we made as good a screen as we were able with the saddle-bags, and a few palm branches, but we had hardly any firewood, grass, or water. After a great deal of trouble I made Chik obtain for us the use of some wells close by, but we had to wait half the day till they were disengaged. Then I could find no place to send my oxen to feed. No kind offer was made of a stubble field, and Chik would not bestir himself much. He was always saying, "You must wait; Nangoro will come down and see you to-morrow, and then he will arrange everything;" but in the meantime my oxen were starving. The Ovampo kept away from us, and Chik was almost the only person that we were allowed to communicate with. We all felt uncomfortable, I never for a moment expected any attack from the Ovampo, but I had considerable misgivings that they purposely intended to keep my oxen in low condition that I might be less independent. Ondonga is a very difficult place to get away from. Indeed if anything had occurred to make it advisable for me to force a quick retreat I hardly know how I should have done it. It would have been very questionable if we could have found our way back by Netjo's house; for, as I mentioned before, the country is remarkably uniform, inter- sected with paths, and quite destitute of natural features to guide us. It is also slightly undulating, enough so to limit the view to a mile or two ahead. There was vley water, if we did not miss it, near to Netjo's ; and thence there remained a journey of twenty-one hours, two hours in I28 CAMP IN OVAMPO LAND. CAPr. vit.] NANGOIO PAYS US A VISIT. Ondonga, and nineteen in the thorns and flats without water; and as part of this lay over a bleak country the stage was too severe a one for any weak ox to endure. I found that some Ovampos had been tampering with my Damara cattle-watchers; one, a man whom I had taken from Chapupa's werft, became impudent, and instead of driving my cattle to grass, kept them on a bare place for half the day; so I took active measures upon his back and shoulders, to an extent that astonished the Ovampo and reformed the man. June 6th.-Nangoro did not come, but sent us a little corn as a present, and requested us to fire off our guns, as he wished to know what kind of noise they made. We had plenty of ammunition, and therefore amused ourselves with some rifle practice, which several Ovampo watched from a short distance with great interest. June 7th.-The oxen looked dreadfully thin. I began to fear that they would die, and then we should have to abandon our luggage and get back on foot--an exertion which I had little fancy for. However about midday Chik came in great excitement to tell me that Nangoro was on his way to me, so I smartened things and made ready for him. There was a body of men walking towards us, and in the middle of them an amazingly fat old fellow laboured along; he was very short of breath, and had hardly anything on his person. This was the king himself. He waddled up looking very severe, and stood in the middle of his men staring at us, and leaning on a thin stick very neatly shaped, that he seemed to carry about as a sceptre. I hardly knew what to do or what to say, for he took no notice of an elegant bow that I made to him, so I sat down and continued writing my journal till the royal mind was " satisfied. After five or six minutes Nangoro walked up, gave a grunt of approbation, and poked his sceptre into my ribs in a friendly sort of manner, and then sat down. He could, I believe, understand Damara well enough, but he persisted in making Chik interpret for me into Ovampo. Nangoro had quite a miniature court about him; three particularly insinuating and well-dressed Ovampo were his attendants in waiting; they were always at his elbow and laughed immoderately whenever he said anything funny, and looked grave and respectful whenever he uttered anything wise, all in the easiest and most natural manner. I gave Nangoro the things that I had brought as a present for him, regretting excessively that I could spare him nothing better. In fact all my gilt finery was but little cared for by these people. It would look as outri for an Ovampo to wear any peculiar ornament as it would I29 for an Englishman to do so. The sway of fashion is quite as strong among the negroes as among the whites; and my position was that of a traveller in Europe, who had nothing to pay his hotel bill with but a box full of cowries and Damara sandals. I would have given anything for ten pounds' worth of the right sort of beads; half of that value would have made a really good present to Nangoro, and franked me into the good graces of all his people. As it was he was rather sulky, for it is considered a kind of insult to an African chief to visit him, and make use of his country without commencing acquaintance by sending a tribute. He insisted upon my giving him a cow which I, or rather John Allen, had with me, besides the ox I had presented him with; and as there was no help for it, the cow went. We then had a short con- versation; he looked at our guns and made us shoot with them, chatted a little, and then left us, saying that we were free to buy and sell with his people as much as we liked. Immediately crowds of the Ovampo, who had been gathering during the interview, poured down upon us, laughing and talking, but taking the greatest care not to touch our things, or to annoy us in any way. They were a merry set, and all of them dressed, or rather ornamented, very tidily. They wore a great quantity of beads and rings, but scarcely anything else except a kind of cartouche box, in which they kept a tuft of hair for painting and pow- dering themselves. The ladies were buxom lasses, having all the appear- ance of being good drudges. Their hair was worn short in front, but spread out behind into a broad fan. They were decidedly nice-looking ; their faces were open and merry, but they had rather coarse features, and shone all over with butter and red pigment. They seemed to be of amazingly affectionate dispositions, for they always stood in groups with their arms round each other's necks like Canova's graces. They hummed sentimental airs all day long, swaying themselves about to the tune, and completely ruined the peace of mind of my too susceptible attendants. I began to buy corn and beans from them; the women brought small baskets full, often only a handful each, and were paid in beads. I had brought a bar of iron, half an inch thick, and four feet long, that procured me one hundred pounds of corn at once. Timboo was the most successful bargainer; he sat in the middle among the beads, and twenty or thirty corn-selling damsels crowded about him. He was in his glory, chaffing and chattering in a most original aptois all the day long, for he had picked up a few Ovampo words, and many of the Ovampo knew a little-f Damara. OyAAIIP0 BELLES.~~ [CHAP. VII. 13o WE GO TO A BALL. 13! Every night Nangoro gives a ball, to which the elite of Ovampo- land have a free entre. He kindly sent me an invitation by Tippoo, that one of his three courtiers under whose protection we had been especially placed. As soon as night sets in the guests throng together from all sides, and as the country is full of palms, one member of each party generally picks up a dried, broken-off branch, and lights it as a torch. It gives a brilliant flame, and the effect of the many lights on every side is particularly pretty. I went, about eight o'clock, down the sanded walk, between quickset hedgerows, that leads to Nangoro's palisading. When we had entered it, we turned to the right, into the dancing-court, which was already filled with people who talked and flirted just as though they were in an English ballroom. There was a man with a feeble guitar, or banjo, in one corner, and a powerful performer on the tom-tom in front of him. The first dance was remarkable as a display of dexterity, though I hardly think of elegance; it was undertaken by twelve or fourteen gentlemen, all the others looking on. The dancers were ranked in double files, and dos-d-dos; they then fassied from side to side with a tripping operatic step, but a wary and cautious eye. Every now and then one of the performers spun suddenly round, and gave a most terrific kick right at the seat of honour of the gentleman whom he then found in front of him. This was the dance; there was a great deal of dexterity shown both in delivering and avoiding the kick which, when success- fully planted, hit with the force of a donkey's hoof. I observed that the three courtiers danced very well and very successfully, indeed I would not have found myself dos-d-dos with Tippoo for any considera- tion. The ladies applauded the dance most vociferously. After this came a promenade; we were all jammed together into a compact mass, and then stepped round and round the court to the sound of the tom- tom, tapping the ground with our feet in regular time. Dance number three was for the Bushmen, a large kraal of whom lay close by Nangoro's palisading; they are his body-guard. This dance was entirely mimicry, either of animal steps or anything else they liked, and then a grand promenade closed the evening. I saw only thirty or forty of Nangoro's wives there. I suppose that the others, being old, did not dance. They wear a copper armlet as a sign of distinction. I had a difficulty with Nangoro, from not having complied with one of the principal Ovampo customs on first entering the country. I did not like it, though if I had had a proper idea of its importance, I should, CHAP. VII.] I suppose, have submitted with the best grace I could. The Ovampo are, as all blacks and most whites, very superstitious; a particular fear seems to possess them of a stranger charming away the life of a person he may happen to eat with. Why dinner time should be the season when the charm has most power I do not know; but such is considered to be the case. Accordingly, counter-charms are used; sometimes one is in fashion, sometimes another; now, Nangoro, when a young man, being a person of considerable imagination, framed a counter- charm for his own particular use, and this being of course taken up by the court, is at present the fashion of the whole of Ovampoland, and it was to this counter-charm that I personally objected. The stranger sits down, closes his eyes, and raises his face to heaven; then the Ovampo initiator takes some water into his mouth, gargles it well, and, standing over his victim, delivers it full in his face. This ceremony having once been performed, all goes on smoothly, though I am inclined to think that, like vaccination, it requires to be repeated at intervals, as its effect dies away. Old Netjo yielded to my objections the day I dined in his house, as Chik had done when I first met him, and compromised the matter by rubbing butter between my eyes instead. But Nangoro's mind was not so easily satisfied; he was harassed with suspicions; and though he invited me to drink beer at his palace, yet he contrived to be out of the way when the beer was brought in, and made the three courtiers sit down with me instead. The plan of all the Ovampo houses is intricate, but Nangoro's was a perfect labyrinth, and I could never find my way about it. Conceive walls of palisading, eight or nine feet high, the poles of which are squared, smoothed, and driven in so close together, that it is only here and there that an arrow could be shot out between them. With these an irregularly circular place of about one hundred yards across is walled, one entrance being left, and to that entrance a broad double pathway leads, which is marked and divided by slight hedges. Within the outer circle other walls of palisading are placed in various ways; on one side a passage leads to the cattle kraal, in another place there is one leading to the dancing-court; passages lead to Nangoro's rooms, to the granaries, to the threshing floors, to the women's apartments, and to those of the attendants and of the three courtiers. I tried to sketch out the plan several times, but my head would never take it in. Nangoro came to my encampment one morning for a chat, and to see the guns fired; we talked about the countries to the north, and of the NAN ORO'S PALACE. (CHAP VII, 132 great river, which was four long or five easy days' journey ahead, but towards visiting which I could obtain no offer of assistance from him. He told me that the traders (Portuguese) who went there never crossed it, but that his people went .to them and were ferried across by the Ovapangari. I had become quite familiar with this river by hearsay, as nearly every Ovampo had been there, and many Damaras also. There were some runaway slaves from Benguela who knew all the places marked in the usual maps, as Caconda, Bihe, Quinbumba, and so forth, and spoke of the houses of many storeys with great wonder. The river runs from east to west, and with a very rapid current, so much so that boats never went up it but only ferried from side to side; the breadth of the river was so great, that though a man's shout- ing could be heard perfectly across it, yet his words could not. They said it was very deep, and full of alligators. It ran down to near the sea, and there it ended in a large pool, percolating, of course, like very many other large African rivers, through the sands. In this" pool were great numbers of hippopotami, and the sand between it and the sea was so soft and treacherous that people could not walk over it. The names of the people who lived along it I have put down on the map at the places they were described to inhabit. The Damaras call them all "Ovampo." The traders who go down to this river to barter have occasionally horses (their spoor, neigh, and gallop all being mimicked to me). They bring brandy, beads, and assegais, to exchange for ivory and cattle. These traders must be very nearly black, because not only the colour of our skin but the straightness of our hair was a constant marvel to the Ovampo. They wondered if we were white all over, and I victimised John Allen, who had to strip very frequently to satisfy the inquisitiveness of our hosts. Nangoro positively refused to believe in the existence of any country which was inhabited by whites alone. He seemed to consider them as rare migratory animals of unaccountable manners but considerable intelligence, who were found here and there, but who existed in no place as lords of the land. In all the inquiries that I made I had much trouble in worming out my information, for Nangoro was not at all communicative; and Chik, from some cause or other, became daily more distant and reserved. The subject of the oxen was always a sore one. Nangoro would not give me the use of his stubble-fields, or the right of watering my oxen at the wells before his own had drunk; the consequence was that they re- mained hanging about till noon, and then were driven off two or three CHAP. VI] PROSPECTS. i33 miles to a piece of ground as barren as Greenwich Park in summer-time. They came home every evening thinner than they were the day before, and were now in a wretched state: the poor things were becoming very weak indeed, and we were perpetually talking over the chances of their breaking down on the return journey. It was exactly eighty hours actual travelling from Okamabuti, or allowing two miles and three quarters an hour, two hundred and twenty miles; of this, nearly sixty miles, partly choked with thorns, partly as bleak as Salisbury Plain, had to be travelled without water. This, of course, would be nothing to animals in good condition, and in a European climate; but it was a very different matter to me in Africa. I had been given to understand from the first that I must neither go back nor go on without Nangoro's express permission; so that we were always under some anxiety. Of course I did all I could to please him; but still, either from want of consideration on his part or intentionally, things did not go on smoothly. Once when he was in a good humour I produced my theatrical crown, which I had not shown him before, and gave him a long discourse upon it. I told him that the great captains of our country usually wore a head-dress of that description, and that I therefore begged he would do me a favour of wearing it, as a memento 'of my visit to him. It had a contrivance behind for altering its size, and I stretched it to its full extent, for Nangoro's head was like a bullock's, and then put it on him with great solemnity, patting it down to make it sit tight. I must say that he looked every inch a king. The three courtiers were in ecstasy, and Nangoro himself gave every sign of self-satisfaction when I held up a looking-glass before him to show the effect; and afterwards carefully sketched him. Nangoro, in the first instance, had views with reference to me to which I confess I showed but little in- elination; it is really a great drawback to African explorings that a traveller cannot become on friendly terms with a chief without being requested and teased to receive a spare wife or a daughter in marriage, and umbrage taken if he does not consent. It is, I know, very un- gallant to betray tender secrets, and I would not do so on any account, if the charming Chipanga was ever likely to read this book; but I cannot help hinting at the subject, as it not only illustrates a phase of African life, but also indicates a direction in which any adventurous fortune-hunter may successfully push his addresses. For the benefit of those gentlemen I must explain how matters stand. Nangoro is king by virtue of his deceased first wife; by her he has no children. THE KING IS CRO LYNED. ICHAP. 134 Chipanganjark. married that lady's sister, who also is dead, leaving one daughter as heiress to the kingdom; and this daughter is Chipanga. She, greasy negress as she was, never forgave me the "sprete injuria formee." I observed that some wild ducks and geese flew over our encamp- ment every morning and evening, and begged Tippoo that I might be allowed to go to the water where they drank. We walked a couple of hours due east, and came to a long succession of vleys, where droves of Nangoro's cattle were watered. There was no grass near, or else I should have insisted on encamping there. Beyond the vleys the thorns began again. Elephants come down at times in great numbers, and do much mischief to the corn. I fancy that game is very abundant in the neighbourhood of the great river, although there must be a great deal of cultivated ground adjacent to it. The course of the river is very long, and its stream is undoubtedly swift, because although a considerable slope might be allowed for from Nangoro's werft northwards to its bed, still the height of the bed at that place above the sea can hardly be less than 3,000 feet. To the westwards of north the river is formed by the confluence of three others; and in that country the Ovabundja live: it is marshy and flooded, and the people live in houses built on poles. It is very remarkable that between Chapupa's werft (where the waggons were left) and Nangoro's, a distance of two hundred and twenty miles, we had not crossed a single river-bed. There was the mark of one little rivulet about four feet wide, near Otchikoto, and that was literally all. I could obtain no answer from Nangoro as to whether or not I might proceed. Chik, who was our only medium of communication, put off everything with a "to-morrow." We were so teased with his procrastination, that we christened him " Mahuka," which was his favourite word. I went to Nangoro's to see his wives at work, threshing corn. They make meal by pounding the grain in a stone mortar; everything was scrupulously clean and tidy. The granaries are in shape and manufacture exactly like our common bee- hives, though considerably larger, about four feet in diameter; these are placed with the point downwards, each in a rough frame-work on three legs, which raises it a foot from off the ground; into the bee- hive the grain is put, and the whole is thatched and plastered over; in Nangoro's granary rows and rows of these were standing. I have-no fancy for their houses; they are so absurdly small: They CHAP. VII.] TIE .QUEENS' DUTIES. 135 are circular, five and a half feet across, and three feet high, with a conical thatched roof above all; the door is two feet high, and one and a half broad. Nangoro sleeps in the open air under a shed, as he is too fat to creep into one of these houses. Each hut is occupied by an entire family: a husband, a wife, and a few small children; and when the door is closed by the mat, and a cozy fire made in the middle of the hut, they must find the atmosphere particularly genial and sweet. Their utensils are remarkably neat; they have wooden cups, beer ladles, spoons, and so forth. I regretted much that I had not enough OVAMPO WEAPONS, UTENSILS, ETC. things of exchange to buy some of these which took my fancy. Their dagger-knives were creditably made, and very pretty. The knife was set into a wooden handle, and fitted into a wooden sheath; but both handle and sheath were in part covered with copper plating, and in part wound round with copper wire beaten square. There is plenty of copper in this country. The Bushmen brought us quantities of ore at Otchikoto. Tippoo took me to see a blacksmith; but his bellows were scarcely larger than an accordion, and were worked in a similar manner. He Ot ' MP0 D, NTIST.S [CHAP. Viti, i36 CHAP. VIII.] WE ARE ORDERED TO RETURN. was not a successful artificer. I had occasion to make inquiries for a professional gentleman, a dentist, as one of my teeth had ached so horribly that I could hardly endure it. He was employed at a distance ; but I subsequently witnessed, though I did not myself undergo, the exercise of his skill. He brought a piece of the back sinew of a sheep which forms a kind of catgut, and tied this round the unhappy tooth, the spare end of the catgut was wound round a stout piece of stick, and this he rolled up tight to the tooth, and then prized with all his force against the jaw till something gave way. I saw the wretched patient sitting for the rest of the day with his head between his knees, and his hands against his temples. The practice of surgery is rather rude among the Ovampo. Timboo had run a thorn very deeply into his hand; it did not remain in, but the prick caused a painful abscess, which pointed and partly broke. He applied to the Ovampo doctor, whose measures were simple: he squatted down, resting Timboo's hand upon his knee, and then grasped a tough stick with both hands, with which he energetically kneaded down the swelling. Timboo endured the operation without a cry; but a black can bear anything. There are no diseases in these parts except slight fever, frequent ophthalmia, and stomach complaints. I kept a bottle full of eye- water for the sufferers from ophthalmia, and stuck a feather into the bottom of its cork, with which I could paint the eyes of a whole row of patients one after the other. CHAPTER VIII. We are ordered to return-Hesitation-The Slave Dealings here -Future of Ovampoland-A Field for Missionaries-Best Way of getting there- Slavery and Servitude-Giving Men away-Arrange my Packs-Start Homeward-Leave Ondonga--The Oxen suffer severely-Reach Okamabuti-The Waggons are Safe-Start for Omaramba-Okavare-- Elephants visit us-Ice every Night--Pass Omagund-Reach Barmen. ON one occasion Nangoro told me that he would send Chik back with me to my country. I promised to take him as far as that of the Hottentots, where he could see some of my countrymen; but that my country was so far off, that if he went to it, he would never find his way i37 back again; besides, it was cold, and he would die there; so it was agreed that Chik should go back with me to Barmen. I was very glad of this arrangement, as I wanted to obtain fuller information from him than I possessed. I wished to make a small vocabulary of the language of the Ovampo, and learn something more than I could observe of their manners and customs; but here in Ovampoland Chik would scarcely answer a single question. He constantly replied, "You must not ask these things; Nangoro will think that you want to take away his life." And he became quite sulky if he was pressed. Indeed, I have no conception to this day whether or no the Ovampo have any religion, for Chik was frightened and angry if the subject of death was alluded to. My articles of exchange were now reduced to a few handfuls of beads; and I could not stay longer in the country. A man can no more travel without things of exchange here than he can without money in England. I therefore insisted upon being allowed to leave Ondonga, where my cattle were dying by inches, and where I was eating up my food, and could afford to stay no longer; and I begged hard for a guide to take me on to the river, or to some place where I should find pasturage and game. June 13th/.-Nangoro sent me word "' that day I might buy and sell; that the next day I must come and take leave of him; and the day after that I must go back to Damaraland." Now came the question what was to be done. The river was four long days ahead. It was a goal to reach, and in itself probably well worth visiting. Its commercial importance might be great, as it appears to offer a high road into the very centre of Africa, through countries which, if as healthy as Ovampo or Damaraland, leave nothing to be desired on that score. It was precisely the most interesting point of my whole journey. Ought then a visit to it to be abandoned because Nangoro would not let us go ? Or ought we to push on for it at all hazards ? On the other hand, the river was well known to, and frequented by, traders from Benguela; there would therefore be no difficulty in fully exploring it from that side, and probably infinitely more could be learnt by inquiries properly made at Mossamedes than anything that I could report from having seen it with my own eyes during so cursory a visit as I proposed. Now, as to the risk I should run by temporising with Nangoro until I had obtained permission to go there. My oxen would entirely knock up, and probably die; and then 138 HESITATION. [CHAP. VIII. CHAP. VIII.] THE SLAVE DEALINGS HERE. what could I do ? Even if I walked back to the waggons, leaving things of the greatest value to me in Ovampoland, the want of ride- oxen would be felt most seriously throughout the return journey. They were everything to me. It was on them that I explored the roads, followed tracks, and made the most successful expeditions. If Omagunde, through whose pasture grounds I must return, was to attack us, as I thought he most probably would, it must be by the ride-oxen alone that we should have a chance of escaping. I could not spare them nor risk losing them. It would be impossible to replace them before many months, as it is not one ox out of forty that will make a ride-ox, for only those are fit to break in that show far less gregariousness of disposition than oxen ordinarily do. The beasts that walk first and lead the herd, are the only oxen that can be ridden with any comfort or success; the others jib and crowd together and fight with their horns, when you try to urge them on, and the whole caravan comes to a standstill. It takes half a year to break in an ox to anything like travelling purposes; he has not only to learn to be quiet, but also to bear a weight on his shoulders. Now, with great trouble I had collected together fifteen efficient ride- and pack-oxen: they were the stay of my party in cases of difficulty or danger, and I would not for any but the weightiest considerations run the risk of losing them. With no better supply of water and pasturage than they were now allowed, I felt sure that though they might reach the river, and even return to Nangoro's, yet that they would never see Damaraland again. I also feared that the Portuguese traders might play me some tricks, as these half-castes are by no means scrupulous, even less so than traders are elsewhere; and I could not help thinking of the way in which our own countrymen had behaved to the late Mr. Ruxton, when he landed at Walfisch Bay, with a view to explore the interior. 1 confess that greatly annoyed as I was at being unable to visit the river, I could not help feeling that Nangoro's refusal to let me proceed was all for the best, and I accommodated myself to his orders, and put myself in readiness to start on my return. I made many inquiries as to whether there were any slave-dealings between the Ovampo and the Portuguese, but I was always answered in the negative. I afterwards heard at St. Helena that slaves were not exported from the south of Benguela, because they never thrived when taken away, but became home-sick and died. This is exactly what I should conceive of the Ovampo; they evidently have strong i39 FUTURE OF OVAMPOLAND. local and personal attachments; they are also very national, and proud of their country. I should feel but little compassion if I saw all the Damaras under the hand of a slave-owner, for they could hardly become more wretched than they now are, and might be made much less mischievous; but it would be a crying shame to enslave the Ovampo. To me, as a stranger, they did not behave with full cordiality; and it was natural enough that they should not; but among themselves the case was quite different. They are a kind-hearted, cheerful people, and very domestic. I saw no pauperism in the country; everybody seemed well to do; and the few very old people that I saw were treated with particular respect and care. If Africa is to be civilised, I have no doubt that Ovampoland will be an important point in the civilisation of its southern parts. It is extremely healthy, and most favourably situated for extending its influence. From the sea-coast it must be accessible; and inquiries really should be made at Mossamedes about the river which bounds it. A ship cruising along the sea-shore there can see nothing at all, for the coast is a low san ly desert, which extends quite out of ken of people afloat; it is behind this strip of desert that the habitable country begins, and probably through the sand of it that the river percolates. It is very much to be wished that some explorer would make an attempt from Little Fish Bay, or thereabouts. It would be a far easier undertaking than that which I have gone through, because the starting-point is an inhabited place, where every necessary can be bought with money. Full information could be obtained there on all the articles of exchange, and horses could be procured. Black men, who speak Portuguese, can readily, I am assured, be found; and there is so large an export of skins and ivory (according to Portuguese authorities) from Benguela, that there must be excellent shooting somewhere in the country. I will guarantee the healthiness of the lands to the south of the river; and the Portu- guese declare the same of those to the north. I also earnestly * Translation from Jose Joaquim Lopez de Lima's work on the Portuguese Settlements in Western Africa. 1846. (Page 196.) "To the southward of the river Longa is the fertile province of Benguela, where, instead of sandy plains, rich meadows watered by mountain-streams display themselves before the eye, covered with cattle and sheep, the principal riches of its pastoral inhabitants. The soil produces all the grains and fruits of A/frica, America, and Europe, while from amid these favoured z4o [CHAP. VIlI. cnAP. vx.] BEST W '4Y OF GETTING TtHERE. recommend this land to the notice of all who are interested in missionary enterprise. The Ovampo have infinitely more claims on a white man's sympathy than savages like the Damaras, for they have a high notion of morality in many points, and seem to be a very inquiring race. It would be an easy country to secure a footing in, as the king's goodwill alone has to be gained, and not that of numbers of independent captains, who never settle by the missionaries, but come suddenly with their cattle, eat off all the grass near, and then move on to a fresh pasturage. I should have said that I use the word Ovampo in the Damara sense, in which it includes all the corn-growing tribes to their north. These seem to be of precisely the same race, manners, and customs; and they speak one language. I have seen men from several of them; and whenever I asked the Ovampo, they said that all their neighbours were just like themselves. On my voyage back to England, as I was very anxious to determine the question of how the Ovampo river was connected with the sea, and whether it afforded a good road up the country, I waited a month at St. Helena for the chance of a vessel to take me to Little Fish Bay; owing, however, to the suppression of the slave-trade, none of our cruisers called there as they used frequently to do, neither was it expected that they would do so. I therefore abandoned the attempt. But a traveller who, starting from the north, desired to make the expedition, should go in the first instance to Rio, and thence plenty of opportunities would offer of crossing over to Africa. plains arise the magnificent mountains of the Naunos, whose lofty heads are lost in the clouds. From these mountains rush down fertilising streams; in their bowels are found iron, copper, sulphur, and other valuable productions, and the forests afford protection to herds of elephants, to rhinoceroses, stags, and a thousand different descriptions of wild animals, whose spoils constitute a principal portion of the gains of the merchants of Benguela and Mosammedes. This fertility extends over the cultivated plains of Bihe, Quilengues, Bumbo, Huila, Enjau, Caconda, Galengue, and Sambos, being bounded by the country of the Mocoands, which separates the Portuguese possessions from the illimitable deserts of sand which form the ne plus ultra of our dominion." N.B.--I protest not only against the "illimitable deserts of sand," but also against the southern portion of the map which accompanies the book, in which a magnificent but apocryphal river is made to meander through them, and over the very ground which I have crossed and recrossed.--F. G. II 14t SLAVERY AND SERVITUDE. Though no slaves are exported from the countries in which I travelled, yet there is a kind of slavery in the countries themselves. It is not easy to draw a line between slavery and servitude; but I should say that the relation of the master to the man was, at least in Damara and Hottentotland, that of owner rather than employer. I cannot speak with certainty of the exact standing in which the Damaras and the Bushmen severally live among the Ovampo. The first are employed principally as cattle-watchers; the second, who are even more ornamented than the Ovampo themselves, are a kind of standing army; but I have great reason to doubt whether either the one or the other class is independent. The Ovampo, as I have mentioned, looked down with much contempt on the Damaras; and there is not a single instance, so far as I could learn, of any Ovampo woman marrying a Damara, and settling in Damaraland; but the reverse is a very common case. The Bushmen appear to be natural- ised among the negro tribes, and free .in the border-lands between them to a distance very far north of Ondonga. I cannot say how far; but I certainly think to the latitude of Caconda. I believe them to be a very widely spread race. Of the Ghou Damup I lost all trace in Ovampoland. The Namaqua Hottentots and Oerlams, in all their plundering excursions, capture and drive back with them such Damara youths as they take a fancy to, and they keep them, and assert every kind of right over them. They punish them just as they please, and even shoot them, without any one attempting to interfere. Next in the scale of slavery are those Damaras, Ghou Damup, or Bushmen, who place themselves under Hottentot "protection," and on much the same footing as those among the Hottentots, are the paupers that are attached to different werfts among the Damaras. These savages court slavery. You engage one of them as a servant, and you find that he considers himself your property, and that you are, in fact, become the owner of a slave. They have no independence about them, generally speaking, but follow a master as spaniels would. Their hero-worship is directed to people who have wit and strength enough to ill-use them. Revenge is a very transient passion in their character, it gives way to admiration of the oppressor. The Damaras seem to me to love nothing: the only stronig feelings they possess, which are not utterly gross and sensual, are those of admiration and fear. They seem to be made for slavery, and naturally fall into its ways. Their usual phrase with reference to the missionaries is, " Oh, they are wise, CHAP. VIII. 42 but weak;" but Jonker and the Hottentots are, I could almost say, their delight. They wonder at their success. All over Africa one hears of "giving" men away: the custom 1,. as follows. A negro has chanced to live a certain time in another's employ; he considers himself his property, and has abandoned the trouble of thinking what he is to do from day to day; but leaves the ordering of his future entirely to his employer. He becomes too listless to exist without a master. The weight of independence is heavier than he likes, and he will not bear it. He feels unsup- ported and lost if alone in the world, and absolutely requires some- body to direct him. Now, if the employer happens to have no further need of the man, he " gives" him, that is to say, he makes over his interest in the savage to a friend or acquaintance; the savage passively agrees to the bargain, and changes his place without regret; for so long as he has a master at all, the primary want of his being is satisfied. A man is "given" either for a term or for ever; and it was on this tenure that I held several of my men. Swartboy gave me his henchman; Kahikend, a cattle-watcher; Mr. Hahn, ta very useful man, Kambanya. As a definition of the phrase "giving a man," I should say it meant "making over to another whatever influence one possessed over a savage; the individual who is given not being compelled, but being passive." Before starting on my return I bought as much corn as I could carry back, which also proved to be exactly as much as I could buy with my stock of beads. I knew by this time pretty well what weights the different oxen could carry, and arranged their saddle-bags accordingly. I always carried a couple of spring balances with me when on ride- oxen, and as they each marked up to forty pounds, by using the two together I could weigh up to eighty pounds, which was as much as I ever wanted on this occasion, though afterwards when ivory had to be carried I was put to shifts for weighing it. It saves infinite trouble in packing to have the two saddle-bags of exactly the same weight, and I am sure that no practice will train the hand to judge with certainty whether they are so; a small heavy thing always feels lighter than its real weight, and a bulky thing heavier. I have constantly tested the guesses that practised muleteers and camel-drivers have made of the weights of things, and often convicted them of great mistakes. In my waggon I carried a steel-yard, and knew and registered the weight of everything I carried. CHAP. vuiI.] ARRANGE MYY PACKS. =43 I mentioned that the Ovampo had fowls; they are very pretty small bantams, and I bought three--thinking that being a new breed they might have some points about them which would be valuable to poultry fanciers; they eat very little, and laid eggs every day. I put them in an Ovampo basket, covered it with a piece of skin, and made one of the Damara women carry it on her head. June I5th.-We left Nangoro's in company with Chik, and with Tippoo, who did the honours for Nangoro. The oxen kicked exces- sively with their packs. Kahikend's black ox ripped up with his horns two of the bags of corn that he carried, and galloped about, kicking and tossing like mad. We caught him at last, and had him down, and sawed off the tips of his horns on the spot. We were about three hours in doing four miles, and had to encamp under a tree; the first start is always the most troublesome part of a journey. June I6tk.-Travelled four hours and slept at the vley. The oxen were so stiff that I had to take them on by easy stages. They strayed in the night, and were not recovered till past mid-day. Spooring is out of the question in Ondonga, as the ground is trodden up every- where. Luckily the oxen had done no damage, only a little trespass, and we went. on to Chik's house, where we stopped. There was evidently no means of getting water for the cattle before leaving Ondonga, so we made ready to be off very early. The morning came, and, to our surprise, Chik would not go with us. We persuaded him to go as far as Netjo's, whom we knocked up out of his snug hut in the chill early morning, and wishing him and his family an affectionate adieu, gave him the last beads that we had, and started away on our old track to Damaraland. It was with the greatest relief that I once again felt myself my own master, and could go when I liked and as I liked; anything for liberty, even though among the thorn bushes. I was sincerely grieved that Chik would not return with us, as he was a person of great consequence in the country, and I had hoped that by his means the Damaraland Missionaries would be enabled easily to extend their stations among the Ovampo, which was an object they had long hoped for. They would also have had leisure to learn from him enough of the Ovampo language to make themselves inde- pendent of an interpreter. I believe Chik wanted to go, but he could persuade no companions to join him, and, naturally enough, did not like to go alone. LEA VE ONDONGA,4. "CHAP. VIII. 144 CHAP. VIII,] THE OXEN SUFFER SEYERELY. The oxen went very steadily and quickly, and although we had often to adjust their packs, yet we made eight hours' actual travelling by four o'clock; they seemed to know they were going home; we then stopped in a grassy place, and the oxen had the first good meal they had enjoyed for more than a fortnight. It was quite pleasant to watch their lank sides distending. There was no time to be lost, so that we were up and packed and off before day-break. The night was bitterly cold, and when we started the Damaras and ourselves carried firebrands, breathing their smoke to keep us warm. We travelled five hours and came to the edge of the flat. There are wells of brackish water there. The oxen were utterly tired, for we had gone quickly, and the sun was intensely hot after a cold night. I thought the oxen might choose to drink the water though we could not, so I off-packed and tried them, but they refused although now forty-eight hours without water. They would not eat either. We packed up again after noon and struggled over the flat. The oxen were dead tired; they tripped their legs together and looked as miserable as could be, but just before nightfall we reached the wells; there is no shelter nor firewood here, but the bleak wind sweeps over the flat, and tired as we were we had to watch the oxen all night. They drank excessively, and then wandered restlessly about in the dark, so that during my watch I could hardly keep them together, though running and walking a great part of the time. That night fairly broke the constitutions of Frieschland, Timmerman, Buchau, and Kahikene's ox, and severely tried all the others. The first four were never the same oxen again that they had been before. We stayed at the wells till the forenoon of the next day, and then pushed through the Ovampo werft at the south border of the flat, and off-packed at Etosha. June 21st.--We arrived at Omutchamatunda, which we now found deserted, except by a few Bushmen. We pushed on the day after to beyond Otjando, and then following our old spoor we arrived safely at Otchikoto ; there we took a day's rest, and amused ourselves in bathing. I made some fish-hooks out of needles, and caught about a hundred small fish, which we ate. We could hear nothing of the waggons from the Bushmen. News travels very slowly in these parts. Even at Otchikango no information could be obtained. Ootui was deserted, and we were sick with anxiety. If Chapupa had played false with Ians, what should we do ?-a handful of men on worn- i45 out beasts, with all the savage Damaras and a dried-up country in front. June 30oth.-Three hours from Okamabuti, we came upon Damaras; they said that the waggons were to have started that very morning to rejoin Chapupa, who had changed his encampment some days previously. Hans, they said, was well, but they knew nothing more. We rode to Namboshua, took a drink of water there, and then, two hours after, came upon our waggons' spoor, and upon Okamabuti at the same time. We anxiously examined the now deserted kraal for tokens that all was right. We found John Morta's cooking fire still burning, and unmistakable signs of his handiwork about, so that no harm had happened to him. Phlebus' spoor was recognised directly; he had a large foot and walked flatly, and we found some signs,of John Williams. As the cattle kraal was well trodden down, my oxen were probably all well; after a long search and comparing remarks, we rested satisfied that no great mishap could have befallen the party, and that Hans had trecked on, either for better pasturage or for some other good reason. It was clear, from what the Damaras said, that the waggons were not very far off; and as the news of our arrival would reach them the same night, I off-packed the tired beasts and intended to give them a good feed in the morning-waiting till Hans either sent me some Damaras or came himself to fetch me on. As we were off-packing, to my dismay I found that we were one pack-ox short, and he was the animal that carried my MSS., nautical almanac, gun tools, bullet moulds, and numberless knick-knacks, that were particularly necessary to me. One never counts oxen on the road; they are so gregarious, that, as a general rule, it is quite unnecessary. In this case we had all been pressing forwards and riding in front of the drove, and none of us could tell whether we had seen the lost one since our first start. It was a very awkward case, for the country was stony in part, and, where not stony, ploughed up with the spoors of the lately migrating Damara oxen. Tired as they were, two of my men and three Damaras went back after him, and, strangely enough, at Namboshua, and by one of those chances that travellers are so often indebted to, one of these Damaras came right upon him as he was lying down, tired, among some thick trees; he was, of course, brought back in triumph. The next morning a posse of my Damaras came running joyfully to me; they had heard of my arrival at the waggons the previous 146 REACH OKAMAB UTI CHAP. VIII, CHAP. viii.] START FOR THE OMARAMBA. night, and came to tell me the news, and escort me to them. My party had trecked on with Chapupa, to be near him for the sake of protection, as the Bushmen had of late been stealing a great deal in the neighbourhood. July Ist.-After three or four hours' ride, I recognised the burly form of my faithful servant Hans, on the look-out at the top of a hill. To my extreme relief I learnt that all had gone on well; that Chapupa, although troublesome, had done no mischief; that several sheep had been bought, that the oxen were well, and the axletree was as successful a piece of carpenter's work as the one that had been broken. Chapupa had bought things and never paid for them, and, being in disgrace, sneaked away from me. Kasupi was our principal friend now; he said that it was absurd to try to go back the way we came, as of all the watering-places at which we drank between Kutjiamakompe and Omanbonde, a journey of three weeks, not more than two now remained that were not dry. He said that we must return by the Omaramba, where we should find both water and grass, and that he would guide us there and start us. A lad made his appearance, who said that he knew the Omaramba road perfectly, and under these escorts we proceeded. Numbers of Damaras wished to join me: I allowed a few to do so, and my party now numbered thirty-four. We returned by our old road to Okatjokeama, and then turned to the left. At a werft there I found my old guide who had stolen the horse-rug and ran away from me. He had the impudence to wear it before my eyes. He was six feet seven inches high, and large in proportion, and therefore too heavy for me to give a shaking to, and I dared not whip him, so I only pulled the rug off his back and rated him soundly. We hit the Omoramba and followed it to the confluence of its two branches. Game began now to show, and we had no need to kill any oxen. We had some charming hunts-one after wild boars. Kasupi could not, any more than the other Damaras, give me much information about the road down the Omoramba. It seemed most unfavourable to waggon travelling. They said the Omoramba ran between hills where Ghou Damup lived, and the Damaras dare not go there. If my ride-oxen had not been so entirely worn out, and the country so arid, I should have much liked an excursion in that direction, which, as I have since discovered, would be a most interesting route. Now, however, it was out of the question. July I2th.--My entire werft at Okavard consisted of eighty cattle, 147 and one hundred and ten sheep and goats; of these many belonged to the men, and not to me. I had only seventy cattle and eighty sheep and goats: of these about forty were useful waggon oxen, and fifteen ride and pack, leaving me a surplus of fifteen slaughter oxen and the eighty small cattle. My articles of exchange were at a very low ebb indeed, although I had a small further supply at Walfisch Bay. I had no reason to expect getting more than ten oxen with them in Damara- land; but when I arrived among the Hottentots, I intended to sell one of my waggons for forty or fifty oxen, which can always be done; and thus becoming independent, should have amply enough for a second excursion on a smaller scale. We now trecked steadily up the Omoramba, and one day's work was like another's. There were wells every two, three, or four hours, but deep ones, and choked with sand, which we had on every occasion to clear out, working for hours, and often half through the night. The river-bed is sometimes a broad reach of sand with high banks, some- times imperceptible, except to a very practised eye. Thorns of course hem it in. The few incidents that occurred on our return journey were these. One night we slept close to water-holes: our encampment was any- thing but a quiet one, and the dogs barked all night, as they almost invariably did. We had watered the oxen out of a heavy wooden trough that Damaras had made and left at the wells, and this trough blocked up the pathway down to the largest well. In the morning, to our surprise, we found elephant spoors all about us: three large ones and two calves. They had pushed the trough to one side, and walked down to the well till their trunks could reach the water, and had stamped the sand in, and made a great mess of our handiwork. Then they had walked close round us till their minds were satisfied, and finally moved off straight away across country. A very large springbok was shot, which we weighed against a large and fat sheep that we killed. The first was one hundred and twenty pounds; the second, one hundred and twelve pounds. Damara sheep stand much higher than our English sheep, and have no wool; the hair of their hides is like that of a calf. Hans sold two of his curs to some of the Damaras for two oxen each. I cannot conceive what could have induced them to make such a bargain. They were keen upon dogs, for they offered four oxen for another one, " Watch" ; but he was too useful to me in worrying night marauders to be spared, i48 EI&EPHNTS I ISIT IBS. CHAP. VIII. We had a fine night for chevying hyenas. After one was killed, and everything was silent, I sent a Damara out among the bushes to imitate their howl, that we might hear the others answer, and know where they were. He did it so successfully, that all the dogs were at him in an instant, and he was bitten. July I7th.--Our old friend the hill Omuvereoom came into sight. The air was very thick and cold at nights. 'l he sky had quite ar English November appearance. We found ice about us nearly every morning since leaving Ondonga. For the last three weeks I have observed that there is a vast deal of electricity in the air, every woollen thing crackles when rubbed with the hand. My large black dog "Wolf" is quite a powerful electrical machine when his back is stroked down. July 25th.-We arrived at Ontikeremba, where there are a great many deep wells about four feet in diameter, and thirty feet deep. A row of four men contrived to hand up the water out of them; but it was as much as they could do. I can hear nothing of the proceedings of the Hottentots, during my absence, but learnt the full particulars of Kahikene's death. The bed 'of the Omoramba is now that of a small sandy streamlet; yet wells are found in numbers along it. July 26th.-At Otjikururumb we came in full sight of Diambotodthu, and Omatako was right before us. July 28.--Left the Omoramba, along which we had been travelling every day (except two) for more than a fortnight; and on July 29th arrived at Okandjoe. We had now passed through the midst of Omagund6's country; but he had moved to where Kahikene had been staying, and therefore I saw nothing of him. Crowds of Damaras and nearly one thousand head of cattle were at Okandjoe, where there is copious well-water. I sent in a civil way to beg the use of two wells for my cattle; but the Damaras were very impudent, and refused. We therefore seized upon the wells, and the Damaras became obliging and highly courteous. It gave us quite a home feeling to see the hills that we knew so well round about us. I was now safe as regards water; for by my map I knew the distance to Kutjiamakompe, and thence, happen what might, I could pass through to Schmelen's Hope. We heard some news of the Missionaries here, that Mr. Hahn had been to Omaruru, and also that the Hottentots had been quiet, and not plundering. Juy 3Ist.--Arrived at Katiianmakompe, and were once again on our P1!SS OMA G UND CHAP. VIII.] 149 old waggon-spoors. It was strange to see how the dry season had altered the place; I should never have recognized it at a cursory glance. The fine sheet of vley water was now baked earth, and we drove over it to wells which were on the other side. August Ist.-In the clear evening we passed over the ridge which separates the water-shed of the Swakop from that of the Omoramba. The Schmelen's Hope Hills, and those by Jonker, and opposite to Barmen, rose into view at once, and we took our farewell leave of the beautiful cones of Omatako and the other high landmarks that had so long guided us. We found water at Okamabondd, and next day at Okandu, whence I sent a messenger on to Barmen with a note. August 3rd.-We rested at Schmelen's Hope, and August 4th, arrived safely at Barmen, being a year all but ten days from the time when I sailed from Cape Town, and five months from the day that the waggons left Schmelen's Hope; of these five months ninety days were employed in journeying onwards, independently of such excursions as were made from time to time to look out for roads. I occupied fifty days of travel to reach Nangoro's from Schmelen's Hope, and forty days to come back again. The return distance was one hundred and sixty-eight hours, or about four hundred and sixty-two miles, and we were forty-nine days on the road, nine ofthem being days of rest or necessary delay. This gives, including stoppages, an average of nine and a half miles a day, which is very fair travelling for a continuance, even over known roads. REA CH BARMEN, 1o50 [CHAP. VIII, CHAP. IX.] THE vWAGGONS ARE CONDEMNED. CHAPTER IX. llhe Waggons are condemned-Messengers to the Cape-The Kaoko- History of Damaraland-Ghou Damup Genealogies-Start for Elephant Fountain-Excessive "Drought-Engage Eybrett-Sell my Cart and Mules--Travel from Eikhams-Shooting Giraffes in the Dusk-Elephant Fountain-Numerous Pitfalls-Plundering Expeditions-The Kubabees reach 'Ngami-Trouble of taking Observations-Leave Waggon and ride to the East-Engage Saul-Hans and a Lion-We enter the Bush- . man Tract-Rhinoceros Skulls-Hear of the Kubabees Hottentots- Start for 'Tounobis-Shoot a White Rhinoceros-Reach 'Tounobis- Elephant in a Pitfall-Prepare for Sport-Night-Watching for Game- Rhinoceros Veal-Opera Glasses-Herd of Elephants-Fights and Frolics-Bulk of the Rhinoceros-A Picturesque Finale-Spring Hares -Remarks on my Route-Unicorns and Cockatrices-Bushmen Springes-Setting Guns at Night-Description of Plate-Poisoned Arrows. DURING my absence some little news had been received from Europe, for an Englishman had arrived by ship and settled near Walfisch Bay, to try his hand at cattle-trading; and one newspaper had been received through his means. Of my own family I heard no tidings, and of course had been unable to receive any since I had left England, a year and four months previous to this time. The missionaries receive their communications once in every two years, unless, by some chance accident, a post can be dispatched by ship from Cape Town. They tried to establish sets of messengers from Rehoboth to the Orange River, but the road is so long and difficult that the plan had to be abandoned. One of these messengers murdered his comrade, and said that he had been eaten by a lion; at another time the letters were spoilt by the rains: on every occasion there was some delay or accident. I was delighted to find that the Hottentots had remained very peace- able, only those under Cornelius having done any mischief to the Damaras during my absence. Confidence was being restored, and troops of Damaras were gathered about the watering-places and pasturages of the Swakop, which had long been abandoned on account of their dangerous proximity to Jonker. Now, as regards my own plans, the waggons were pronounced scarcely fit for an overland journey to the Cape. The tires of the 1S MESSENGERS TO THE CAPE. wheels were worn out; the mended axletree was of doubtful wood; and the waggons were altogether become rickety. On the other hand the missionaries expected a vessel some time not earlier than December, and we were now at the beginning of August. If, then, I returned by the ship, I should have August, September, October, and half November, to do what I liked in, and leaving Barmen not later than the end of the first fortnight in November, I could easily push down to the bay in time to join the vessel. As a way of ridding myself of the waggons and all my remaining properties, I should arrange with Hans to act as agent for me to convert them into oxen, and drive them for sale down to the colony, by which means I should recover some part of their value. Then in order to occupy the fifteen weeks that I had to spare, I intended to make a quick journey to the eastward, both for the purpose of seeing something of the Hottentots, and also to find out whether, as I had at first been assured was the ,case, the Karrikarri Desert was interposed as an impracticable barrier between the sea-coast countries and Lake 'Ngami. I divided my party into two: one waggon went down with Hans to the bay, to bring back all the articles of exchange that I had left there; and the other waggon, together with all my ride- oxen, went with me by Jonker's village on my road to the east. To make matters more secure, I dispatched messengers to the Orange River, in obtaining whom Swartboy very kindly assisted me; and among my letters, I wrote one to the agent of the missionaries in Cape Town, offering to bear a certain part of the expense of the vessel, on condition that it was dispatched not earlier than the first of December, or later than the last of January. We then busied ourselves for a week in packing, and in repairs, and in enjoying Mr. Hahn's kind hospitality. Mr. Hahn had made an excursion to Omaruru during my absence, in company with Katjimasha's sons. It is a spring, situated in the neighbourhood of extensive pasturage, a very important place to the Damaras, and about four and a half days' travel from Barmen, being a little way beyond Erongo,-the Ghou Damup mountain that I have already mentioned. Omaruru is a rendezvous for the caravans that travel between the Damaras and the sea-side Ovampo; and immediately north of it begins a broad barren tract called the Kaoko, which those caravans have to cross, and which, though now very thinly inhabited, appears to have been the original home of the Damara nation, Iss CHAP. II, HISTORY OF DA MARA LA ND. I heard of the safety of three of my mules which had travelled down to Scheppmansdorf and taken up their quarters there; they grazed, strayed, and slept just where they pleased, for the Hottentots could not manage them. They were five in number when they ran away from me at Schmelen's Hope, but two of them must have been killed on the road by lions; they certainly did not die of starvation, for the other three arrived at Scheppmansdorf very plump and in good condition. I ought to mention that the horse distemper does not appear to exist at Scheppmansdorf: five or six horses have at different times been kept there, but none have suffered from the disease. I had much satisfaction in comparing the results of my inquiries with those of Mr. Hahn, with regard to the earlier history of Damaraland. It appears undoubted that seventy years ago not a single Damara existed in the parts where I had been travelling, but that they all lived in the Kaoko, while tribes of Bushmen and Ghou Damup possessed the entire country between the Orange River and the Ovampo, excepting only the Kaoko on the north-west, and the central Karrikarri Desert on the east. The Ghou Damup, though treated kindly by the Bushmen, were always considered as inferiors, and the two races never intermarried. The Ghou Damup lived then, as they do now, about the hills, and the Bushmen on the plains. I saw an old Damara, and an old Ghou Damup who remembered this state of things, and several who were born just after it was put an end to; among these was Katjimaha himself who looks about sixty-five years old. T- e Damaras at that time made a sweeping invasion eastwards right across the country, to the very neighbourhood of Lake 'Ngami, and attacked the Mationa (as they call the people who live there). Subsequently the Mationa retaliated and invaded the land as far as Barmen on one occasion, and on a second attack passed up the Omoramba as far as Omanbonde. The last Mationa invasion took place about twenty-two years ago. The result of all this fighting was that the Bushmen tribes have been exterminated or driven out of the whole pasture country between Barmen and Okamabuti (the place where the waggons broke down) and the Damaras inhabit it in their stead. Eastwards, they are now separated from the Mationa by only a broad strip of barren country. The Ghou Damup live in large communities about a mountainous district on the lower part of the Omoramba, where they appear to be by no means an im- poverished nation, but agriculturists and traders with the Ovampo and other nations to the north. My own belief is, that very long ago the CHAP. IX.] 153 GHOU DA4MUP GENEALOGIES. Ghou Damup were the aborigines not only of the present Damaraland but also of the whole country to the south of it half-way down to the Orange River, and that they are of a race in every respect kindred to the Ovampo. The Bushmen appear to have invaded and thoroughly conquered the Ghou Damup, for they not only exist as the superior caste of the two, but have also taught them their language, to the entire exclusion of whatever other one they may at some former period have possessed. Those Ghou Damup that I saw have no tradition of any other language than that they used; but the tribes who live on the lower parts of the Omoramba were described as speaking several languages ; and some of these were said to be ignorant of Hottentot. All these bits of information were derived from very many sources; some I received from persons in Damaraland, some from Ghou Damup among the Namaquas, and the rest from Bushmen who lived far to the east of them. The Ghou Damup are abused and tyrannised over by every- body, but servitude has become their nature, and the very name of Ghou which they themselves adopt and use is far from complimentary. Like many other Hottentot names it is not translatable to ears polite. The missionaries for delicacy's sake call them "Hill " Damaras, because they live on the hills. A standing joke against the Ghou Damup is, that they trace their descent from the monkey-tribe. An old man amongst them gave me the following history of his family; he worded it very neatly :--" My great uncle was a baboon, and lived on excellent terms with the rest of the family, but the following occurrence caused his separation from it. My grandfather had been gambling, and lost all the ornaments, etc., that he had on his person, but wishing to continue the game, requested his brother the baboon to go to my great grand- father, the famous Hadji-Aybib, and beg enough beads from him to form another stake. My great uncle the baboon went, but passing a Hottentot werft by the way, in which were many fierce dogs, before unknown in the country, he became so alarmed at their barking and snapping at him that he ran to the hills, and never dared face man again. Why should not we and the baboons be brothers ? " said the old gentleman. " Everybody persecutes us alike. We both live on the hills, eat the same roots, and ' crow ' for them with our hands in the same manner I " Hadji-Aybib, my friend's great grandfather, married a Bushwoman for his second wife, who annoyed her stepsons by her hauteur, and twitted them on account of their vulgar habits and low connections. Influenced by her, Hadji-Aybib cruelly treated his Damup progeny, CHAP. .X, 154 and they on their part earnestly longed for his death. One day he was missing, rumour gave out that he was killed, and the sons gave way to the greatest paroxysms -of merriment, during which they behaved in such an unseemly manner before the eyes of their fine lady Hottentot connections that on Hadji-Aybib's return,-for he was not killed after all,-they were obliged, from absolute shame, to hide themselves away from his presence, and fled to the hills, bearing with them the reproachful name of Ghou Damup. August I3th.--Our party separated, one detachment en route to the bay, and Andersson, Timboo, John Morta, Phlebus, and myself, travel- ling towards Lake 'Ngami. I took only five or six of the most active Damaras with me, and appointed the neighbourhood of Jonker's werft as a place of rendezvous for both parties at the beginning of November. The dryness of the country was now really alarming; all the watering-places that remained were crowded with cattle, and every blade of grass within miles of them was being eaten off. Over a great part of Damaraland rain had not fallen more than ten times during the whole rainy season; and a mortality from actual starvation had already begun among the cattle, and the year will probably be remembered and named by the Damaras as that of the great drought. It was therefore no easy matter for me to travel about; but I had one advantage on my side, which was, that on the road, when far away from watering-places and the grazing limits of the cattle by them, I often found grass, and there I outspanned to sleep, and let the oxen feed, then travelling on in the morning I came to the next watering-place at the middle of the day, when the cattle of the natives were all sent off to the fields, and the wells were disengaged. I thus ensured an evening's meal to the oxen, and also one in the early morning, if they chose to eat it, and water in the middle of the day, but no more. On the road to Jonker we found hardly any grass, and I do not know how I should have been able to keep my cattle at his place, if it were not that a valley was left unoccupied, owing to a superstitious feeling arising from a cattle-watcher having been lately murdered there by the Damaras. Jonker received me very kindly, and I expressed to him how glad I was to hear of the excellent manner in which he had kept order among his people during my absence. He had, I knew, been put to very great trouble in doing so, as the disposition EXCESSIhE D1':OUGH?'. CHAP. IL] t55 ENGA G EYBRETt. (CIIAP. It. to pillage is general among the Hottentots, and requires a far more despotic ruler to repress than Jonker or anybody else in this republican part of the world is allowed to be. I found a man settled here who was of great use to me, and whom I engaged; he was white, and born in the Cape; spoke English and Dutch perfectly, and was brought by the missionaries here as half-carpenter, half-schoolmaster. He, however, did not suit them, and had for a long time been dismissed their service; I found him installed as Jonker's' prime minister. He spoke Hottentot very fairly, and had a winning manner about him that vastly smoothed down the minor difficulties of my way; and though he was always getting himself and us into scrapes, yet he had a marvellous faculty of creeping out of them again. Eybrett, for that was his name, undertook to guide me to Elephant Fountain, a deserted station on the northern frontier of Amiral's tribe. No waggon had passed that road for years, and the way led along a country which was rarely travelled over, owing to its being a border district between the Damaras and Namaquas. Elephant Fountain and the country immediately adjacent had been the Ultima Thule of missionaries and traders, but the Oerlams, under Amiral, had recently extended themselves about forty miles further to the east, and on their late shooting excursions had reached a point considerably more distant. I was assured that the appearance of the land would be found to alter considerably, the thorns and rugged hills of Damaraland giving place to broad plains, and grass, and timber trees. Beyond was the desert which had hitherto been considered quite impassable, except for men on foot, after the rainy season, and which therefore barred out the lands of the west coast from those of Central Africa. It was principally with a view to try if this desert were really impassable that I proposed now to travel, and my object was to strike upon some road that led from the colony up to Lake 'Ngami. The Lake itself I was indifferent about reaching, for it is of no great size, and might prove a very unhealthy place for us, who had been accustomed so long to the pure air of a high plateau. It was two years since its discovery, and there was every reason to suppose that it was by this time perfectly well known. Lastly, I should never get on amongst the blacks there without an interpreter, being, as they are, deadly enemies to the Damaras, from whose side I should have come. I also looked forward with much pleasure to a little spor* TRAZVEL FROM �IKHAMS. for game had been so scarce in Damaraland that it made shooting a real toil. I sold my cart and harness which were lying at Otjimbingub, and the three mules which were at Scheppmansdorf, to Jonker; he gave me twenty oxen and forty milch goats for them; but all my efforts to buy horses were unavailing. He, however gave me a mount to Rehoboth, where I went to induce Swartboy to meet Jonker and Cornelius and settle many matters that were in dispute between them, and also to overawe Cornelius and keep him in better order, for he had lately been stealing a great deal of Damara cattle. My Hottentot interpreters now were Eybrett and Phlebu:; but Eybrett was an educated man, and could interpret from English to Hottentot at once, so that I generally employed him. He was an excellent interpreter into Dutch when he chose to take pains. We had between us a motley command of languages; for including those of Europe, one or other of the party could converse fluently in nine different languages-English, French, Swedish, Dutch, Danish, Portuguese, Hottentot, Damara, and Movisa; besides having some acquaintance with German, Arabic, Caffre, and a smattering of Ovampo. It will be tedious to describe my journey now as minutely as I did that in Damaraland, for it was much the same thing over again-uncer- tainty of the way and want of water; but we had become far quicker and more self-confident in emergencies, and were altogether a very active and efficient body of men. Among 'my Damaras I had two of the smartest men and best runners that could be found in the country; all of them, indeed, were picked men, and they had become much attached to us, and worked very well, and willingly. In a few hours from Eikhams we had emerged from the valley of the Swakop on to the high plateau. Thence we followed the Quieep River easterly: this we left for the Noosop, crossing a broad plain, and having some shooting; we then followed the Noosop, and game began to appear in abundance. We passed one great herd of springboks that were migrating; they eat up the grass almost as locusts would on their way. It was by no means so numerous a herd as is often seen in Bechuana country; but the tufts of white hair on the backs of the males were as thickly scattered over the country as daisies on a lawn. We never had to kill oxen,-only sheep now and then, for the sake of the fat; for all the game was very dry; and where you have no vegetables, fat becomes an essential element of food. 12 CHAP. n.) t57 SHOOTING GIRAFFES IN THE DUSK. [CHAP. IX. It was a great drawback to us that elands were hardly ever seen in this country; they are the staple food of sportsmen in Bechuanaland, and are very fat. We discovered how to shoot giraffes on foot from Andersson having gone successfully after a herd in the dusk of the evening, when we found that they allowed him to stalk close up to them. They see very indistinctly in the dark. He shot at two, who did not run far when wounded, but seemed bewildered. He fired all his bullets away at them, and brought one to a standstill, and the other to a slow walk; but they would not fall. He could only find one pebble in the sandy soil to fire out of the gun, instead of a bullet, and that seemed to have no effect upon the animal: he then thought of ham- stringing them; but though he nicked the skin of one deeply, yet as he struck out both with his horns and heels when he did so, it was too dangerous to continue the attempt. In despair, he took his rifle-barrel (which was a common thick thing) from the stock, and kept flinging it at the giraffe's head like a knob-kerrie, and at length the beast dropped. In the morning the other one had walked away, and though he was tracked a couple of miles, yet he could not be found. We jerked the giraffe, that is, cut the flesh that we did not eat into strips, and dried them in the sun. The skin was of great service to us, as our shoes were worn out, and wanted new soles. It is strange to see in how small a compass the meat of the whole animal packs up when it is dried. Something was shot every day till we came to Kurrikoop, and there we slept out by the water. A buffalo, a gnu, five zebras, two harte- beests, and three roebucks were " bagged " in two nights. The natives of the place had a grand feast: and so had we. At Elephant Fountain we found Amiral, and about forty men, who had just arrived there en route for a shooting excursion to the east. They take their waggons with them for some days, and then make an encampment, whence they journey short distances on ride-oxen, and shoot what they can, bringing the meat back jerked to the waggon. It was delightful to hear people talk familiarly of the rhinoceros as an everyday kind of game, and we longed for a raid upon them. I had not yet seen a single rhinoceros. One was shot by Andersson and Hans when they went down to the bay, but I was not then present. On the last shooting excursion Amiral's men had "bagged" forty of them. 158 Elephant Fountain is a rather copious spring on the side of a black thorny hill, above a narrow river-bed. Herds of animals come here to drink; and the ground at the principal place is bored full of pitfalls. By arranging the bushes in different ways, different sets of paths and pitfalls can be used at pleasure, and the animals are unscared by the smell of the blood of their companions, who may have been caught and slaughtered the preceding evening. No less than thirty-four zebras were entrapped in one night. We could not of course shoot here, as it might frighten the game away, and there was no great temptation, as only zebras and roebucks came to drink. There were a great many lions about, some of whom had lately taken two men, who had sat up watching for game ; but none troubled us. In the daytime, while we were waiting for Amiral, a few animals were shot, and jerked as food for the party that was to stay with the waggon, for I intended to let it stop here, and to ride on with Andersson, Eybrett, and Timboo, leaving John Morta and Phlebus behind. Elephant Fountain acquired its name from the enormous number of tusks that were found in the water of this place. When the Hottentots settled there, the pool into which the water runs was overgrown with reeds, and harboured lions and hyenas, and all kinds of wild beasts. So the reeds were burnt down, and the pool cleared out: it was not at all a large one, perhaps twenty-five paces across; but in the mud at the bottom of it they found quantities of elephants' bones and tusks, so that a trader bought enough ivory to fill more than one, and I think two waggons with it. Elephants were then numerous at the place, but they have now quitted it. A very fatal intermittent fever occurs here, and has depopulated the place more than once; it breaks out in April, and rages for two or three months. It does not extend to the west of the place; I cannot say whether or no it does to the east. Amiral told me that the Mationa, or Bechuanas, as he called them, occasionally visited him; but that, having no interpreter, he could not converse with them. One large party of chiefs had just left Wesley Vale. He said that the Bushmen had always told him that the desert to the east was impassable; but that from time to time they had found springs in their hunting excur- sions; and that very likely there was a way across it, if the. Bushmen would only choose to point it out. It seemed that the desert was bare sand opposite to Wesley Vale, four days south of Elephant Fountain, CHAP. 11.] FrzEPr tN FovUNrAIN, I59 THE KUBABEES REACH 'NGAMI. C but covered with grass at this latitude. I therefore had good reason to hope that we should turn its flank. Last year a large party of Kubabees Hottentots (who live a few days east of Bethany) rode up to the north, passing alongside of Amiral's country; but far to the east of it, they came to a place called "'Tounobis," whence they made plundering excursions on all sides; some against the Damaras, and some against the Mationa, who lived on Lake 'Ngami itself. A nephew of Amiral's, who could write Dutch, was in the expedition, and sent Amiral a letter about it. He described the boats that were there, and said much about the alligators, who killed very many of their dogs. The Hottentots made a most murderous excursion, having fallen upon a village that was situated on the river, connected with the west of the lake, and cut every person's throat they could lay hands on. They then robbed the huts and decamped with their booty. Carosses, made of skins that were unknown to them, were amongst the plunder. The lake itself they did not dare to go to; a hill or mountain was pointed out to them, at the foot of which not only the lake, but a large werft of natives were; and these they did not venture to approach. I was told that I should probably see the Bushmen, who guided them. Amiral was very anxious to lay hold of these Bushmen, and require them not to guide strangers, as the harm which the Kubabees Hottentots had done would probably be retaliated on his head. It was most likely on a visit of expostulation, or as spies, that the Mationa chiefs had been to Wesley Vale; but as no interpreter could be found, the interview ended in nothing but an exchange of presents. I heard that there was a woman born among the Mationa, but now naturalised in Amiral's tribe; and I sent messengers long distances to try and bring her, but she was not to be found-only her two half-caste children, who knew nothing but Hottentot. The country appeared to have become quite devoid of all landmarks, only a few rising heads and long undulating ridges being visible, which I could make no use of in triangulating. I had brought my triangulations to within eleven hours of Elephant Fountain, and, indeed, with a slight gap, to Elephant Fountain itself; but here it seemed that they must cease, so I took a great number of lunars, to fix as accurately as I could the position of the place. I had done the same at Okamabuti, which was the northern limit, or near to it, of my network of triangles; that of Walfisch Bay was given by Captain Owen's survey, and I had taken many sets at Barmen, as a check upon the whole. These were all CHAP. i. 160 CHAP. Ix.] LEAVE WAGGON AND RIDE TO THE EAST. 16t observed with a large sextant, for which I had contrived a stand; but in travelling on ox-back I was obliged to leave this behind, as being nuch too cumbrous to carry, and packed a small but excellent circle among plenty of stockings, etc., in a fishing-basket, which I made a man strap on his back. With this circle I had already taken sets for longitude at Ondonga, and I proposed now doing the same at the most eastern point I should arrive at, filling up the intermediate places by a careful dead reckoning, checked by latitudes. I had so few subjects of interest in the journey, that taking sets of observations, which would be a great nuisance to a person under any other circum- stances, was to me a source of occupation and a great pleasure, and I slaved at it. It requires some care to "pit" one observation against another, so as to eliminate the error of a doubtful instrument. The packing and unpacking is troublesome, and an instrument cannot be left for a moment unguarded, or the goats will butt at it, the sheep and dogs run over it, or the oxen brush against it: and it is cold work, having to leave the fire, that its glare may be avoided, and to wait for the culminating of one star after another. We were detained longer than we ought to have been at Elephant Fountain, by a break-down of Amiral's waggon, just as he was start- ing, but, as it was a light vehicle and the roads were level, a piece oi green wood was made into an axletree, and we were ready to proceed in two days. Our dates were, left Jonker, August 3oth; arrived at Elephant Fountain, September I4th; proceeded, September 19th. Hardly a Hottentot lived at Elephant Fountain, but there were large werfts of Berg Damaras there, who of course belonged to Amiral. I therefore felt no fear whatever at leaving my two men, for there is security of life in the country of the Hottentots, and we parted in high spirits for a six weeks' tour, my time being limited by the expected arrival of the ship at Walfisch Bay, from which I was now distant I56 hours (390o miles), or, with a single span of oxen, at least a month's journey off. We rode over to 'Twas in eleven hours, following the track of Amiral's waggon, and there we found a large werft. I engaged a Dutchman, by name Saul, whom I found there. He was to take two or three pack- oxen, and to pack them himself, and to help my party in everything. He was a well-known shot, spoke Hottentot perfectly, and was just the man I wanted. It seemed to nme that, small as Amiral's tribe was, it was infinitely the most civilised of all I had seen, and seemed possessed of more resources by far than either Swartboy's or Cornelius'. I mean that, frith the usual articles of exchange, whatever was wanted, might be found and bought there with far more facility than elsewhere. The others keep no " stock in hand " of anything, but scramble on from hand to mouth. If you want a pair of leather trousers made, the goat must be killed and the skin dressed, for nobody cares to keep a spare piece of leather. In the same way with carosses, each man has his own sleeping things, but no overplus by him to sell. Every Hottentot has his ride-ox, which he will not dream of parting with until he has broken in another one to take its place, and there is a want of capital every- where, so that although a traveller may be abundantly supplied with articles of exchange, and the natives around him by no means badly off, yet it does not at all follow that he will find anybody to barter with him as he journeys through their country. September 24th.-We left 'Twas on our shooting excursion. I took no dogs; mine were useless curs for anything else but night-watching; and under the guidance of Saul we travelled five hours and a half, passing a succession of little springs on our way. Early the next morning we went three hours to the place of rendezvous, and Amiral came shortly afterwards: numbers of other Hottentots soon dropped in, and we had a very merry evening, telling tales, and talking about the habits of animals. Of course we had lion and elephant stories in abundance. I was curious to know what animals here were the most fatal to man, and we counted over all the deaths that we could think of. Buffaloes (though not common here) killed the most, then rhi- noceroses, and lastly, lions. Areep, the predecessor of Cornelius, as chief of his tribe, was killed by a black rhinoceros. It is curious how many people are wounded by lions, though not killed. A very active Damara, who was some time with me in Damaraland, but who stayed behind as I journeyed up the country, was in a dreadfully mangled state when I returned. He had found a lion in the act of striking down his ox, and rushed at him with his assegai: he gave him a wound that must have proved mortal, for the assegai went far into his side; but the lion turned upon him, and seizing him, bit one elbow-joint quite through, and continued worrying him until some other Damaras ran up and killed the animal. My servant, Hans, had a very narrow escape some time since. He was riding old Frieschland (the most useful ox I had, but now worn 162 [CHAP. IX. ENGAGE SAUL. CHAP. IX.] WE ENTER THE BUSHMAN TRACT. out by the Ondonga journey) along the Swakop, when he saw some- thing dusky by the side of a camelthorn-tree, two hundred yards off. This was a lion, that rose and walked towards him: Hans had his gun in his gun-bag by the side of his saddle, and rode on, for there is no use in provoking hostilities single-handed with a lion, unless some object has to be gained by it, as every sportsman at last acknowledges. The coolest hand and the best shot are never safe, for a bullet, however well aimed, is not certain to put the animal hors de combat. After the lion had walked some twenty or thirty yards, Frieschland, the ox, either saw or smelt him, and became furious. Hans had enough to do to keep his seat; for a powerful long-horned ox tossing his head about and plunging wildly is a most awkward hack for the best of jockeys. The lion galloped up. He and Hans were side by side. The lion made his spring, and one heavy paw came on the nape of the ox's neck, and rolled him over; the other clutched at Hans' arm, and tore the sleeve of his shirt to ribbons but did not wound him, and there they all three lay. Hans, though he was thrown upon his gun, contrived to wriggle it out, the lion snarling and clutching at him all the time; but for all that, he put both bullets into the beast's body, who dropped, then turned round, and limped bleeding away into the recesses of a broad thick cover; and of course Hans, shaken as he was, let him go. There were no dogs to follow him, so he was allowed "t6 die in peace; and subsequently his spoor was taken up, and his remains found. Probably many more people are killed by lions than one hears of, for the most frequent victims are paupers who scatter themselves about the country, squatting on the ground and crowing pignuts; they become so absorbed in their occupation that a lion could easily crouch behind and spring upon them. Numbers of people are reported to be missing in Damaraland, but no one cares to search out their fate. I made a list once of the people I had met with who had been wounded by lions, but I have lost it. It was a very long one. The wounds were always bad ones to heal. They frequently became almost well, and then broke out afresh. 26th.-We were now fairly en route, and had entered the Bushman country ; we travelled along the brow of a long ridge that rose insensibly to perhaps one thousand feet above a wide plain, which stretched far away to the east, and was covered with timber trees ;-this was the margin of the great desert. I was told that we should continue jour- neying along this ridge till we reached the furthest point that Amiral's 163 men had yet travelled to, and thence our course would, if we intended to go to 'Tounobis, lie across this plain. The news of our shooting expedition had spread far and wide, and Damaras flocked like crows from all quarters to share in the food. The place where we slept on the 26th was a charming spot, among black- thorn trees, lighted up by fires in all directions, round each of which were grouped parties of our guests. We steadily rode on, keeping ahead of Amiral's party, and on the evening of the second day we arrived at the first great shooting place. It was a picturesque gorge in the ridge which led down to the plain, and in which was a succession of small springs. Rhinoceros skulls were lying in every direction, but strangely enough only one spoor could be seen. The whole of that night did Saul and I watch without seeing anything but a jackal. It was very disappointing, but the animals clearly were not there. We therefore pushed on. Saul had told us that the rhinoceroses would begin trooping in at nightfall, and that we should continue firing at them till daybreak, and I had believed him. Forty were killed here about a month since. I could not doubt it, for I counted in a small space upwards of twenty heads; but I suppose that a vast number were also wounded, and that the whole game was fairly scared from the place. Amiral's men were hard up for food; each man came on his ride-ox, and carried nothing with him. On the 28th we arrived at the furthest place the Namaquas had explored to. We saw about a dozen fresh spoors of elephants, and a few of rhinoceroses. I tried all I could to make the people encamp out of ear-shot of the water but they would not. No elephants came that night, but a rhinoceros, a lion, a hyena, and a gnu were "bagged." The Damaras were only allowed the carrion, as Amiral's suite of forty men all had to be fed: these poor people were in a sad state; they searched for pieces of old rhinoceros hide, the skin of animals that had been slaughtered here before, and which had dried in the sun before wild beasts had had time to devour it. This cooked in the fire and beaten with stones to make it soft enough to chew is not at all bad, and I have often eaten it; but there was not enough of it to feed the whole crew of Damaras, neither were there pignuts here for them to crow, and they were, consequently, in great distress. Several Bushmen came to us here, of the tribe that lived at 'Tounobis; the Namaquas can hardly understand them; they laughed excessively at the odd double way in which they pronounce their clicks. One man, ,64 [cHAP. IX, RHINOCEROS SKULLS.. START FOR 'TOUNOBIS. the son of the chief whose name means "Buffalo," was much the most intelligible, and I engaged him at once as guide. He told us all about the Kubabees Hottentots, how they came and where they went, whom they killed, and whom they robbed, and gave us every particular. All the Bushmen were well acquainted with the great waters to the north- east (the Lake 'Ngami and its rivers) and described the boats on them, and mimicked the alligators and the hippopotami. They had heard also of the Soun Damup, that tribe of Ghou Damup that live in an independent state along the lower part of the Omoramba, and pointed out the direction of their country. They knew of waggons having gone to Lake 'Ngami, and said that they had some things which were given to them by the people who travelled in them, whom they particularly described. They, however, protested that the country was, in this peculiarly dry season, impassable beyond 'Tounobis. How far this place was we could not well make out, but it certainly was a long journey without water; tired and footsore as the oxen were, I was determined however to attempt it. The Bushmen declared that the game was all scared away from where we were; but that we should see immense quantities at 'Tounobis. One informant asserted that the buffaloes were so thick upon the ground that we should have great difficulty in driving the waggons through them. But they all agreed that near 'Tounobis it would be dangerous to travel at night, as the wild animals would certainly charge us and our oxen when we met them on the way. We started for 'Tounobis on the afternoon of October Ist with Amiral and half of his men; after about three hours we came to a little well that the Hottentots who were before us had just drank dry, and, going on, to our delight saw two huge white rhinoceroses, three or four hun- dred yards on one side of us. They are indeed immense creatures, so far longer than the black ones, and their horns so much larger. The rhinoceros now in the Regent's Park Gardens is a black rhinoceros; it is much the most vicious of the two kinds, but nothing like the size of the other. We all tumbled off our oxen, some twenty of us (the others had returned to Amiral's waggons), and ran helter-skelter through the bushes each his own way, till we were pretty near them, and then, as one trotted up to see what was the matter, a volley was blazed into him, that bowled him over like a hare. The other one took a sweep and escaped unshot. The rapidity with which the slaughtered one was cut up was perfectly astonishing. I minuted the whole occurrence; CHAP. IX.] r65 it only took twenty minutes, and we were in our saddles again thirty- five minutes after we had left them. It must be recollected that three- penny pocket-knives are not the best of instruments to make an impression on rhinoceros hide. There is no knife so good as a common butcher's knife; as a general rule, ,soft steel, or even iron, is far better than hard steel, because you can sharpen the first on any bit of stone, and the metal does not splinter when it comes against a bone. We followed an elephant path, which went as straight as a Roman road. I took its direction several times with an azimuth compass, and it did not vary four degrees. We travelled till past nine, having been on the move for six and a quarter hours. The next day, starting very early, poor Timmerman and Frieschland both knocked up; they had never recovered the Ondonga journey; we drove them as far as we could, but it was no use, and as we of course could not wait in the middle of the plain without water, we had to leave the poor creatures to their fate. This day we managed eleven hours' actual travelling, and could have easily pushed on again, at midnight, but the Bushmen begged us not, as we were coming to where the rhinoceroses were very numerous, and assured us that if we started in the morning we should arrive at 'Tounobis before the heat of the day. This we did; we passed along a labyrinth of wild beasts' paths, put up one rhinoceros, and, after four hours, a valley in front where smoke rose among the trees announced that we had arrived at 'Tounobis. We hurried to the water to look for spoors, and now we were, without any doubt, in a game-country. The river-bed was trodden like the ground in a cattle fair by animals of all descriptions. The water lay in pools among rocks, and there were evident marks of where the water had stood at the preceding evening, and the depth to which it had been drunk out by the animals during the night; by the sides of these holes were the circular walls of loose stones, two or three feet high, that the Kubabees Hottentots had built up as screens, from behind which to shoot. A little way off were crowds of Bushmen; we went to them, and found them clustered round one of a series of deep uncovered wells, about twelve feet across, and eight or ten deep, and very close together, into which an elephant had been pushed the preceding night by his comrades, as they had scrambled in droves to drink, and there he lay x66 REAdCH 'TO UNOBIS. [CHAP. IX. ELEPHANT IN A PITFALL. just killed, and great pieces of flesh were being cut off and hauled up from his carcase. All this was delightful, and we off-packed our lean oxen in the highest spirits about a quarter of a mile from the water, in the midst of a thick grove of trees. Amiral encamped near us; we made a kraal and settled down for at least a week's pleasuring. As soon as the elephant was disposed of, I collected all the chief Bushmen in a ring, and gave them tobacco and so forth, and began asking them about the country further on ahead. One of my men came to say that he had just found a Bush- man cooking with a large iron pot; this was a sure sign of the neigh- bourhood of civilised man. The Bushman said that it was given to them by people from a waggon some distance to the east, and who had gone to the lake during the previous rainy season. The man who had guided the Kubabees Hottentots lived here-Toes-u-wap was his melodious name. He and the other Bushmen wore great numbers of elephant hair necklaces, with three or four beads strung on each of them; they are, as I now find, worked after the manner that the English ladies call "tatting." Old Buffalo's son and Toes-u-wap were the only two who could understand much of the language of the Hot- tentots; they interpreted for us to the other Bushmen as well as they could, but our conversation was far from fluent. Several of these Bushmen knew the Mationa language, and as I had a little MS. Sichuana dictionary with me, I asked the Sichuana names for sixty words; of these about twenty were identical with those in my dictionary, twenty were somewhat like them, and the other twenty I could not find. I presume, therefore, that their language is Sichuana, or a dialect of it. The Bushmen were unanimous in saying that our next stage to the east was longer than the one we had just travelled. The season was so excesssively dry that all the wells were exhausted. The Kubabees Hottentots had passed by this place in the dry season, but it was sub- sequent to an ordinarily rainy summer, and they left 'Tounobis in the afternoon, travelled all night, and next midday drank water with reeds, after their manner, from a place where the sand was damp; on the ensuing day they came to a Bushman werft, and so on every day till the fifth, when they reached a Mationa cattle post; they call it Eisis in Hottentot, Chuesa in Mationa language; from there the hills that border the great water (river or lake I am not sure which) can be seen. There is said to be much game there. We had great difficulty in making the Bushmen distinguish between CHAP. IX.] NIGHT-WATCHING FOR GAME. the lake and the rivers; they called the whole water-country by one name-Tl' Annee. However, I will not enter at length into these details, as more accurate information will certainly be received before long from the whites, or whiter races, who are now steadily pushing northwards. We repaired the circular walls of loose stones that were to form our shooting-screens. The lower they are the better, generally speaking, as being less likely to attract attention; but when it can be managed, a wall about two feet nine inches high is much the most convenient to shoot over, as a man's position is not cramped when he kneels down and fires from behind one of these: they ought to be six or seven feet across. A hole in the ground is sometimes made instead of a wall; but generally speaking, the neighbourhood of large watering-places in these parts is a mass of limestone rock, into which one cannot dig. It is one of the most strangely exciting positions that a sportsman can find himself in, td lie behind one of these screens or holes by the side of a path leading to a watering-place so thronged with game as 'Tounobis. Herds of gnus glide along the neighbouring paths in almost endless files: here standing out in bold relief against the sky, there a moving line just visible in the deep shades; and all as noise- less as a dream. Now and then a slight pattering over the stones makes you start; it jars painfully on the strained ear, and a troop of zebras pass frolicking by. All at once you observe twenty or thirty yards off two huge ears pricked up high above the brushwood; another few seconds, and a sharp solid horn indicates the cautious and noiseless approach of the great rhinoceros. Then the rifle or gun is poked slowly over the wall, which has before been covered with a plaid, or some- thing soft, to muffle all grating sounds; and you keep a sharp and anxious look-out through some cranny in your screen. The beast moves nearer and nearer; you crouch close up under the wall, lest he should see over it and perceive you. Nearer, nearer still; yet somehow his shape is indistinct, and perhaps his position unfavourable to warrant a shot. Another moment, and he is within ten yards, and walking steadily on. There lies a stone, on which you had laid your caross and other things, when making ready to enter your shooting-screen; the beast has come to it, he sniffs the taint of them, tosses his head up wind, and turns his huge bulk full broad-side on to you. Not a second is to be lost. Bang 1 and the bullet lies well home under his shoulder. Then follows a plunge and a rush, and the animal charges madly about, i68 [CHAP. IX. making wide sweeps to right and left with his huge horn, as you crouch down still and almost breathless, and with every nerve on the stretch. He is off; you hear his deep blowing in the calm night; now his gallop ceases. The occasional rattling of a stone alone indicates that he is yet a-foot; for a moment all is still, and then a scarcely audible "sough" informs you that the great beast has sunk to the ground, and that his pains of death are over. The animals are picked up in the morning; but it is not very easy to find them. Spooring is, in most cases, quite out of the question, on account of the numberless tracks. The Bushmen jerked every particle of the meat of all the animals that we killed, excepting that which we used ourselves. I like rhinoceros flesh more than that of any other wild animal. A young calf, rolled up in a piece of spare hide, and baked in the earth is excellent. I hardly know which part of the little animal is the best, the skin or.the flesh. The Hottentots shot away a great many bullets at rhinoceroses, and did, I daresay, a great deal of mischief; for they lie six or seven together in each shooting-screen, and blaze volleys at long distances- often thirty or forty yards-at the rhinoceros. The consequence is that they "bag" but very few, compared to the number that they fire at; the others most likely linger on for a few days, and then lie down and die elsewhere. One night Andersson and myself were lying out together when a rhinoceros came, that I fired at. Something smaller was following at its heels; but we could not see what, on account of the shade of the dark bushes. It was a brilliant moonlight; and we were foolish enough to leave our screen, and poke about after the animal, which luckily we never found. In the early morning Andersson went to look for the game that had been shot; and first followed the spoor of the rhinoceros we had been seeking. He soon found the animal lying dead among the bushes; and he walked carelessly up, with rifle over his shoulder, when as he was just upon the animal, a full-grown calf rushed out from behind its dead mother right at him. He had a very narrow escape, for the creature brushed by him in the narrow pathway; he was about as large as an ox, and his spoor was half size. Had we come upon them the preceding night, we should have run some risk. On one occasion a rhinoceros that he fired at, brushed down the stones of one side of his shooting place. If I were to travel again on a shooting tour I should certainly take a,large opera-glass with me. It is one of the most perfect of night. CRAP. IX. 1 HI11 CEROS EA . t89 HERD OF ELEPHANTS, glasses, besides being the most useful of telescopes. I should think it would put a man's sight in the dusk on a par with that of wild beasts generally; and it is so portable and manageable an instrument, that I should never lie out watching for animals without one. Since my return to England I have often amused myself at night in trying their powers, which certainly are marvellous. At sea they are coming into general use, and more than one naval officer of considerable experience in chasing slavers, has assured me of their great superiority over the ordinary cumbrous night telescope. Talking of these things, I may add, that a powerfully magnifying telescope is of very little use in tropical Africa; the air is always seething and waving from the heat, so that images are seldom sufficiently distinct to be worth magnifying. I generally used the " direct " telescope of my sextant for day pur- poses; it is in fact a small single opera-glass, and I liked it very much. Elephant shooting was out of the question at 'Tounobis for men in our position, without horses and without dogs. The river-bed is perfectly bare and very light in colour from the quantity of slabs of limestone. I should be extremely sorry to be chased by any animal over it. The Hottentots made such a noise that the elephants only came down twice whilst I was there; the first time we ran up to them and fired among their legs, there were fourteen in the herd, fine fellows, standing in a row fronting us in the open moonshine. None of us dared go nearer than sixty yards; we there had the shelter of a low slab in the limestone, but beyond the ground was quite flat. I should think the legs were the best part to fire at, in these cases, because if the bullet strikes the bone it is sure to break it, and an elephant on three legs is like a waggon on three wheels, quite brought to a standstill; and, again, if the bone be missed, the wound, if any, is only a flesh wound, and does not kill the animal. Our shots produced no effect except some very angry trumpeting from the elephants, who first faced us and then decamped. The second time we let them alone, and a young bull fell into one of the wells, which we shot. I think I would have given anything for horses at 'Tounobis. I should have enjoyed myself amazingly if I had had them. There were no lions whatever there; they and rhinoceroses do not hit it off together, and are seldom found in numbers at the same place. A rhinoceros is a sulky morose brute, and it is very ridiculous to watch a sedate herd of gnus bullied by one of them. He runs among them [oHAP. IX. syo BULK OF THE RHINOCEROS. and pokes about with his horn, while they scamper and scurry away from him in great alarm. He surely must often kill them. For my own taste, I should like to spend nights perched up in some tree with a powerful night glass watching these night frolics and attacks. I really do not much care about shooting the animals, though it makes a consummation to the night work, as the death of the fox does to a fox hunt, but it is the least pleasurable part of the whole. Great fun seems to go on among the different animals; jackals are always seen and are always amusing; their impudence is in- tolerable; they know that you do not want to shoot them, and will often sit in front of your screen and stare you in the face. Sometimes whilst straining your eyes at the dimly seen bushes about you, the branched stem of one gradually forms itself into the graceful head of some small antelope. The change is like that of a dissolving view, the object had been under your notice for a minute, yet you could not tell when it ceased to be a bush and became an animal. The young rhinoceroses must be much chased by the hyenas and wild dogs, for you never find one, either young or old, whose ears do not show marks of having been sadly bitten. I do not think an elephant gives anything like the idea of bulk and power that the white rhinoceros does. An elephant is so short and so high upon his legs, that he looks what jockeys would call " weedy," in comparison to the low and solid rhinoceros. The largest of these that we shot was eighteen feet long and six high; the head and neck forming, I should say, a third of the entire length. If a creature of this size be imagined against the wall of a room, an idea may be formed of his immense size. Their rush is wonderfully quick; they seem to me to get up their speed much quicker than a horse or any other animal I know. I really think that if a rhinoceros and horse caught sight of one another at the same instant, when not more than ten yards apart, the beast would catch the steed. Their movements are amaz- ingly rapid when they receive a bullet. Oct. 7th.--I had a most picturesque finale to a rhinoceros hunt. The Bushmen came to tell me that a black rhinoceros was lying wounded under some trees, about an hour off, and very savage, so I went to him, and put him up with a bullet as he lay twenty-five yards from me. After the scrimmage which ensued, I ran after him, he going a lame trot, and I, as hard as I could pelt, putting three or four bullets into him at long distances, and loading as I ran. At length we came .to the edge CHAP. Ix.] 17= of an open flat that was about two hundred yards across. At the further side of that was a mound, on the top of which stood a fine overshadowing tree, and in the middle of the flat was a scraggy, rotten stump, and two or three dead branches. The rhinoceros went across this, climbed the mound, and stood at bay under the tree. I did not much like crossing the open flat, but I thought I could certainly run two yards to his three, which would take me back in safety among the bushes, so I went my best pace to the middle of the flat keeping the dead branches between me and him, they were a mere nothing, but a rhinoceros' sight is never keen, and his eyes were, I dare say, dim from his wounds. As soon as I came to the tree, I dropped down on my knee, steadied my shaking hand against one bough, for I had run very far and was exhausted, and, resting the muzzle of my heavy rifle in the fork of another took a quick shot and gave the beast a smart sharp sounding blow with a well-placed bullet. He did not start nor flinch, but slowly raised his head, and then dropping it down, poured volumes of crimson blood from his mouth. He did this again and again; at length he staggered a very little, then he put his fore legs out and apart from each other, and so stood for some seconds, when he slowly sunk to the ground upon his broad chest and died. I sketched the scene from memory when I returned, regretting that I had not had a pencil with me at the time to do it more justice, for the dying beast with the branched tree above him was quite a study for an artist. Having shot animals till we were tired, a pleasant moonlight evening was spent on much smaller game-the spring hare as the Dutch call it. It is a creature about two feet long, shaped like a kangaroo in body and tail, but with a different head; it burrows and lives in holes all day, but at night frisks about and grazes. We and the Bushmen arranged ourselves in large circles, enclosing fresh patches of ground each time, and then beat up towards the centre. We generally enclosed two or three of these funny creatures, who hopped about in the oddest way, and we rushed in and assassinated them with sticks. The sinews of their powerful tails form excellent materials fqr sewing carosses. I worked hard to fix the longitude of 'Tounobis, which I did more successfully than I could have hoped, as my instrument was a small and not very legible one, and for want of oil, I had to read off the observations by firelight. The Bushmen assured me that the character of the country between that place and the lake was of exactly the same SPRING HARES. (CHAP. 11. t72 REMARKS ON MY ROUTE. description as that around us, a sandy soil with not unfrequent dried-up vleys, and covered with trees, but by no means so thickly as to impede the progress of a waggon. In fact if a person wanted to go from Walfisch Bay to the lake, he would have an excellent waggon road after he had left Eikhams (Jonker's place) one day behind him. He should follow the Quieep River as far as it goes eastwards, and then make a straight course for Kurri-koop, taking the chance of vley water by the road; from Kurri- koop, through Elephant's Fountain to 'Twas, all is excellent; thence he should follow the foot of the ridge and not the top of it, as we had done, sending the oxen to water up the gorges. In the twenty-one hours' journey to 'Tounobis, three or four large vleys were passed, in which water would lie for many months. From there onwards I should have no fear whatever in the rainy season, even if the Bushmen refused to guide me, because the character of the country is adapted for hold- ing water; but from Damaraland to the Ovampo no person could think of travelling without guides, unless there was a recent track to follow. If he once strayed from the path he would be hopelessly in- volved in the thorn thicket. I fancy that the Bushmen spoke truth about the want of water ahead, as the droves of animals which had congregated in the neigh- bourhood of 'Tounobis continued drinking every night, the repeated firing being insufficient to drive them away; it seemed as though they had no other neighbouring watering-place to go to. As the Bushmen learnt to understand our Hottentot a little better, we had some long talks about the animals on the river that joins the western end of the lake; that there are many there quite new to the Hottentots is beyond doubt, as several carosses were stolen by the Kubabees and brought back south, and the skins that many of these were made from were quite unknown to them. The Bushmen, without any leading question or previous talk upon the subject, mentioned the unicorn. I cross-questioned them thoroughly, but they persisted in describing a one-horned animal, something like a gemsbok in shape and size, whose horn was in the middle of its forehead. The spoor of the animal was, they said, like that of a zebra. The horn was in shape like a gemsbok's, but shorter. They spoke of the animal as though they knew of it, but were not at all familiar with it. It will indeed be strange if, after all, the creature has a real existence. There are recent travellers in the north of tropical Africa who have heard of it there, and 13 cHAP. 11.] I73 believe in it, and there is surely plenty of room to find something new in the vast belt of terra incognita that lies in this continent. Of another fabulous monster, the cockatrice, a most widely spread belief exists. The Ovampo, the Bushmen of this place, and Timboo, all protested that there is such a creature, and that they had often seen it. They described it as a snake, sometimes twelve feet long, and as thick as the arm; slender for its length, with a brilliantly variegated skin; it has a comb on the head exactly like a guinea-fowl, but red, 'I .d has also wattles; its cry is very like the noise that fowls make ,when roosting-I do not mean crowing, but a subdued chucking; its bite is highly venomous, and it is a tree snake. I heard an instance of ten cows having been bitten one after the other; they said that some- times people when on their way home at night hear a chucking in the tree, and think that their fowls have strayed, and as they are peering about under the branches to see where they are, the snake darts down. upon them and bites them. It appears to be a particularly vicious snake. I have generally heard it called "hangara." I never heard of its possessing wings. Since my return I have had my attention directed to a recent book, Mr. Gosse's "Notes of a Naturalist in Jamaica," in which he mentions -the prevalence of the same belief there, and relates several reported facts relative to the creature. In the Penny Cyclopaedia, under the head cockatrice, many old drawings of these snakes are reproduced, and are worth looking at; they differ much in character from one another, and seem to have been derived from different originals. I can give no clue to the fable of the cockatrice's eggs. The Bushmen of 'Tounobis are far superior to the Damaras in the a.rt of catching animals; their springe is a very simple one. I admired the simplicity of the method by which the antelopes were induced to leap into the middle of it; an unpractised hand would have made a fence as though he were laying out a steeple-chase course, but the Bushmen simply bend a twig across the pathway, which does not in the least frighten the animal, but which, in the gaiety of his heart, he overleaps. The pitfalls are neatly made; there is, however, nothing in them which an English gamekeeper would not contrive as well. I must take this opportunity of explaining to the uninitiated how to set a common gun (as a spring gun), to shoot game in the night. The use of such a contrivance is obvious. Hyenas, perhaps, vex and trouble you night after night, and it is a horrid bore to sit up through BUSHMiAN SPRIINGES. Cus. xx. X74 DESCRIPTION OF PLATE. the cold when sleep is in these tropical climes so peculiarly grateful, simply for the chance of shooting the worthless animal; it is far simpler to have a gun in his path, and let him pull the trigger himself, to his own destruction. Again, as to lions, they do real mischief; and, after all, they are not noble animals whose character entitles them to the privilege of a code of honour, but skulking, troublesome creatures, who give infinite annoyance, and will seldom wait to be shot at. In England one thinks differently, but a traveller who has large herds of cattle with him is only too glad to exterminate lions out of the land, and a spring-gun is the best way of doing this. This is my creed, though I personally am guiltless of its use upon the king of beasts. The way of setting a gun is very simple; everybody has a sort of general conception how an animal when he chests a string shall in some way pull the trigger and be shot; but without a more definite notion consider- able difficulty would in practice be found in making the necessary ad- justments. The accompanying plate will explain how to do it. A piece of stick is lashed across the narrow part of the stock of the gun in such a way as to have a slight play backwards and forwards; a string from the lower part of the stick is fastened to the trigger, one from the upper leads through the ramrod tubes (the ramrod being taken out), and passes across the pathway; it is evident that when an animal pushes the string the gun will go off. A few points have to be observed; one is, that the string should not be too tight, else as soon as it is touched the trigger will be pulled, and the bullet make only a skin wound in front of the animal's chest. The other, a very important point, is that the height to which the gun is lashed should be such as to send the bullet through the beast's heart, or thereabouts. The rule is, that for a hyena the barrel should be as high as a man's knee from the ground, but for a lion a span (or eight inches) higher. Neither the string nor the stick that is lashed to the stock, and which acts as a lever, should be too strong, lest, if the animal carries all before him in a rush, they should not break, but the gun be torn from its supports and smashed. When a lion's death is determined upon by means of a spring-gun, advantage is taken of the first animal that he kills; this is probably found half eaten, and the lion is sure to return to his prey the ensuing night. Bushes are then put round the carcase, a doorway is made to one side of a couple of posts, against these two posts, the gun is lashed, and the trigger-string passes across the doorway to the opposite side (see plate). CHAP, Ix.] 176 HEAR OF THE FATE OF MY TWO OXEN. . [cIa' X. I have never seen instances of native poison doing much mischief; that of the Damaras is in practice very harmless. I have seen plenty of people who had been wounded by poisoned arrows, and have dressed their wounds, but saw no great harm experienced from them. The poison becomes so hard and dry on the arrows that it will not dissolve. The Bushman poison is far stronger and more complicated, the manufacture of it is kept secret, but many ingredients are put into the composition. Beside vegetable poisons the Bushmen assured me that the poisonous black spider (a kind of Tarantula) is an important ingredient. It seems to be, for its size, the most venomous of creatures. Death is very frequently the consequence of its bite. Amiral's son, who was with me, had lingered between life and death for a long time after having been bit by one, and his escape was considered as a singular piece of good fortune. I saw one once; it happened to be among my bedclothes, and was a nasty creature with huge nippers; though a very quick runner it had comparatively short legs. When I teased it with a little twig it snapped its nippers together and made quite a noise with them. Throughout our journey we have had great good luck as regards poison- ous animals, nobody but Timboo having been bitten, and that only by a scorpion, but we suffered pretty severely from hornets' stings, both at Otjimbingue and elsewhere; the oil from our tobacco pipes was the panacea in all these cases. CHAPTER X. Hear the Fate of my Two Oxen-Plan an Attack to avenge them-Make an Attack on Two Werfts -Catch some Culprits--Hottentot Passion for Onslaught-Return to Eikhams-Best Sort of Travelling Compass-MS. and other Almanacs-Watches and Alarums--Large Packs of Lions-- A Tale learnt from Tracks-Accidents with Guns-Methods of carrying them on Horseback-Description of the Plate--Travelling Dress- Colours most suited for Sportsmen--Bright Colours of skulking Animals -Rationale of them-Join Hans' Party-Begin to break up the Expedition-Travel down the Swakop-Reach Walfisch Bay-Whales, Sharks, and Ostriches-Retrospects--Leave Africa. IN a week the Hottentots became tired of 'Tounobis; they said that their wives were left without provisions, etc., and Amiral said that he cAP. X.j PLAN AN ATTACK TO AVENGE THEM. must return. I had no object in staying longer, for I became tired of massacring the animals, and it is better when on a journey not to rest oxen longer than a week, unless you can afford at least a month's delay, as their galled backs become half healed, and they lose their working condition, without having time to really recruit their strength. My oxen were all in a very poor way, but I now cared little, as I was homeward bound. We left'Tounobis October roth, and arrived safely at Okomavaka with no incident except a fright from all the oxen having run away the second night that we were on the road. My first inquiries were about the fate of poor Timmerman and Frieschland, and I at last found out their history from some wandering Damaras, for they never can keep a secret. The two oxen had both returned to Okomavaka, but a lion caught Timmerman, and in the morning the Damaras found him half eaten; they then spoored and found Frieschland, whom they stabbed and eat. I discovered who the man was that actually killed my ox; he was Kaipanga, the captain of a werft of these wandering Damaras, and who naturally had decamped when he heard of our arrival. I therefore held a consultation with Amiral on the subject, whose eyes glistened with pleasure at the notion of a raid upon the Damara werft. I, of course, stipulated that we should have no firing, but only catch the culprits and flog them. I had been desirous of witnessing the arrangement of a Hottentot attack, and this case occurred oppor- tunely, so I desired Amiral to manage everything in exactly his own way, which he did. He found out where Kaipanga was staying; it was opposite to a gorge two hours ahead of us, and down in the flat at the foot of the ridge, but far from it and among the trees, and quite two and a half hours away from the watering-place there. Amiral then told everybody that we were going home as quickly as we could, for we had no time to spare to make further inquiries about the lost oxen, and on we went. Our first day was three hours, and we purposely overshot the gorge which was our mark, that the Damaras who were on a keen look-out might be convinced that we knew nothing of Kaipanga's rascality, and were really going home in good earnest. Amiral's men slept a couple of miles away from mine, so as to disarm all notion of a concerted expedition, but at one o'clock in the morning the old scamp got up quietly with about half his men and joined me. I left sufficient people behind to resist any Damaras in case they attacked the camp during my absence, and we were all off under the escort of Amiral's 177 178 MAKE AN ATTACK ON TWO WERFTS. [CHAP. ,. spy at two. It was a very dark night, and we scrambled down the gorge and through the trees of the plain till about four o'clock, when we stopped, as there was some doubt as to where we were, and runners sent ahead in all directions to explore the country for a mile or two round. Just as the first streaks of light appeared in the sky the wished-for information came; there was no time to be lost, and we all ran in a glorious state of excitement across the country. The light quickly increased, and by the time that the sky was grey we were all behind a mound, watching keenly for some indication of the exact position of the werft, which we were assured was close by us. At length a slender column of smoke was seen, and instantly the charge was ordered. Amiral, Andersson, and myself, with four or five others, were to go straight on; ten men were to make a sweep, and run down upon the werft on the right and ten on the left. Nobody was to fire unless the natives used their assegais. Off they were; our party walked slowly to give the others time, but the dogs of the werft heard us; in an instant the alarm was given, and no time was to be lost, so we in the centre were obliged to make a rush prematurely; almost every Damara was off helter-skelter. We caught a few women and one man; they said that Kaipanga, the chief, whom we were in search of, was at another werft close by; that he had killed the ox and his men had eaten it, and that if we would spare them and not kill them they would show us the way. All this questioning and answering took little more time to say than it does to read, and we were off again, but the daylight had become quite strong, and before we were at the next werft the sun was about to rise. We could not hope to encircle it, so we ran crouching through the bushes on and into it with much better success than we could have expected. The Damaras were not half a minute out of it when we arrived, and were running in all directions. The country was rather open, and there was a mound close by, to the top of which some of our men ran directly. This acted like flying a kite over a moor; it made all the runaway Damaras lie still at once, lest they should be seen, and in this way we gained time to examine their werfts for proofs of guilt, and were able to spoor them more leisurely. We found no meat ip the huts, but a broken marrow-bone was there. In the main hut was a large piece of ox-hide, half dressed, from which the hairs, as usual, had been removed; we took it out to the light; a few scattered hairs remained, and they were whitish-yellow, which was Timmerman's peculiar colour. A woman who was found in CHAP. x.] HOTTENTOT PASSION FOR ONSLAUGHT. the werft confessed to the skin, and away we went in chase as before. The huts were such wretched affairs that it was not worth while to destroy them in retaliation for the robbery. We had now some long and severe running; with horses we could have done what we liked, but on foot the naked Damaras were more than a match for us. How- ever, we took two men captive, whose looks almost warranted their being hung without any other proofs of their guilt, and we tied them together and drove them home with several women, whom we kept in different detachments. It was a long time before we were all collected together, as the men were dispersed over the country, and we had no water till ten o'clock, nor did we arrive at the encampment with our prisoners till midday. After an hour's rest we tried the men, examining them separately. Amiral's shrewdness astonished me beyond measure. He was quite in his element, and wormed out the whole story with the greatest dexterity, and the judicial scene was closed with a business-like appli- cation of a new rhinoceros-hide whip. I had gained quite an insight into Hottentot onslaught by these few hours' experience, and could perfectly understand how engrossing must be the excitement which they yield to savage minds. Compared with these, shooting lions and rhinoceroses must be poor sport to them. The last brings simply into play the faculties of a sportsman, and is an occupation dangerous enough to be disagreeable, but negroes are the woodcocks of Africa, the beau ideal of the game tribe, and they are pursued not with that personal indifference every one must feel towards quadrupeds, but with revenge, hatred, and cupidity. The Hottentot runs to the raid boiling with passion and hungry for spoils. He is matched with an equal in sight, hearing, speed, and ingenuity; the attack and the pursuit call forth the whole of his intelligence. If the negro has a perfect knowledge of the country on his side to aid his escape, the Hottentot has had time for forethought and preparation in the attack to match that advantage. The struggle is equal until the closing scene when the deadly gun confronts the assegai. Then come the tears and supplication and prayers for mercy, which must be music to the ears of the Hottentot, as he revels in his victory and pauses before he consummates it. I have a pretty fixed icdea that if English justice were administered throughout these parts of Africa, a small part only of the population would refhain unhung. But we must not be too hard upon the negro and Hottentot morale on that account, -'r 179 we little know what fearful passions exist in our own European minds until they are thoroughly roused. A young terrier or kitten seems the most harmless and mildest of creatures until he has been brought into contact with rats and learnt the luxury and taste of blood, and many an instance may be found along the distant coasts of this wide world where a year or two has converted the Saxon youth, who left his mother all innocence and trust, into as diabolical and reckless a character as ever stabbed with a bowie-knife. Two more ride-oxen were now knocked up; they were Buchau and Sweetland. I left them under the care of Saul, near to whose werft we had now arrived, and whom I paid off. Travelling on we managed to take the remaining oxen to Elephant Fountain, which we reached 22nd of October; we had left 'Tounobis Loth of October; the entire distance between the places is fifty-three hours, or one hundred and forty-six miles, which gives our pace of travelling as usual, viz., ten and a half miles a day. It is very remarkable how steady the pace of travelling is. I minuted with great care all our journeys from Oman- bond6 to Ovampoland, and the whole way from Ovampoland to 'Tounobis, and thence again to Eikhams, invariably registering the time of every stoppage. The going and returning journeys seldom differed one hour in thirty. Thus, from Okomavaka to 'Tounobis we were twenty-one and a half hours going, and twenty-one and a quarter returning, and so on; but when the hours are reduced into miles, much less accuracy must be expected. I allow two and three-quarter miles an hour, which is near enough to give general ideas of distance; indeed, if a traveller has the geographical positions of the main points of his journey laid down, and also knows how long in actual travelling it will take him to get from one point to another, he is furnished with all the information he can require. I had by this time reduced my method of travelling over unknown ground to a principle which I will mention here, for want of a better opportunity. When a given direction has to be followed, which is learnt by the pointing of the natives, the compass is of course the guide by day, but it is very important to have one that is not too delicate, or when you rein up to look at it, so long a time elapses before it settles that the animal becomes fidgety and disturbs the needle again. By far the best pocket-compass to have, is one that has a glass bottom as well as a glass top to it, like those which are commonly hung up in the cabins of ships, only, of course very much smaller, say one inch across. Io RETURNN TO EIKH 411S. [CHAP. X. CHAP. X.] BEST SORT OF TRAVELLING COMPASS. The pivot on which the needle turns is fixed in a hole drilled through the bottom glass. Concentric with the needle, and turning stiffly round its cap, is a small piece of brass, shaped, say, like a fish, so that its head could never, even by the faintest light, be mistaken for its tail. The top glass of the compass should unscrew. Before starting, having determined in which direction you intend to proceed, take off the top glass and adjust the head of the fish, so that it shall point in that direction; there is now no chance of error or confusion; you forget all about the needle, and only think of the fish. When it becomes dark, you have simply to hold up the compass between your eye and the sky, and the fish can be seen quite plainly; but an ordinary compass can never be deciphered after dusk. If any doubt remains, the light of a cigar or a piece of white paper held below the compass will, when you look down upon it, bring out the fish quite clear and distinct. It is much better to hang the compass by three threads like a scale-pan, than simply to hold it in the hands; the threads take the place of gimbals, and, besides, being more compact in the pocket, are also less likely to get out of order. For a pocket- compass, no great accuracy is required; if the traveller can depend upon it to a point, that is quite sufficient. Where any bearings for mapping purposes are wanted, nothing inferior to an azimuth compass should be used, and one of these I invariably carried in a case sewn on to my shooting-belt, so as to lie in the small of the back. An almanac should be calculated and written out for the latitudes and longitudes in which the traveller intends to go. A simple approximation to accuracy is all one wants, and the same almanac would do for hundreds of miles ; the information required is as to the times of sunrise and set, and of moonrise and set, the bearing of all these; and if the same particulars be given for a few zodiacal stars, it will be found of great use. Again, the times of culmination and the proximate altitude of three or four latitude stars should be stated for every night, and for a given latitude--those stars I mean which come to the meridian soon after dusk, and are of such meridian altitudes as to come within the range of a sextant. Occulations should of course be put down, and if the traveller has a telescope large enough to observe them, the eclipses of Jupiter's satellites also: one lunar distance to the nearest degree should be copied for every day, in order to check the date; but for longitude purposes recourse must be had to that surpassingly excellent but most cumbrous and ill-bound of English publications, the " Nautical i8c itWATCHES AND ALARUMS. Almanac "-a work printed on blotting-paper, that is spoilt by rain and torn by wind, and which requires as much care in packing and in using as the instruments it is designed to accompany. All the times made use of should be affarent times. The chance is greatly against a traveller's watch going with sufficient accuracy to keep mean time. I set mine every sunrise and sunset, keeping another one in reserve, snugly packed up among soft things, to use during lunar and other time observations. In any moderately flat country the error one is liable to, by setting the watch in this way, lies within five minutes, and that is quite accurate enough even for latitude purposes. It is a great satisfaction to have all the particulars about the moonlight in your MS. Almanac, for when one travels, it is of much importance; the quickest journeying being done by it. Knowing the bearings of the principal celestial bodies when they are near the horizon, is a great check upon one's course by night; a man soon becomes familiar with these if he has occasion to make use of them. I should strongly urge travellers to provide themselves with alarum watches, or alarums, in some shape or another. Over and over again have we lost our natural rest through fear of oversleeping our time; besides awaking the sleepers, they are of great use in attracting attention when it is time to commence to do anything, such- as watching for a star, etc., etc. It was a great comfort returning to the faithful John and to his pots and saucepans, for we had lived on tough diet since we left him. Immense quantities of animals had been caught in the pitfalls at Elephant Fountain during our absence; they appear to have been migrating in herds, for they are not always found in the same abund- ance. As my waggon was light, I bought what little ivory I could from Amiral's people, and took it away with me. I sold it afterwards at St. Helena for about 701. We returned by the way which a few pages back I mentioned as the one that I recommended for waggons to travel upon. We had a little shooting, but not much; at one place we put up eight lions; they were not close together, but within a space about two hundred yards across, through which we happened to drive. It was the largest pack I had seen. Fourteen is the largest I have ever heard of. These eight were all full-grown beasts; five of them were females. We had two falls of rain, enough to supply the Quieep River well; indeed, we found a pool with enough water to swim in at the place where we outspanned. After the first shower the landscape looked charming; the sere ewves [CHAP. X. x82 CHAP. x.] A TALE LEARNT FROM TRACKS. of the trees freshened up, and the air was laden with the fragrance of the acacias. For the sportsman, the rain makes a tabula rasa of the sand of the country, by obliterating all old tracks and disposing the ground to admit the sharpest and most distinct foot-mark impressions, which it is quite a luxury to follow. It is wonderful how much may be learnt from spoors; a few tracks will tell a long tale. Thus, a short time since, some of Amiral's men came upon the track of a giraffe, grazing, and others of the party upon that of a lion crouching. Of course the spoors were followed. Of a sudden the lion's tracks entirely disappeared, and those of the giraffe showed he was at full gallop; a small slippery place, caused by a light shower, lay in his path; by the side of it was an ugly sharp stump, the solid relic of a thorn-tree that had been broken down. In the slippery place the giraffe's feet had slid, and the animal had fallen; on the stump was blood and lion's hair; beyond, on one side of it, were the tracks of the lame marauder, as he limped slowly away; on the other side, those of the giraffe at! full gallop. It was therefore evident that the lion had sprung on the back of the giraffe, and was carried by him till he slipped and fell. The fall dislodged the lion, who was flung upon the stump, and was injured too severely to be able to continue the attack. The giraffe seemed not to have been much hurt, as his gallop was a steady one, and there was no blood on his tracks. The October rains can never be depended on; they seldom supply the country with more than one day's water; they are very partial, and mere showers. These rains do more harm than good to a traveller, for, without materially increasing his supplies of water, they cause the dry grass, which overspreads the ground, to rot, and no food can in many places be obtained for the oxen. The true rainy season does not begin till the end of December; and even then it requires many falls before the arid country is so drenched by rain as to allow the water to lie upon its surface. As we travelled on, reports reached us of a shocking and fatal accident which had happened to a trader, who had, while lifting up his gun, caused it to go off, and had shot himself through the arm and side The accident occurred among Cornelius's tribe, and as they were a very suspicious set, I feared that some foul play might have been the cause of his death; however, Cornelius took great pains in forwarding messengers to me, with full particulars of the case, and I could not hear that any robbery had been committed upon him. The cause of i83 ACCIDENTS WITH GUNS. this accident was that of four-fifths of those that occur, namely, the cock being allowed to lie down upon the nipple instead of being kept at half-cock. As the unfortunate man, while sitting in the waggon, drew his gun up to him by the muzzle, it appears that the cock caught against one of the spokes of the wheel, which lifted it a little, so that, when released, it snapped back, and the gun went off. Few as the people are who possess percussion-guns in this remote corner of the world, there have been three deaths and one bad accident with them. For travelling purposes, I do not approve of carrying a gun half-cock, because, in the very careless way that the men persist in holding their fire-arms, the half-cock very frequently becomes full-cock without their knowing it, and the cap also is liable to fall off. I think the safest plan with a common gun is to put a piece of thick rag on the cap, and to let the cock down upon it. But I much prefer having a third nick cut in the "tumbler," by which a very low half or quarter-cock is produced, the cock just clearing the nipple and securing the cap from being dis- lodged; many pistols are made in this way. I have adopted this plan for a very long time in my travelling guns, and confidently recommend it. As to carrying guns on horseback, nobody that I am aware of, except a Hottentot, and occasionally a Dutchman, knows how to do it. Theirs is a most simple and effectual plan, which, strangely enough, has never been adopted or perhaps even proposed for our mounted troops, and which is incomparably superior in practice to any of the usual plans, with all of which I am pretty well familiar. Carrying a gun with a belt across the shoulders is objectionable in every way; the gun jogs excessively about, and its weight is wearisome to a degree; the rider has to go through a vast deal of struggling before he can slip it over his head and get it in hand; and, lastly, in case of a fall, it might injure him severely. The next plan--that of carrying the gun muzzle downwards in a bucket in the position that a sportsman would carry his gun over his arm--is most unsafe; the bullet is perpetually liable to be dislodged, and if dislodged the gun is pretty sure to burst ; besides this, a com- plication of straps are requisite to secure the gun to the belt of the rider, which I find in practice a great inconvenience. Another method is, to sling the gun, which in this case must be a short one, muzzle downward to the back part of the saddle; so that when the rider is on his seat the stock of the gun is behind him, and the muzzle in a bucket I84 [CHAP. x. HOTTENTOT MRTHOD OF CARRYING A GUN ON OX-BACK. i SADDLE ARRANGEMENTS. below his feet. In this plan, as in the last, the bullet is liable to be dislodged, and also the projecting stock of the gun, over which the leg has to be thrown when mounting, is excessively in the way of a person who has to do with a restive or frightened horse. There are straps also in this case, which are as troublesome as in the former. More- over, in all of these there is a jingling and a rattling when the horse trots or canters, which is a very unsportsmanlike sound, although it .may be thought by some to be soldierlike and dashing. Now the Hottentot plan that I recommend I consider perfect: it is to have a case of strong leather (see plate opposite) of such a size and shape as to admit the gun-stock a little stiffly; this case, which I will call the "gun-bag," is fastened tightly above to rings or dees in the pommel of the saddle;. below, it is altogether unsupported except by a thong, which passes round the saddle-girth and keeps the gun-bag from tilting too far forwards; the .gun is pushed stock downwards into the bag, the barrel passes between the right arm and the side, while the muzzle is so entirely clear of the person, that even in taking a drop- leap, that of an ordinarily-sized gun never shifts into a dangerous position. Some time is taken before a person unused to it will find out the best adjustments for both fastenings, as they should be varied according to the rider's seat, but when once determined they have never to be changed. There is no objection whatever to this plan; the hands of the rider are free, and the gun is safe and quite out of the way. It does not cumber him, but he feels it nestling by his side, as an insepar- able and faithful companion should do; the cocks are in full sight; a cover to keep the rain out is most easily put on; in a moment the gun is out of the gun-bag and in the hand, almost as quickly as a whip could be raised, and it can be left on the animal's back when the rider dis- mounts. I do not think the general effect is at all unsightly. I should not mind riding any reasonable horse across country with a gun carried in this way; indeed, it is an invaluable plan to a traveller, for any sized weapon may be put in it; either a little pea-rifle that could be shot off with one hand, as a pistol, or a long heavy two-ounce weapon. A common long shooting gun is perhaps the easiest to carry, though all are easy enough. The other convenient saddle arrangements for a travelling hack, are a bag to hold odds and ends on the left side of the pommel, or where advisable, a holster for a "revolver;" behind the left leg a sabretash, for writing materials may be hung; on the crupper of the saddle there is no harm in having small saddle-bags, CHAP. L] 185 and above them a waterproof cape, with leggings, if the season be very rainy, wrapped up in it. With these things, gun, saddle, and all, a man would ride two and a half stone heavier than he walks, which is nothing for a steady travelling expedition; but if he wants to gallop off, shooting, he must of course limit himself to a saddle and gun-bag. No two people travel in the same dress; my own fancy lies in leather trousers, jack-boots, a thick woollen jersey, a cotton shirt over it, and a cap. A belt supplies pocket room. In foot expeditions, the jack-boots must be replaced by shoes. In Southern Africa I never could walk barefooted; independently of the thorns, there was something in our state of health which made small wounds difficult to heal, and caused scratches in the foot and hand to fester. Our very Damaras could not travel even with their own sandals, much less could we leave off shoes entirely. I was the more surprised at this, as in previous travelling in North Africa I had become nearly independent of them. I recollect climbing Jebel Barkel, which is a well-known rugged hill, with very sharp stones in it, near the fourth cataract of the Nile, barefooted. Without shoes and stockings I think I could not even lay my feet to the ground during the hottest time of the year. Once, owing to a mistake, I had dismounted at a small spring of water and turned my ox loose, who rejoined his comrades, and was driven on with them to a more copious watering-place, a couple of miles ahead; I had no stockings on at that time, only shoes. When I started on foot after the party, the heat of the sand was so intense that I positively was but just able to walk, although my skin was pretty well case-hardened. I underwent real suffering in that short distance, but the cool of thick woollen socks, the thickest that English sailors ever wear, was delicious when they were pulled on to my blistered feet. I do not think that a perfect head-dress has yet been invented by man. A light hunting-cap is very convenient among thick trees, but it cannot be used as a night-cap in the bivouac. As regards colours of the dress, infinite misunderstanding generally prevails, as may at once be perceived by the colour of the uniform in which our rifle corps are clothed. People have an idea that because shadows are dark, and because people who crouch in ambuscade are generally in shadows, that therefore their clothes should be dark also. They forget that the same shade which deepens the tint of the trees gives at the same time an extra depth to the colour of the man's clothes. As a first approxima- r86 TRA ELNG~ DRESS. [CHAP, X. c p, x.] BRIGHT COLOURS OF SKULKING ANIMALS. i87 tion to obtaining the best-coloured dress for the purposes of conceal- ment, one would say, let it be of the prevailing hue of the country it is to be used in; so that, if the clothes were dropped on the ground, they would be positively undistinguishable from it at a short distance, what- ever blaze of light or depth of shadow fell on it. I am acquainted with no country in the world in which "rifle-green" would answer this requirement. But, going a step further, we find that in no case hardly is the colour of the land one uniform hue, but that a cloth of any one colour, even though it be of the prevailing tint, catches the eye from its mass. It is therefore better that the colour of the dress should not be the same throughout, but irregularly broken, and that too in a manner which does not contrast too strongly with the disposition of the scenery, as for instance, the stripes on a tiger's hide being vertical are far less conspicuous among the upright stems and reeds than if nature had disposed them horizontally. A little experimentalizing will show another curious and .very unexpected result, namely, that if the very brightest colours are used in spots or stripes, or in any other design, but in such proportion that their actual mixture would have produced the sober tint required, then, at rifle distances, unless the pattern be too large, all individuality of the colours will be found to have dis- appeared, and they will have merged into exactly the same tint that would have been produced had the same colours been mixed together in the same proportion on the pallet. It will also be found that a very large pattern may be used if the margins of the various bands or spots of colour be a little shaded off. In this way we can in a great degree account for the gaudy liveries with which the most skulking of animals are usually dressed. The cat tribe is almost universally decked out with spots or bars. Snakes and lizards are the most brilliant of animals ; but all these, if viewed at a distance, or with an eye whose focus is' adjusted, not exactly at the animal itself, but to an object more or less distant than it, become apparently of one hue and lose all their gaudi- ness. No more conspicuous animal can well be conceived, according to common idea, than a zebra; but on a bright starlight night the breath- ing of one may be heard close by you, and yet you will be positively unable to see the animal. If the black stripes were more numerous he would be seen as a black mass; if the white, as a white one; but their proportion is such as exactly to match the pale tint which arid ground possesses when seen by moonlight. I therefore protest against the usual notion that people have, as exemplified in the choice of a rifleman's dress. It is infinitely too dark; and this, in addition to the squareness of the hat, makes an object of him that is particularly calculated to attract attention. It would be, I am sure, hopeless to stalk wary animals in such a costume, unless the character of the country gave most peculiar facilities for doing so. A man who wishes to dress for stalking may indulge his smart fancies to a great extent, but should test every pattern that he selects by viewing its effects at a slight distance, say twenty yards, the main point of all being, that the depth of tint (leaving every consideration of colour aside) should be neither too light nor too dark. I have frequently amused myself by cutting out in paper figures of men, all of the same size and shape, and paint- ing one a rifle-green, and the others bright blue, yellow, and red, in spots or patterns. I have then stuck up these figures against the face of a landscape painting, and retreating ten or twelve yards, the dark green form of the rifleman, place it where I would, remained a promi- nent unmistakable mass, while the others faded as it were into the foliage, and could not be distinguished from it. It requires a few trials to hit off the proportions of the different colours used to produce a perfect result. I may add, in case the reader might wish to experi- mentalize, that it saves much running backwards and forwards in doing it to place a looking-glass some distance in front, and, as the painting goes on, to hold the sketch up from time to time and observe the effect in the distant reflection. To return from this long digression to my narrative. On the Ist of November, the eighth day after leaving Elephant Fountain, we heard a report about Hans, which, though untrue, alarmed me exceedingly; it was to the effect that he had shot himself, and that the waggons lay on this side of Eikhams. I was so anxious, that I pushed the oxen through the night, and with but little intermission we were again on the road in morning; we there found Damaras, who to my great relief, assured me that he was alive and well, and I there- fore left the waggon oxen with the men, to have drink and food, and started on first, and walked till I had the pleasure of seeing Hans again, who, after all, had had no accident whatever; he had everything in perfect order, and, as usual, had to show me some result of careful thrift and hard work. The sense of oxen is wonderful; the two sets, mine and his, that had been separated nearly three months, knew each other again perfectly, and passed the night together in the most amicable way, 88 lOIN HANS' PARTY. [ cA P.. A. chAPr. a] BEGIN -TO BREAK UP THE EXPEDITION. instead of fighting and knocking their horns together as new acquaint- ances always do on their first introduction to each other's society. I was badly off for small cattle; of the forty goats that I had bought from Jonker, hardly one was alive; they had all died of a distemper one after the other. Hans gave me a terrible account of the state of the roads south; he said that literally there was no grass whatever for great distances together. In coming up to meet me, the oxen that he had were knocked up entirely, and he had to send first to Jonker's and then to Mr. Hahn's, a journey of many days, for assistance. My oxen were fresh enough, for they had had a long rest at Elephant Fountain, and plenty of grass, so I had but little fear of getting on to the Bay, especially as the road thither is entirely down hill. November 5t.-I arrived at Jonker's, and had long conversations with him, and we parted excellent friends. There seemed a reasonable hope that a more peaceful state of things was now entered upon, although I had failed in obtaining from Cornelius that compensation for the cattle he had stolen from the Damaras, which I had desired. My plans about my personal effects were now arranged. Andersson kept half, and with the other half I made part payment to Hans of the debt for wages and cattle that I owed him. I took this opportunity to sell one waggon to Jonker for forty oxen, and to buy others besides. Phlebus was dismissed, that he might return home to Rehoboth. As Barmen was to be the headquarters of Andersson and of Hans also, after I had left the country, we took on Jonker's waggon by ourselves to that place, and there all its contents were placed in store. Wishing the Missionaries a final farewell, I travelled on to Otjimbingue with the large waggon, whose axletree had been replaced at Okamabuti, but had recently, in jolting over a stone, split lengthways; I therefore made ready to leave it behind, if necessary, and push on with ride- oxen; in fact, I had no time to spare, for the animals were fast knock- ing up from hunger; however, by blacksmithing and carpentering as well as we could, the waggon was made strong enough to travel on with us. We passed rapidly through Otjimbingue, for there was no grass there, and on the 21st of November reached Tsobis. Now I felt safe; happen what might, I could reach the Bay in time to save the ship. The oxen were very thin and weak, but there were plenty of reeds in the Swakop for them to eat. As we moved down the Tsobis River, by the ,place where the first giraffe was shot, some natives warned us of 14 I189 TRAVEL DOWN THE SWAKOP. the next watering-holes at the mouth of the river, for the Ghou Damup had poisoned the water to kill the buffaloes that then were there. We had arrived at the Swakop before we were aware of it; the oxen rushed, as they often do, wildly to the watering-holes, and though we drove them away before any one had drunk enough to hurt them seriously, yet one dog was very nearly killed. He rolled about in agonies from the poison. The oxen became still weaker, the change of food from dry grass to reeds quite upset them, so that we had to rest the following day. November 24th.--We could just move on through the sand with hard struggling, and the next day we arrived at a place where old Piet was encamped, and were luxuriously treated with milk. We slept at Annaas on the 27th, at Davi~ep on the 28th; there was not a relic to be found of my poor horse and mule that the lions had eaten there. We now travelled principally by night. From Davidep we arrived safely at Oosop, after rather a hazardous jolting which the waggon underwent in going down a steep bank, and we were then only one day's journey from the Bay. Andersson rode directly across the plain to Scheppmansdorf, to make inquiries after news and to rearrange some of the packages. He was to send back word to me immediately on his arrival. There was plenty of grass at Oosop, and I stayed there two days, and then went on to Hycomkap, where Andersson's messenger reached me, saying that the ship had not arrived. As we had slept at Oosop on the 29th, we could, if I had chosen, have reached the Bay on the 3oth. We left 'Tounobis October loth, so that the entire journey would have taken us fifty-three days; but, had the country been in a good state for travelling, I am sure that I could have done it in ten days less, or forty-three days. I had calcu- lated on thirty-seven days' actual travel, and four of rest, or forty-one days. With a change of oxen at Eikhams or Elephant Fountain, I think Lake 'Ngami ought to be reached in fifty days from Walfisch Bay, and with a change at Otjimbingue and again at Elephant Fountain, h light well-driven waggon might do it in forty days. At Hycomkap we had some pretty foot-chases after gemsbok calves, and killed a few. The whole number of oxen in the drove were now 133. Jonker had still some to pay, when he received the mules. December 4th.-We left Hycomkap in the afternoon for the Bay, and walked the whole night through and the following morning besides, with only half an hour's intermission. The cool sea breeze fanned our 19go [CHAP. . 191 CHAP, x.] WHALES, SHARKS, AND OSTRICHES. faces about eight o'clock, and to my intense delight I saw in the dis lance two vessels at anchor in Walfisch Bay. We arrived there at ten it the forenoon, not a bit tired, but highly excited. The vessels were whal :rs; all the Scheppmansdorf party were on the beach, and seeing and tall ing to so many people seemed quite another world to me, after my 1 ng and almost solitary ramble. These whalers were the very first ves ,els, excepting one, which had touched at the Bay since my arrival in the country. I now put the store-house into habitable order, and s( ttled down, awaiting the arrival of the ship I expected, which was to bring me all my letters, my clothes, and everything that I had left behind me at Cape Town. Days passed, the cold was bitter, and I passed most of the daytime rolled up in my caross. The wind whistled through every cranny, and though the sun was vertical at noon, yet its rays never seemed to touch us. I employed myself fishing with a seine net, doing a little whale fishery in the bay, and in trying to harpoon small sharks out of my mackintosh pontoon; one gave me a capsize. I shot and captured one, and slew but lost three others; at least, though habituds of the place, they never reappeared. I rode one day with Andersson to Scheppmansdorf, when we saw a brood of young ostriches, each about a foot high, with their parents, and gave chase. The creatures could run very nearly as fast as we, and had quite as good a wind, so, having a long start, they gave us a severe chase before we came up to them, when we slew six. Returning from Scheppmansdorf I drove the three miles in a cart that Mr. Bam had made himself, and as we were cantering over the plain I again saw the ostriches, and went after them in my chariot. I soon came up with them, and, jumping out, captured six more. [Their skulls were wanted by Prof. Owen.] Christmas and New Year's Day had passed, when, early in January, 1852, as the morning haze cleared away, the sails of a schooner loomed large before us; in a moment I was in my pontoon and paddled out to her, jumped on board, and received my letters of a year and nine months' interval. They were not indeed unchequered by melancholy news; but for the intelligence they conveyed of my own family circle I had every reason to be grateful. Thus closed my anxieties and doubts. I had much indeed to be thankful for. I had not lost one of my many men either through violence or through sickness in the long and harass- ing journey I had made. It was undertaken with servants who, at starting, were anything but qualified for their work, who grumbled, held back, and even mutinied, and over whom I had none other than a moral control. I had to break in the very cattle that were to carry me, and to drill into my service a worthless set of natives, speaking an un- known tongue. The country was suffering from all the atrocities of savage war when I arrived, and this state of things I had to put an end to before I could proceed. All this being accomplished, I found myself without any food to depend upon, except the oxen that I drove with me, which might, on any evening, decamp or be swept off in a night attack by the thieving and murderous Damaras. That all this was gone through successfully, I am in the highest degree indebted both to Andersson and to Hans, for single-handed, I hardly know what I should have done. On the i6th of January I said my last adieu, and in company with Timboo, John Williams, and John Morta, sailed away to St. Helena. The rest remained in the country. Hans intended to make a venture in cattle and ivory, and Andersson to investigate the natural history of the lake district. Of the natural history of Damaraland he had made a complete collection, but the barrenness of the country admitted of no great scope to the naturalist. The flowers were very few and wretched- looking. I really only know one that would look presentable in an English garden. What few seeds I brought from Ovampoland are now planted in the gardens at Kew. My Ovampo fowls survived a stormy passage homewards, and laid eggs constantly, until they came to English latitudes, and then they all died; and my faithful cur, Dinah, is the only living animal of the expedition, besides myself, that fate has as yet allowed to revisit Europe. LEAVE AFRICA. [CHAP. X. 192 APPENDIX. IT now remains to briefly sketch the subsequent history of the chief dramatis iersonce who have figured in this narrative; and that of the land where its scene was laid. Egotistically to begin with myself, I recur with keen and sustained pleasure to the memory of the journey. It filled my thoughts at the time with enlarged ideas and new interests, and it has left an enduring mark on all my after life. Andersson's subsequent career became identified with Damara- land and the adjacent countries. It was chequered by good and bad fortunes. He first returned to Eikhams and 'Tounobis, and thence made his way to Lake 'Ngami, where he spent some time, almost alone, in exploring its affluent river from the north. He col- lected cattle in Damaraland and drove them overland to the Cape with commercial success, and thenceforward became a cattle trader and merchant in Damaraland, as well as a widely-known traveller and naturalist. He must not be confounded with either of two subse- quent travellers bearing the same or at least similar names. His first book, "Lake 'Ngami," was published in 1856 (Hurst & Blackett). Hans Larsen and John Allen, who had accompanied him to Cape Town, were thence attracted to Australia by the then new discovery of gold. They have never since been heard of, to my great regret, though many inquiries in likely quarters were made. Andersson returned to Damaraland about the end of i856 or the beginning of 1857, and Timboo and John Morta were of his party. In this journey, from which extracts will be given further on, he attempted to reach the Cunenb, but his passage through Ovampo- land was peremptorily refused, owing to recent occurrences. The Revs. Messrs. Hahn and Rath, the missionaries, and Mr. Green, the hunter, had come into serious conflict with those people, as will be shortly described, and many lives had been lost. He then turned to the north-east and discovered the Okovango River (see the ma). This journey was described in a volume called by that name and published mn I86I. During all this time numerous traders and hunters were arriving in Damaraland, pushing their commerce and their travels in all directions. The Namaquas were again in continual hostilities with the Damaras, and the country was much disturbed. A mining company with an extensive plant, including oxen and waggons, had been established in Damaraland, but did not succeed. The pro- perty was put up to sale at Cape Town in 1863, and Andersson, who was then residing there, bought it. So he again returned to Damara- land, but'this time as the owner of a large commercial undertaking. The Namaquas resisted his settlement and threatened his life. He made common cause with the surrounding Damaras. There was a great fight, in which he commanded them, and in which they were quite beaten; and Andersson received a bullet wound below the knee that shattered the bone. Then followed months of great danger and pain. He was ultimately brought back to the Cape, and the leg at last was healed, though he remained partly crippled. He was also nearly ruined. As a final and desperate venture he deter- mined to make another commercial expedition; and, though in shattered health, his determined spirit carried him on, and he con- trived to reach Ovampoland and the Cun6n6. His strength and health now began greatly to fail, and as his sickness increased he turned back, only to die on the way, in 1867, a little to the north-east of Ondonga. Extracts from his journal were edited by Mr. Lloyd and published in i875, under the title of "Notes of Travel in South Africa." It is impossible in a few pages to unravel the tangled skein of events that ran their several courses during the period of the above transactions. Marauding expeditions, the rise of new chiefs, inter- minable squabbles about disputed land and about personal wrongs, form the general staple of all South African history. It is therefore better to attempt no consecutive narrative, but merely to give a few extracts from various sources that severally afford a pretty clear 194 APPENDIX glimpse from time to time of what was then going on. I will select such as are best adapted to prolong the history of the persons and peoples described in the narrative. Extract from " Proceedings of the Royal Geografhical Society.' (1858). Vol. ii., page 350.--A letter from the Rev. C. Hugo Hahn, dated Barmen, October 7th, 1857, has appeared in the Cafe Town Com- mercial Advertiser, describing the disastrous issue of a journey taken by himself and his colleague, the Rev. Mr. Rath, together with Mr. F. Green, from Damaraland to the Ovampo, in search of the river Cun~nb. A published letter from the latter gentleman has also been received. The missionaries pursued the track of Mr. Galton and Mr. Andersson as far as the Omoramba K'Omanbonde, where they left it and followed the river bed. After a few days they unexpectedly met with Mr. F. Green, who also wished to travel to the Cunbn6, and who informed them that the Omoramba ended abruptly, about forty miles farther on, in a sandy soil. Consequently the two parties joined and proceeded northwards. They ultimately fell in with another river-bed running north-west, (I believe the bearings to be magnetic), and they followed it. This brought them unexpectedly to a small lake situated about thirty-two miles east-south-east of the Etosha salt pan. It was well stocked with flamingoes, pelicans, and other water-fowl, and its circumference was judged by Mr. Green to be twenty miles. It is called Onondova, is occupied by Bushmen tributary to the Ovampo, and is the frontier of the pasture-grounds of Ovampoland. Messengers were sent from Onondova to Nangoro, the king of the Ovampo, asking permission to visit him, and a travelling party of Ovampo were afterwards met, whose leader undertook to conduct them to his village, saying that it was his special office to introduce strangers. On entering Ondonga, the fertile district of Ovampoland, they were met by one messenger after another, sent to them by Nangoro, and were received cordially and respectfully by the people. The caravan consisted of four waggons and one hundred loose oxen, besides those yoked to the waggons, and about thirty Damaras. Just before reaching Nangoro's house their guide told them that APPENDIX. 195 the king desired their assistance in an expedition against a small neighbouring tribe with whom he was at war, At this request the missionaries were surprised and disgusted, and refused indignantly. 7 he guide took it very quietly, and immediately allowed the subject to drop; but, from that moment, there was an evident change in their mutual relations. Nangoro would not see them for five days, and when he did so he gave them a cold reception and flatly refused to allow them to proceed farther. Mr. Green's account of their reception in Ovampoland is as follows:-- "The guide appearing a frank and honest fellow, we gladly placed ourselves under his directions; and as he was very com- municative-added to which, a shrewd character--we became rather disposed in his favour. Upon our arrival at the chief's residence, he appeared to be a complete maser of ceremonies; our messages, together with our presents, were delivered by him, and the custom of lighting our fire from that of the chief's hearth was strictly attended to and executed with a little skill of witchcraft by him. Our first present was returned, with a message that whatever we intended to give his royal highness, besides the beads, must be despatched at the same time. We became exceedingly annoyed at his impertinence, and told him very plainly that it was our custom to send presents in that way, and he must conform to it; that in sending the present back he did not appear to be on friendly terms with us, and we did not like it; that if we had anything further to give the chief, we should do so after we hadthe honour of seeing him, ' if his words were good for us; ' if not we should not give him anything more. I was determined not to allow myself to be imposed upon by this beggarly chief, which was also the same in Mr. Hahn's case. (Mr. Galton allowed himself and party to be sadly imposed upon by Nangoro, which induced the latter to make a like attempt upon us.) This returning of presents was at length amicably settled, but we had occasion to be exceedingly angry at the non-appearance of the chief; after we had been at his town for three days, we sent a message to inform him that we were not accustomed to wait the pleasure of a chief so long, and that if he did not come the following day we should inspan and ride away-also, that if he considered himself a great chief, then so did we. This message appeared rather to astonish his highness, and we shortly received a reply that we must not imagine that it was done with any evil design, but 196 APPENDIX. it was a custom from the day he was born, and that he would come and pay his respects the ensuing day. He kept his promise, and we were not sorry when we were rid of the company of this fat old man." Many incidents occurred while the party was encamped near Nangoro which aroused suspicion and great alarm, the Damaras were exceedingly afraid, and appeared in momentary expectation at all hours of the night and day of being surrounded by the Ovampo and massacred; but no overt act was committed until the party prepared to leave :- " On the morning of the 3oth of July we yoked in the oxen at daylight,' and made a start just as the sun was making its appear- ance above the horizon. To guard against their opposing our exit from Ondonga, our caravan was arranged as follows: the loose cattle and donkeys were kept in advance, under an escort of all the available Damaras; after which came the four waggons, that of Mr. Hahn bringing up the rear. As I still retained a horse, I was mounted, and continued with the cattle in advance. We had not ridden many hundred yards when a party of the Ovampo came running from the direction of the chief's village ; one of the sons of the latter asked both Mr. H. and myself if we were going, to which we replied that we were; shortly after, the ' war cry' resounded on all sides. Some made a rush forward for the road to bar our progress." Mr. Hahn went unarmed to one of Nangoro's sons whom he recognized in the crowd and expostulated with him. This had a slight effect in checking the demonstration, but shortly after there was a cry, and Nangoro's son had driven his assegai through the back of one of the Damaras; the poor fellow dropped, but as he fell he fired off both barrels of his gun, killing an elder son of Nangoro and another man, besides wounding his murderer. This was the critical moment. Mr. Green says :-- " I rode forward to meet one man, more daring than the rest, who was stealthily approaching with his javelin quivering in his hand; I suddenly dismounted, and, whilst he sat thinking to escape the bullet, with a well-directed and steady aim I shot him; and the words 'blood for blood' rested on my lips. It was the first fellow-creature I had ever killed. There remained nothing more but to fight for my life, and that of the people I had brought into danger-and I was determined to sell it dearly." APPENDIX. 97 About noon the Ovampo had desisted, and Mr. Hahn having most fortunately heard, only the night before, that uninhabited plains might be reached at no great distance in a south-west direction, that course was adopted; and ultimately, after a forced march of three days and two nights making a wide circuit, they reached the Otjihako wa Motenya utterly exhausted. The missionaries appear to have reached Barmen without further disaster, and Mr. Green dates his letter from the shores of Onondova, the new lake. A letter of Mr. Ch. J. Andersson has also been received, in which he announces his intention of himself starting for the Cun6n6. He adds that he is wretchedly equipped, but that rather than lose the season he will start at once. A discussion followed the reading of this paper from which the following is extracted. Mr. Galton said: " I must express great regret at the tenor of a large part of this account. I quite gather from Mr. Green's letter that he adopted a domineering tone towards the Ovampo, which I believe to have been eminently injudicious, to have been construed by them as a menace, and to have been resented in the way we have heard. In passing judgment on the conduct of the Ovampo, we must try and place ourselves in their position. Their territory is visited, almost invaded, by a strong party of foreigners, who are judged to be kindred to the Namaqua chiefs from their colour, language, creed, and intermarriages; and the Namaquas are a race of marauders, who have lifted cattle from the very borders of Ovampoland, and are known to be awaiting a favourable opportunity for invading that country. These foreigners are fully armed and dictatorial in their ways; they refuse to give those presents which are well described as taking the place of customs duties in African nations. They show scant courtesy to the king, and they very probably trespass in not a few of the many requirements of a witchcraft ceremonial. Why, if such a thing could be imagined as that thirty or forty headstrong Englishmen were to make a sudden descent upon the shores of a continental power, at a time when war seemed to impend, professing peace but armed to the teeth and ready to fight, unfurnished with any kind of credentials, violating quarantine laws, setting all authority at nought, and coming for no conceivable purpose except that of making an armed reconnaissance, I presume they would have been treated by the nearest inhabitants or military guard in a not less 198 APPENBIX. hostile manner than this exploring party has been by the Ovampo. As to the treachery of which complaint has been made, I do not see that it is proved, for the expedition was treated with little favour. Or, even if it were proved, that it would make the attack much more difficult to excuse. Treachery is not so black a crime in the morale of African nations as it is in our own ; we must also recollect that it is a last resort of the weak against the strong, such as the Ovampo suspected they might be before the much dreaded guns of their unwelcome visitors. Mr. Green remarks that I was imposed upon by Nangoro in the matter of presents; but, on reading his list of gifts, I find I do not deserve the credit of having been so liberal as himself, yet I had the good fortune to conciliate where he had not, and I was able to leave, in peace, the happy country of a noble and a kindly negro race, which has now, for the first time, been confronted and humbled before the arrogant strength of the white man." Extract from Andersson's losthumous " Notes of Travel in Soult Africa." (I875.) Page 237.-"The loss on Mr. Hahn's side was only a single native attendant, who was killed near to the missionary's waggon previous to the commencement of the fight, whereas that of the Ovampo was very considerable, many being either killed or wounded; and amongst the former one of the sons of Nangoro. Nangoro himself, moreover, is reported to have met his death on this occasion (a statement at variance with the general impression, as elsewhere stated, that he came to his end by foul means), for although not present at the fight, yet on hearing the repeated discharges of fire-arms he became so excited and terrified that he dropped down dead." Extracts from Andersson's " Okavango Ri~er." (I86I.) Page 5.-" I have omitted to mention one interesting fact connected with this expedition (of Messrs. Hahn, Rath and Green), and which, in some measure, redeems the credit of the undertaking. This was the discovery of a fresh-water lake, called Onondova, which the explorers actually stumbled upon; for though they had people with them perfectly well acquainted with the country, they were not aware of its existence until they actually and accidentally caught sight of the zater. This lake, as far as it is possible to judge, A4PPENDIX. x99 either from the west or east,-and I have been within a couple of days' journey of it,-is situated in about lat. 2 i�, and long. 190�. The travellers did not go round it, they merely saw it at its eastern extremity; but water appeared as far as the eye could reach all round, and they estimated its circumference at from twenty-five to thirty English miles. Mr. Galton and myself, in the year I850, actually passed within one day's march of this superb inland sea without-such is the difficulty of obtaining information from the natives-having the slightest suspicion of its existence. Agaain, f. II3.-" It was now close upon eight years and a half since I first visited Omanbonde. On my first visit to this place, in company with Mr. Galton, Omanbonde was, as I have already men- tioned, nothing more than a large dried-up vley; and this being again a year of severe drought,-at least to judge from the state of the Omuramba,--I had expected to see it in a similar condition. Most agreeably was I then surprised to find a sheet of water four and a half miles in extent, abounding with water-fowl, and largely resorted to by a great variety of game and wild animals, such as elephants, rhino- ceroses, elands, koodoos, gemsbucks, zebras, pallahs, lions, etc. There were no hippopotami, however, though plenty of 'sea-room ' for a dozen or two. Besides this vley, I discovered another in the immediate neighbourhood, almost rivalling Omanbondb in size; several Bushmen villages besprinkled its borders or banks, which were very high, but sloping, not steep, and richly covered with a luxuriant vegetation, consisting chiefly of very fine groves of acacias, and the giraffe thorn-tree, just bursting forth into spring life. In the background, and to the northward, were the broken and pic- turesque limestone ranges of Otjirokaku, Otjomokojo, etc. Alto- gether the scene, very pleasing, was rendered perhaps more so by the contrast it afforded to the dry and parched state of the country immediately surrounding it. To me it was a real oasis in the desert." Again, J. I39.--" The Damara caravan, alluded to in the last chapter, returned suddenly and unexpectedly to Omanbonde. To my surprise, I learnt that they had not succeeded in getting further than to the neighbourhood of Etosha. Here they had encountered one of the Ovampo outposts, the occupants of which had per- emptorily forbidde n them to proceed further. To remove this un- foreseen hindrance, messages were despatched to the paramount APPENDIX. so2 chief of the tribe, Chipanga, the successor of Nangoro. The answer they received was a decided negative. To their repeated entreaties to be allowed to enter Ondonga, he invariably replied-' On no condition whatever.' " In the interchange of messages that ensued, much was also said about white men. Indeed, ever since Messrs. Green's and Hahn's engagement with the Ovambo, Chipanga had lived in constant trepidation. On the mere report of my being at Omanbonde, he fled precipitately to a distant Bushman village, there to hide himself, it was said, till assured of my absence from the neighbourhood. This barbarian not only believed that white men's guns were in- vincible, but also entertained the notion that, without any weapons, by merely looking at a person, a white man could cause his death. ' If not,' the brave chief was heard to exclaim, 'how was it that Nangoro was killed by the mere report of fire-arms ?' " The Ovampo never seemed thoroughly to understand the dread- ful efficacy of these weapons, until their disastrous defeat by Green and his party. It would appear that their previous fearlessness arose in a great measure from merely seeing, when fired, the flash of the discharged gun, and not the missile. 'When we throw an assegai, or shoot an arrow, we SEE it going through the air,' said they, 'but with your rifles, nothing but a harmless fire is perceived.' From a supreme contempt of our arms they had now, however, gone to the other extreme, and had a most exaggerated notion of their fearful destructiveness." Extracts from Andersson's losthumous "Notes of Travel in South Africa." (875.) Page 212.-" With the first return of daylight I was in the saddle, eager not only to meet my people once more, but to gaze upon that country which, some sixteen years before, I had visited in company with my esteemed friend Galton, to whom the public is so much indebted for his valuable contributions to science. " Ovampoland, or rather Ondonga, as that portion of the country is commonly called, has since then undergone many changes. Bloody civil wars had swept like a hurricane over its quiet rural beauties, immolating or dispersing one-half of its -industrial, gay- hearted, and inoffensive population, and leaving but the fame of the APPENDIX. 20 vast herds of cattle that once gave additional charms and import- ance to the country. The exactions and contributions of foreign auxiliaries called in by one or other of the contending parties, and the insidious and destructive 'lung sickness,' left but a small remnant of these, their chief wealth. Old Nangoro, the obese king spoken of by Mr. Galton, who was chieftain on my former sojourn here, had died under very suspicious circumstances, and more than one other ruler of the country had subsequently met with a tragical death. But there had now been peace for some years, and the country itself presented the same beautiful appearance as had enchanted me on our first becoming acquainted with it. The like magnificent trees, both forest and fruit, were observable everywhere, and the landscape, as heretofore, was dotted in all directions with patriarchal-looking hamlets, and further enlivened by groups of men, women, and children, occupied in their several vocations. The cheerful twitterings and warblings of numerous birds, moreover, added an additional charm to the scene. I have seen many lands and places, some perhaps, strictly speaking, more beautiful; but amongst the extensive Savannahs, or the interminable forests of South Africa, which so long has been my home, there was but one Ondonga. [A few weeks after writing these kindly words, poor Andersson was dead.-F.G.] Page 225.-" There are no rivers in Ondonga, only an "omur- amba," or periodical water-course, containing grass as well as water, which intersects nearly its whole length, and never dries up entirely, even in the hottest summer. From the level nature of the country, however, it hardly drains an area of half-a-mile on either side ; and in extraordinarily wet seasons, therefore, the country is half under water, from which cause, as will naturally be inferred, it becomes extremely unhealthy. But more of this hereafter. " Neither are there minerals in Ondonga, or, in fact, in any part of the extensive country surrounding it that is claimed by the Ovampo. Iron these people obtain by barter from neighbouring tribes; and copper is brought to them, in the shape of ore, by the Bushmen who inhabit the border country between Ovampo and Damara lands. With gold and silver they are unacquainted, as also with all other known metals except the two just named. "The climate of Ondonga cannot be looked on as healthy, the 202 APPENDIX. natives at all times suffering more or less from ophthalmia, dysentery, and fever; for none of which diseases have they any specific. In very wet seasons, moreover, when the rains, generally lasting from January to May, have been unusually heavy, and the country as a consequence laid half under water, a kind of intermittent fever (to which foreigners and strangers are equally as liable as the natives) extensively prevails, causing the mortality to be frightful. This disease arises, no doubt, from the excessive amount of evaporation that takes place after the downpourings have ceased. Nevertheless, the country generally cannot with propriety be called either swampy or marshy; for, as said, the soil is sandy, and neither reeds nor rushes will thrive in it. With the exception of the 'Omuramba' spoken of, none of the 'vleys' hold water throughout the year, and consequently there is no encouragement for the formation of decom- posed matter." Page 215.--" Thus was a journey of very considerable extent, attended by some real dangers and many inconveniences, speedily and safely accomplished; and by taking a route different from that pursued by Mr. Galton and myself, I was enabled to rectify much of the map that I had constructed of Damaraland, besides adding largely to its details, which map I have since sent to the Royal Geographical Society in London. As regards my researches in natural history, moreover, I was enabled to corroborate much that was previously somewhat doubtful, as also to add no inconsider- able quantity of new matter to my previous store. On the evening of this day, therefore, though still very ill .in body, I retired to rest with great satisfaction, and truly grateful to Providence for the many mercies and blessings vouchsafed to me during my recent wanderings. " On the evening of my arrival at Ondonga I received a visit from Chykongo, the paramount chief of Ovampoland. He is perhaps fifty years of age, but appears younger. His figure is commanding, though slightly inclined to corpulency, and his face intelligent; but if the eyes are closely examined they will be found somewhat sinister in expression, especially if he is at all unpleasantly excited. But, taken altogether, the Ovampo ruler is certainly by far the most chief-like in aspect and bearing of all the native sovereigns between the Orange River and the Cun~n6, with whom I am acquainted. " But Chykongo did not succeed to his present elevated position APPENDIX. so3 quietly. Immediately on Nangoro's death, which, as recently observed, I have reason to believe was sudden and unnatural, the sovereign sway was assumed by Chypanza, his elder brother, though I imagine this was quite in accordance with the law of succession in the country. There was at the time a strong party who inclined for another chief, at the head of which was Nakonjona (a re- markably intelligent and fine-looking man), but Chypanza, dreading his influence, caused him to be put out of the way. On this, the younger brother of the murdered man, the present chief Chykongo, sent for assistance to Jonker Afrikaner, the famous Namaqua free- booter, who shortly afterwards appeared in Ovampoland with a considerable force. For a while he amused himself by laying heavy contributions of cattle, etc., on the natives, besides slaying very many of them. "After varying fortunes and manceuvrings, it would seem that at last an open fight between the people of Chypanza and those of Chykongo took place, in which the latter were victorious, entirely dispersing their adversaries, many of whom fled for protection to neighbouring rulers. Since then Chykongo has governed the country, and with the same tyrannical power and freedom as his predecessor, Nangoro, but he seems less reserved with his subjects, who address him much more familiarly." E.xtracts from " Reort of C. W. Palgrave, of his Mission to Damaraland and Great Namaqualand in I876." (Cape Town: 1877). Page 44.--" In round numbers it may be stated that Damaraland has an area of Ioo,ooo square miles. Of these 20,000 may be struck out as useless or unknown coast, desert, and other barren tracts; 35,000 square miles are taken up for commonage, and of the remain- ing 45,000 square miles, one third should be set aside for the occupation of Berg Damaras and Bushmen, and those Namaquas, who at the present time are recognized inhabitants of the country. " In the 30,000 square miles remaining, all those who know the country agree that farms for at least 400 families might be found, and some of them with sufficient water to be sites for villages. My own observation leads me to the same estimate, although I am by no means certain that permanent waters could be found 204 APPENDIX. for so many 'places.' I think, even for stock farms, and few could be made anything else of, one half of them would require t have dams constructed. " Suitable pasture is everywhere abundant for oxen, and although the northern part of the country is considered too richly gra sed for sheep and goats, there are considerable tracts of 'veldt' like the karoo, in the Colony, where the Cape sheep is known to thrive ad. mirably, in which it is already contemplated to place the Mer'no. "Western and north-western Damaraland, or the Kaoko, is, however, essentially a cattle-breeding country, and when its waste pastures are utilized, should be able to supply four or five thousan oxen annually to the colonial market. "For many years it was held in the highest estimation by the Damaras, and I am at a gloss to understand how they came to abandon its healthy, bracing, high lands for the plains they now occupy, and desire to retain for their exclusive use." Page 83.-" With the mention of the Bastards, I believe I have enumerated all the different tribes and people to be found in Damaraland, and their numbers may be compared in the following list :- Herero, or Cattle Damaras .. . 5,co Honquain, or Berg Damaras . 30o,coo Bushmen . . . . . . . . . 3,000 Namaquas . . . . . . ,5 )o Bastards . ........ 1,50) Europeans and other whites (not including Bacrs) . 150 Total . . 2I, I50 " The trade of the country may be said to e confined to ivory, ostrich feathers, and cattle, although but little interest is taken in the latter trade. A few hides and skins re exported, but the quantity is too small to require notice. As f r as I have been able to ascertain them, the shipments for the last two years to this Colony from Walwich Bay, have been as follows: In 1875, ivory, 32,ooolbs ostrich feathers, 5,6oolbs.; 1876, ivory, 34,5oolbs. ; ostrich feathers, 5,8oolbs., and in each of these years about 3,oo, oxen have been despatched overland to markets within the colony. The gross value of each year's exports may be estimated rqughly at �45,ooo, a small 15 APPENbIx. c5 amount, when we consider the immense extent of country placed under contribution. Those actively engaged in this trade, believe that it is not capable of any material extension, and I am inclined to this opinion; for although a more settled government will afford increased protection, and enable the trader, with less risk, to carry his wares to remoter tribes, this will but balance the falling off of the trade nearer home, caused by the destruction of the animals on the existence of which it mainly depends. But it is not on any increase in the supply of ivory and ostrich feathers that the future welfare of the country depends so much as on the peaceful occupation of its almost uninhabited parts, by an industrious population content to look to their flocks and herds for a livelihood, and the effect of the example of such a population on the neighbouring natives. " The Damaras will, some day, make most excellent flock masters, for although their position and circumstances have not been favour. able to their earning a reputation for industry, as herders of sheep and cattle they are unrivalled, and I have often been an astonished witness to the great care and trouble taken by them in the rearing of these. " Their long intercourse with white people has developed singu. larly few wants amongst them, so that the export trade of the country is but little affected by the majority. A universal desire to possess fire-arms and ammunition, which once existed, has been sc fully gratified, that this trade may be said to have ceased, and the dealers, with large stocks on hand, now look for markets with the Ovambo, and the people about Lake 'Ngami. At page 22 of this report I have already called attention to the extent to which the Damaras are armed, and the enormous number of fire-arms in the country awaiting sale. Two or three years must elapse before purchasers are likely to be found for them all. "The demand for clothing increases with each year, and at least one fourth of the Damara males may be said to have adopted civilized dress. Of the women only those, as a rule, who are members of the Mission congregations are as far advanced in this respect as the men, but with both sexes the missionaries make the "* 9tion of European clothing a condition of church membership. " Lullock waggons and horses, are freely bartered for cattle, hich change hands again for ostriclh , cthers and ivory. o6 APPENDIX. "A few ploughs and a little saddlery, iron cooking pots, iron wire, beads, knives, tinder boxes, coffee and tobacco, complete the list of articles required for the Damaraland trade. "Nearly the whole of this trade is done with Cape Town by means, at the present time, of a schooner of about 120 tons, which makes about six voyages in the year, and now and then a vessel employed on the coast calls at Walwich Bay for passengers and cargo for Cape Town. Extracts from ' A ourney from Mossamedes to the River Cuneni, S. TV Africa," by the Earl of Mayo. (R. Geo. Proc. 1883.) Page 458.-" I left Liverpool in s.s. Benguella. Mr. H. H. Johnston was with me, and my servant Paul Kelly. We arrived at S. Paul de Loanda, the capital of Angola, on June 9th, 1882, and found we were too late to catch the Portuguese steamer going south to Mossamedes; but through the kindness of the Admiralty at home, I was enabled to get a passage in H.M.S. Rambler, and on June 22nd we dropped anchor in Little Fish Bay, off Mossamedes. Mossamedes is a pretty little town, built of white stone, on the shores of the bay, with an esplanade of palm-trees running along in front of the houses. The country to the east and south is a complete desert. We found that waggons had come down to meet the Portuguese steamer that had arrived here from Lisbon on the 8th, but had again gone up the country; so here we were, stranded on the coast, with no possible means of reaching, except by walking, the new Boer settlement Humpata,* which I intended to make my zied-d-terre. That very afternoon I despatched letters to Humpata to three people there, entreating them to send down waggons to take us into the interior, with our goods and baggage." Page. 462.-" The waggons that had brought us from Mossamedes remained at the foot of the mountains. The oxen were driven up to Humpata, and on July 27th appeared again with three other waggons. We reached Humpata from Erickson's Camp about eleven at night, the disselboom or pole of one of the waggons break- ing en route, delaying us. The cost of bringing our goods from * Humpata is about too miles as the crow flies, from Mossamedes, inland, and about 14o miles north-west c f Humbd on the Cunend (see map). APPENDIX. .2a7 Mossamedes to Capangombe, all included, was �45. No oxen died on this route as they very often do. " Humpata, the new Boer settlement, had been established some eighteen months when I arrived. The Boers, with their wives, children, and cattle, had trecked from Pretoria in the Transvaal, and took seven years' wandering to reach this place. They were already living in comfortable little thatched cottages, with stone and mud walls, and all were most kind, obliging, and hospitable. Taking them all round, a finer set of men I had rarely seen; with- out doubt, during that terrible seven years' journey it was a case of the survival of the fittest. The whole account, written by Mr. W. W. Jordan, is given from a Cape journal in my report on Ovampoland, now in this Society's Library. The little cottages at Humpata are scattered about on rolling downs. To the north mountains rise up, and to the south the ground gradually falls till near Huilla, which is on the second plateau. The temperature is the same nearly the whole year round, and a healthier place I can- not well imagine. Two streams water the many Boer farms lying around, and a cleverly constructed canal with many branches brings water within reach of all the cottages and gardens. " On July 3Ist, we left Humpata for the river Cun n.n The first thing that happened was that one of the waggons stuck in a muddy irrigation channel just outside Humpata; we had to dig it out. We reached Huilla the next day. It is a Portuguese military station situated in a fertile valley with a muddy and deep stream running down it; the position is fixed by Dufour in 15� 2' 4" south latitude. This is the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Mission, and here I had the pleasure of meeting Pere Duparquet, who has given to the world so much information on the river Okavango, and the tribes of Ovampoland. The mission at Huilla is flourishing; they are building a college for pupils from St. Paul de Loanda, and Huilla is a healthy and pleasant place to reside iv." Page 466.-" Before reaching Humb6 we passed a Portuguese settler's home; this district is thickly inhabited by Ovampos, who are little different from those living south of the Cun6n6; in fact, as Pire Duparquet stated to me, he cannot see any difference between the tribes near the north bank of the Cun6ne and those living south in the so-called Ovampoland. I have seen natives from the south: they are the same in dress, language, and manners and 208 APPENDIX. customs. These North Ovampos speak a dialect of the Damara language, and cultivate each hereditary farm separately and not in common like the Hah6 and Huilla natives ; they will not willingly sell their land; they possess plenty of cattle and goats, and take care of the natural fruit trees of the country, which, with Indian corn, form their staple food. Indian corn is the food of all races in this part of Africa. Boers, and the poorer Portuguese eat large quantities of it. Bananas and oranges are a cultivated luxury, and the poorer natives seldom get meat, except as hangers-on to a European camp, where they become hewers of wood and drawers of water, and return in a short time to their villages strong and well loaded with the dried meat of antelopes, giraffes, etc., which they have saved up. I found all natives during my journey quite peaceable, very much frightened at the horses, for before the Boers came into the country, some eighteen months ago, they had never seen a horse; a mounted man makes them run away, but they are now beginning to be accustomed to these animals, especially the villagers living near the waggon track in which we were travelling, and which is the one made by the Boers on their journey from the Transvaal to Humpata. This district so thickly inhabited is covered with large baobab trees. " On the night of October I9th, by the light of the full moon, we drove our waggons into Humb6 (fixed by Dufour in 16� 50' south latitude), camping under a large wild fig-tree in a mealie field, not far from the Roman Catholic mission-house. The next day I went to see Fathers Hogan and Lynch, who have charge here; they were much pleased to get papers and news from England." [Mr. H. H. Johnston tells me that a variety of European comforts were procurable at Humbe, which had been brought there by the traders through Damaraland from Walfisch Bay. Humbe itself was very populous; it was not a town of adjacent houses, but each house had a separate plot of ground, and a large tract of country was covered by them. He estimated the total population at no less than 8o,ooo.-F. G.] "The Cunene is a much smaller river than many would imagine from its appearance on the map, and the reports that have been received of it. A good deal further up the river from where I was, Mr. Jordan informed me that it was navigable, but at the place where I saw it, and at that season, it certainly was not navigable APPE.DYDI. 209 for large boats. At its mouth there is a bar, which totally prevents any vessels from entering the river.. In fact, a Portuguese naval officer who was employed about five years ago in exploring that part, told me that it was scarcely passable on a plank. Some seventy miles above its mouth there are rapids, I might almost say cataracts, and much further up there are large falls, evidently where the river pierces the continuation of the Serra de Chella. Little is known of the river between Humb6 and its mouth. The Boers have visited this part, and say that hippopotami are plentiful, and elephants are found in numbers among the rocks and mountains along its banks. Hunters this year penetrated through the moun- tains to within about thirty miles of the large cataracts, and the horses being unshod, their hoofs were completely worn down, and they had to hunt on foot. For further information as to the mouth of the river, I may refer my readers to a journey of Fernando da Costa Leal in 1854, recorded in Petermann's 'Mittheilungen,' vol. iv. (1858) p. 4i2; and also the Portuguese Expedition of 1878, reported in the Lisbon ' Boletim da Sociedade de Geographia,' 2a Serie, No. I. (I880), p. I. It is a great pity that the river cannot be entered from its mouth, as it would open up that part of the country to a great extent." The following are extracts from the discussion that ensued on the conclusion of the foregoing paper :- " Mr. Francis Galton said few persons present could have looked forward to the results of Lord Mayo's journey with greater interest than himself, because it was his own fate some thirty years ago to be travelling very near to the same district, and in his exploration of Ovampoland and Ondonga he reached a point about five days' journey from Humb6. .There were many points of extreme interest in Lord Mayo's paper. The first was the confirmation of Sir Roderick Murchison's well-known theory of Central Africa being a basin bounded by high ramparts, through which the various rivers broke. Lord Mayo found two great chains, one 2,000 feet high, and the other higher. The existence of the ramparts to the north and the south was previously known, and Lord Mayo had supplied the missing link. The two ranges converged further south, and at Walfisch Bay only a single ridge could be noticed, where an ascent of 4,00o feet leads to the higher plateau. Allusion was made in 2-Io APPENDIX. another part of the paper to the mist on the lowlands. The peculiarity of this coast was that a deep ocean current which appeared to have come far from the south and to have been chilled by the melting of the polar ice, rose to the surface, and hugged a long stretch of the south-western shore of Africa. The current had long been known to navigators, and its existence was brought very forcibly home to his own knowledge; because he happened to be one of the Council of the Meteorological Office, and on a recent occasion it fell to his lot to superintend the discussion of a vast number of observations that traced that current distinctly. The cold was so much greater on the coast than inland that when he (Mr. Galton) returned to WValfisch Bay from the interior, at a time of the year when the sun was vertical at midday, he shivered with cold during the night, and even in the daytime had to be well wrapped up. The water was exceedingly cold for the latitude, and the existence of the mist of which Lord Mayo had spoken showed that the same climate extended to Mossamedes. What became of the polar current afterwards he could not say, but it disappeared by degrees. Wherever that current flowed there was an abundance of fish, and it appeared from the paper that there was a plentiful supply of fish south of Mossamedes. " It was a matter of extreme interest to him to hear of the change that had come over the country since the days when he knew of it by hearsay. Dutch Boers had now found .their way to Humpata. They were a marvellous race, with great power of acclimatizing themselves; for certainly the Dutchmen seemed to live and thrive and multiply in regions where the English race did not thrive so well. Possibly the fineness of the men met with at Humpata was partly due to the same cause that makes the Mormons such a fine- looking race. As a rule the Mormons were recruited from by no means the most stalwart persons in England, but they went through very great difficulties in reaching their destination, the weaker men died out, and the survivors were the strongest representa- tives of the party. Probably the same sort of thing might account for a stalwart Dutch population being found at Humpata. Another point new to him, was the strong hold the Portuguese seemed to have over the land down to the Cunene, their forts being scattered about the country, while the Catholic Missions were established on the Cun~n6 itself. He had long looked upon this comparatively APPENDIX. 2II small part of Africa, as one of the most interesting to explore, and he had no doubt that many facts of still greater interest than those that had already come to light remained to be discovered towards the source of the Cunen6. There the land was still higher, large rivers flowed from it in all directions, and there the natives might be expected to possess the superior vigour commonly found among the inhabitants of .mountainous districts. He wished to pay a tribute to the well-deserved success of Lord Mayo. His journey was not undertaken rashly. Before he went he obtained from the best authorities all the materials he possibly, could, and the information so obtained was printed for private circulation in a small book which formed most agreeable reading. Having laid out his plans thoroughly well, he had in the short space of ten months from the time of leaving England to his return, thrown very important light on a most interesting geographical subject. "Sir Bartle Frere said that Lord Mayo's paper had thrown an interesting light upon some of the important migrations of late years. The Trek Boers were seven years in passing from the Transvaal to the place they now occupied in Portuguese territory, but their travels might be traced still further back. Probably there were very few of the men among them whose fathers or grandfathers were not within living memory inhabitants of the lower part of Cape Colony. Consequent upon the emancipation of the slaves the Boers first of all travelled in a north-easterly direction towards what is now the Orange Free State and the Transvaal, and some of them reached as far as Lake 'Ngami. No doubt there were other gentle- men present besides Mr. Galton who recollected how Dr. Smith and General Frederick Cotton met the principal settlement of the Trek Boers not very far from the present Diamond Fields in Griqualand Vest. They were then moving northward. Owing partly to their desire to get as far as possible into the free wilderness, and partly to political causes, they turned north and settled in the Transvaal, where they remained for some years, till, being dissatisfied with the Government which they had themselves set up, they determined to seek the fertile country of which they had heard from elephant hunters, beyond Lake 'Ngami. It was some time before they ventured to cross what had been properly called the Great Thirst Land, and Mr. Vanzyl, when he was afterwards at Cape Town, attributed his success to the knowledge he had obtained of the best APPENDIX. 212 seasons for crossing the desert. Lord Mayo had mentioned how the great fall of rain immediately changed the whole face of the country, and enabled the Trek Boers to move with their large herds of cattle and their waggons over a country which, for nine months in the year, was utterly impassable. In this way about three hundred successfully reached the neighbourhood of Lake 'Ngami, but many more-perished by the way. In some cases almost entire families were lost, but at last about seven hundred, including the three hundred who had first crossed, reached the western borders of the desert, and turned towards Damaraland, and followed nearly the same track as Mr. Galton did about thirty years before. Finding that they were then in the neighbourhood of other Europeans who had come from Walfisch Bay, they moved northward, and about three or four years ago first crossed the Cun6n6 river. There was some little difficulty at first in arranging matters with the Portuguese Govern- ment, but everybody must rejoice to hear that after all these wanderings they had firmly settled down in Portuguese territory. As a people occupying the country, and not as single travellers, they had travelled a distance of between 3,000 and 4,00o miles within the recollection of many now present at the meeting. Movements such as these must in time produce great results in Africa. It must be remembered that temperate Africa did not end at the Tropic, but extended along the highlands far towards Central Africa. It was no doubt the solitary traveller or hunter who first led these families to follow their fortunes northward into the wilderness. No better illustration of the results thus produced could be found than in the fortunes of Mr. Erickson. When he (Sir Bartle Frere) was at the Cape, he was assured, on the authority of Mr. Erickson's partner, that he who as a young man started as an assistant to Andersson the traveller, had at that time sixty waggons in the field, each waggon with not less than sixteen pairs of oxen, with one or two men of European blood as hunters, leading some ten or twelve native hunters, all engaged in collecting ivory and ostrich feathers, and other products of the wilderness, such as the skins of antelopes, which abounded there. He had good reason to believe that at that time the firm of Erickson had a capital of not less than 2o00ooo employed between the Orange river and the Cunen6. Looking at these facts, there could be no doubt that there was a great future before the countries of South APPENDIX. 2I3 214 APPENDIX. Africa, and the Society must feel greatly obliged to those who, as Lord Mayo had done, gave them graphic accounts of the regions they visited." Damaraland has now been taken by the Germans under their protectorate. Many articles have been written on its products and capabilities, but those I have seen are largely made up of materials already before the reader. INDEX, ALARUM watches, I82 Alexander, Sir James, 5, 42, 43, 70 Allen, John, 50 Almanack, nautical (old form of), 18 Amiral, met with, 158 - his tribe the most civilised, 162 Andersson, 2, 3 -- in charge at Sand Fountain, 2I -- from Otjimbingue to Bay, 5o - returns with waggons, 58 - reconnoitres from Schmelen's Hope, 76 - remains in Damaraland, I92 - his history after we parted, 193 Arrows, poisoned, I76 (see Bows) BAM, Rev., I Barmen, reach, 5t - return to, 15I Barter, 8 (see Presents) Benguela, 4, 207 Bivouac (see Encampment) Doers, 4 ----- history of the Trek Boers, 212 ---- settled in Benguela, 208 --- stalwart through selection, 2I Bows, poor skill with, I24 Bows, musical instrument, I17 Bushmen, 95 (see Namaquas, Hlot tentots) - mimicry, 131 - buried for witchcraft, 72 - consult their wives, xo8 pitfalls, Io6, 174 springes, 174 - bodyguard to Nangoro, 13I - at 'Tounobis, 166 CAPE TowN, left, 9 - route overland to Walfisch Bay, 14 Capital, want of, among natives, 162 Cattle (see Oxen) Chikorongo-onkompe, "Chik," Ito Clicks, in singing hymns, 18 - doubled, 164 Cockatrice, 174 Cold, 145 - at Walfisch Bay, 191, 21 1 Colours of wild beasts, 187 Compass, pocket, 18o - azimuth, 181 Coquette, Ghou Damara, 63 - Ovampo, 130, 134 INDEX. Cornelius, 42 - massacring Damaras, 43, 70 Crews at Walfisch Bay, 16 Cunene river, reports of, 133 - now well known, 209 DABBY bushes, II Darmaras, general account of, I 14- I 8 ; see also the following scattere&d notices --- accounts of, at Cape, 5 - by Mr. Hahn, 41 further history, 153 --- caravans to Ovampo, 121 --- state of, in year I876, 205 -- protected by Germany, 214 -- their parent tree, 125 --- features, 60 - nakedness disgraceful, 84 - chip their teeth, 90 - will not eat raw meat, 84 --- fancies about meat, etc., 84 - accoutrements, II18 -- fond of iron, 57 -- huts, 63 - wives, useful informants, 102, I20 - reticence, 82 impudence to weak parties, Ioi, 149 - are not strong, 113 - sit up late, 67 do not eat salt, II I - kill their sick, 68 a dance after a murder, 55 tenacity of life, 41, 56, 68, 88 -- imperfect idea of number, 81 - no generalising power, Io7 - recollection of oxen, 89 Damaras bad as guides, 1o7 - language, 50, 54, I0Io ---- want comparatives, 81 - cannot pronounce the letter L., IIO - sheep, 148 - dogs valued highly, 148 Davieep, 27, 190 --- disaster with lions, 30 Distemper breaks out, 47 - Hottentot horses, 48 Dogs from Cape Town, 8, 148, 149,192 Dress and colours for stalking, I86 Drought this year, 155 Ducks, wild, 95 Duparquet, Pere, 208 EANDAS, 84 Elephants kill a man, Io3 - among us at night, 148 - going to die in same place, 159 - pushed into well, I66 - hair necklaces, 167 Elephant Fountain, 159 Emigrant ship, 3 Encampments, at first, 26 - routine of making, 66 signs of water near, Io6 Erickson, 213 Erongo, Mt., start for, 59 -- reach, 62 Eshuameno, 90 Etosha salt pan, 123 Eybrett, 156, 157 FLAMINGOES, 13 Fog by Walfisch Bay, 23 Fowls in Ovampoland, 144 Frere, Sir Bartle, 212 INDEX. GABRIEL, 8, 32, 61 Ghou Damup, 154 - on Swakop, 26, 30 - on Erongo, 63 --- on Koniati, 83 -- on the Omoramba, 153 - character, 78 - case of honesty, 74 Giraffe at 'Tsobis, 33 - by Otjimbingue, 47 good climbers, 93 - shooting in dusk, 158 Goats for their hides, 119 Gum from thorn trees, 5 I - as food, 68, 164 Gun as spring gun, 174 - accident, 183 - to carry, riding, 184 -- opinion of, Ovampo, 123, 201 HAHN, Rev., 40 - am guest of, 152 - after history, 195 Hans Larsen, first account of, 35 ---- see him, 37 -- buy his cattle, 46 -- in charge of broken waggon, 147 -- detached to Bay, I52 - lion adventure, 162 -- join near Eikhams, 188 - after history, 193 Herds of game, 90 - of springboks, 157 Hides (see Leather) -- for thongs, I 13 -- as food, 164 --- dog, water-skin, 74 Hippopotami, 98 Holes dug with stick, 48 -- in rock, 12I Horses bought, 7 - escape, 12 ---- killed by lion, 29 - die of distemper, 47 -- use in marauding, 49 I-ottentots (see Bushmen, Namaqua) - at Walfisch Bay, Io - colour, 41, 75 - buttocks of women, 54 - disappear in half-castes, 75 - republicanism, 71 - orderly discussion, 75 - marauding, 160 Huts, of Damaras, 63 - Ghou Damup, 63 - Ovampo, 132, 135 Hyenas and sleeping persons, 54 - hunts, 77, 149 - bait for, with old woman, 54 ICE, 149 Interpreters, 13, 73, 74, 157 - conversing by, 73 JOHNSTONE, H. H., 207 Jonker Africaner, 7, 43, 71, 76 - attacks Schmelen's Ilope, 37, 40 - written to, 45 - answers, 51 --- visited, 70, 155, I-9 -- further history, 2o4 KAHIKENE, 40, 85, 86 -- death of, xJ.4 Kaoko, 152 Katjimasha, 6r9 INDEX Karrikarri, 4, 159 Knives, butchers', I66 Kolbe, Rev., 40 Kraal, to make, 66 Kuisip, R., Io, 26 LANGUAGE, Damara, 50, 54, Iio, 117 - Dutch, 63, 156, 157 - Ghou Damup, 30, 63, 154 - Hottentot, 18, 164 - Ovampo, I IO Laws, making, 75 . Leather (see Hides) - instead of rope, 59 - different sorts, 59 ---- tanned, is best, 114 - dressed, is soppy, 94 Life, tenacity of, 41; 56, 68, 88 Lightning, death by, 53 Lima, J. J. Lopez de, 140o. Lions, to imitate, tracks, 16 - at Scheppmansdorf, 18 - smell not dreaded by horse, 21 -- kill horse and mule, 28 - at Otjimbingue, 46 - providers of meat, 49, 64 - mistaken for a koodoo, 99 --- cry when baulked, I 19' -- Hans when on ox, 162 - deaths caused by, 163 -- and rhinoceros, 170 ----- shot by spring guns, 175 --- eight, and again fourteen, i. one pack, 182 Locks respected, 22 MAPPING, first atteC.1pt, '22 -- routine of, 181 Mayo, the Earl of, 20o? Meals, often no breakfast, 39 - number given by each of various animals, 80 Messages to authenticate, 57 Milk, superstitions about, 84 Mirage at Walfisch Bay, Io Missionaries (see Bam, fHa':n, Kolbe, Rath) -- often thought spies, 44 Mist by Walfisch Bay, 23 Mormons, a selected stock, 2II Morta, J., 8 -- is put in charge, 32 Mules bought, 7 breaking in, 49 - killed by lions, 28, 153 - run quite away, 76, 153 NAMAQUAS, 42 (see Bushmen) Nangoro, report of, 97 --- visits us, 129 - is crowned, 134 -- his ball, 131 -- after history, 199, 201 - his successors, 204 Nara, the, II, 14 Natives (see Party) -- fed irregularly, Ior ---- versus Europeans, o05 Nautical almanack (old form), I1I 'Ngami, Lake, 156, i65, 193 Nose stick for oxen, 23 Numbers, Damara idea of, 8t --- Ovampo, 112 OBSERVATIONS of stars, I6I -- preparing for, 181 Oerlam, 41, ;o Okamabuti, Io3 Omakuru's grave, 12? Omanbonde, 52, 82 -- reached, 97 --- subsequent accounts of, 200 Omaruru, 152 Omatako, Mt., cones of, 83 Omuvereoom, Mt., 92 Ondonga (see Ovampo) Onondova, 195, 199 Oosop, 25, 190o Opera glass, merits of, 169 Ostrich eggs, 35 -- young, hunted, I91 Oswell, Mr., 45, 122 Otchikongo, 107, 121 Otchikoto, 122 Otjimhingue, 36 Ovaherero, I14 (see Damaras) Ovampo, accounts of 52 -- first seen, Io8 -- features like Ghou Damup, lo -- is a general term, 141 - encampment, Iio --- huts, 132 - accoutrements, 1o9 --- corn country (Ondonga), 125 --- density of population, 127 -- land tenure, 126 -- language, Ito - trade with Damaras, Io5 - relations with Damaras, 143 --- quickness in counting, I 12 - kindness to the old, 127 -- are not sold as slaves, 139 --- do not swim, I22 --- wonder at our whiteness, 13.3 --- girls, 130 -- blacksmiths, tooth drawing, surgery ophthalmia, 136 'DEX. Ovampo weapons, etc., 137 - fear witchcraft, 138 --- opinions on guns, 123, 201 - doubts about writing, I24 - fowls, 144, 192 - interest in ride oxen, 127 - to be reached from Benguela, 140 --- I fail to do so, 141 -- subsequent history, 195, 201 - not healthy country, 203 - Lord Mayo's journey, 208 Oxen for riding, 12 - my ride-ox Ceylon, 21 . - breaking in, 23, 46 - merits, 32, 69, 72 -- pack oxen, i3, 143 - waggon oxen, 46 - front oxen, 87 - slaughter oxen, 79, 8o, 9r - sulkiness, 39, 93 -- gregariousness, 66, 139 - wildness, 65, 80 - watering, 66 -- stock of, 76, 8o, 147, I89 - chief object of Damara thought, 89 ---- recollecting each other, I88 -- robbed, 87, 178 PALGRAVE, C. W., his report, 240 Palms first seen, Ioo - in Ondonga, 126 Party, my travelling, 8, 73, 79, 157 -- one bad character, 72 --- very efficient at last, I57 Pelicans, 13 Pereira, Signore, 4 INDEX. Pitfalls, Io6, i59 Poison for arrows, 176 --- water, 90o Portuguese by Cunene, 208, 2II Presents for barter, 8, II, 13, 130 Prison in Cape Town, like a club, 32 RAIDS, excitement of, 179 Rains, in Oct., 5I; in Dec., 183 Rate of travel, i50, 180 -Rath, Rev., 36, 50 - after history, 195 Rehoboth, 71 Rhinoceros, 165, I7I - calf as food, 169 Ropes and thongs, 59 Ruxton, Mr., 42, 139 SAND Fountain, II, 15, 21 Sandwich Bay, Io Sands along coast, 9 ---- dunes, 18 Salt not eaten, I I - springs, I12 - pan (Etosha), i23 Savages versus Europeans, Io5 Scales, 142 Scheppmansdorf, 16, 18 Schmelen's Hope, 68, 78, I5o --- massacre at, 37 Sheep, 148 Shoes, 186 Shooting from screens, IC8 Slavery and servitude, 142 Snakes, 92, 174 Soap making, 94 Socks, 186 Spots and Stripes, 187 Springes, 174 Spring-gun, 174 Stewartson, i i, 15 ---- lion hunting, 19, 20 - guides us, 23 - returns, 50 Swakop, lions in, 17 -- reached, 25 - its importance, 26 Swartboy, 70, 72, 76 Tenacity of life, 41, 56, 68, 88 Thief captured, 88 Thirst, 73 Thongs (see Hides) Thorns, xiii, 5I - checking oxen, 93 Timber, 21 --- to season, 22 -- rarity of good, 1 14 Timboo, 8, 32 Tinkhas, Mt., 27 Tobacco as barter, x I, F I 'Tounobis, news of, 159 - reach, 166 TIacks, 146, 183 Travel, rate of, 18o - routine of, 83, ISo Tree, parent, 125 Triangulations, 160 'Tsobis, R., 31 - water poisoned, 190 'Twas, i61 Unicorn, 173 Vaggons, 7 --- accidents, 21, 104, 152 --- dislike to, 64 Waggons sold, i89 W alfisch Bay, 6, 9 - fish, 13, 21 I - mirage, Io - mist, 22 -- return to, 191 - whales at, 191 - cold, 191, 211 WVater, signs of, Ice6 -- carrying, 74, 91 INDEX. Whales, 9, 191 Wild beasts, watching for, I71 - deaths through, 162 Women informants, I02 --- songs, 123 Wood (see Timber) Zebras, a herd, 62 --- their call, I19 ---- invisible at night, x87 13 VACATION TOURS. SELECTED IFROM " VACATION TOURISTS," 1860-1 2. EDITED BY FRANCIS GALTON. I. A VISIT TO NORTH SPAIN AT THE TIME OF THE ECLIPSE OF I 86o BY FRANCIS GALTON, F.R.S. II. NABLOOS AND THE SAMARITANS. BY SIR GEORGE GROVE, D.C.L. III. NAPLES AND GARIBALDI. BY THE LATE W. G. CLARK, M.A., SOMETIME VICE-MASTER OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, AND PUBLIC ORATOR OF THE UNIVERSITY. [IReprinted by kind permission of Messrs. Macmillan & Co., and of the autho.s or their representatives.] A VISIT TO NORTH SPAIN AT THE TIME OF THE ECLIPSE OF i6o. BY FRANCIS GALTON, F.R.S. A DIRECTION was given to my summer rambles by the desire of witnessing the solar eclipse of last June, and by the fact that the path of its totality, where nearest to England, lay across a country which I ardently longed to visit. The result was that I applied for permission, and obtained it, to form one of the party of astronomers who, under the leadership of the Astronomer-Royal, were taken by H.M.S. Himalaya to Spain. The Himalaya is truly a noble vessel, and we were right imperially treated. Those whose experience has been drawn from coasting passenger-steamers, in English or Mediterranean waters, would hardly credit that anything floated comparable in spaciousness and luxury to this magnificent ship. And she is as fast and as easy excepting a tendency to roll, as she is spacious and comfortable; for we steamed out of Plymouth Sound on a Saturday forenoon, so steadily, that I hardly knew we were moving; and on the Sunday night we were going at half-power, because we were too near the Spanish coast whose bold outlines lay in full view on the early Monday morning. It was therefore with one of those feelings of contrast so often enjoyed by travellers, that I, with my eyes still toned to that dim English daylight in which we had just bade farewell to our shores, found myself paddling up the Bilbao river in a small shore-going craft, under a full flood of southern sunshine, by the side of suburbs and quays crowded with people-where every incident, shape, colour and sound, assured me that I was in a new country, and amidst a civiliza- tion that was neither English, French nor Italian, nor resembling that of any other country I knew, but something wholly peculiar. 218 A VISIT TO NORTH SPAIN AT THE At Iilbao, the plans of that section of the Himalaya party, which had there been landed, were discussed and arranged. Different groups of two, or three, or four persons, undertook to occupy different stations with the purpose of scattering the observing power of our party as widely as possible over the path of totality. I joined myself to two friends-Mr. Atwood and Mr. Charles Gray-and we accepted one of the more distant positions, near Logrofio. My friends were prepared to observe the " Red Protuberances," and I for my part had hoped to make some experiments on the heat radiated by the Corona, though, afterwards, an accident to my instrument compelled me to alter my plans. The thoughtful arrangements for our comfort on landing, and the energy with which Mr. Vignolles fulfilled the self-imposed duty of host and guardian to our large party, were such as made us feel an almost painful debt of gratitude. I and my friends were billeted as guests in a capital house, belonging to a Spanish merchant, who tended us like infants. Even a packet of tea, provided by Mr. Vignolles, was in readiness for our use. Our luggage was looked after, our money was changed, our plans were settled, introductions to the authorities at Logrofio were given to us, and every difficulty was smoothed away as soon as it was discovered. Not less do we owe to the leadership of the Astronomer-Royal, and to the trouble he took in originally organiz- ing the expedition. It is a matter of congratulation that he has undertaken the part of historian to the eclipse, and that we shall soon learn the whole value of the results that have accrued from it, by means of a comparative analysis of the numerous observations that were made upon each separate phenomenon of that strange and magni- ficent meteor. For my part, I do not profess to do more in this place than to give a brief account of two or three appearances which made considerable impression on me at the time, and which do not seem to have been so fully, if at all, observed by others, either in the present eclipse, or in previous ones, and which I am glad of an opportunity of putting upon record. To these I will recur. At present, I will endeavour to describe a few of my general recollections of that rapidly improving part of Spain which I had the opportunity of seeing. I think I may be excused for doing so, although my stay was a very short one, because I have not found any book that gives a recent, and at the same time what appears to me to be a fair account of this portion of the Basque TIME OF THE ECLIPSE OF 1860. prcvinces. They are usually described as different from Spain only in Leing less Spanish, and by having a strong infusion of the Basque mountaineer element; yet I found it, as the Germans would say, thoroughly "selbst-standig," and with none of the airs of an outlying province of a larger and vivifying central kingdom. Bilbao is becoming exceedingly wealthy; the provinces to which it and Santander are the outlets, are being cut into by railways. There is every sign of abundant local activity; no beggary 'or apparent poverty, or listless indolence: added to all this, there is a remarkable picturesqueness in its social life. In short, this portion of the Basque provinces did not appear to me as I had been led to expect. Almost the first thing that arrested my attention on Spanish land was the chiaro-oscuro tint of everything I saw. It was especially remarkable in the soil and in the buildings. There was an abundance of bright colour, but it seemed to have none of that garish effect which is so remarkable under a French sky. The exquisite mellowness and depths of shading surpassed anything I had previously seen, and explained at once the possibility and the truthfulness of Murillo's treatment. It also showed me that the universal black dresses of the upper class of either sex were in no way incongruous or dismal when seen through a Spanish atmosphere, and with Spanish surroundings. The eye soon becomes used to a new influence, and while I always recognised its effect, I afterwards tried in vain-to-recall the vividness of that first impression of novelty. However the converse effect struck me forcibly when I left Spain for France, and found myself at Bordeaux. There is a well-known and strongly contrasting influence of this nature not unfrequently to be seen when crossing the hills above Villafranca, which separate Mentone from Nice; the east side of this very natural though not the actual, frontier between two great kingdoms being thenceforth wholly Italian in its colours and its aspect, and the west side as French as it is possible to conceive. It is evidently the lowermost stratum of air that has the greater power in giving a mellowness of light, or an apparent depth of blue- ness, to the sky. One sees this unmistakably in those Italian valleys that lie south of the Alps, where a blue, low-lying haze, which a little hill-climbing surmounts, floods the strath and mellows the view. So, again, a man standing at Chamouni and looking south over Mont Blanc, proclaims that the sky is decidedly Swiss, that it is hard and pale blue; while another man who is stationed on the opposite side of zr9 220 A VISIT 10 NORTH SPAIN AT THE the mountain at Cormayeur, and looks north, asserts that the sky is soft, and deep blue, and eminently Italian; yet in each case, whatever sky the observer sees above the mountain's crest, is on the opposite side of it. The Swiss man sees an Italian firmament and the Italian man a Swiss one. Hence it is manifest that the characters of these aerial tints do not reside in the stratum that lies above the level of high mountains. The peculiarity of the Chamouni, or Cormayeur sky is caused by the quality of the atmosphere that dwells in the Chamouni or Cormayeur valleys, and in no way by that which spreads aloft in the higher regions. It was a great delight to me to find that the Spanish ways of life appeared thoroughly characteristic, and wholly uncopied from other nations of modern Europe. There is a common cant phrase used sometimes in respect to France, and sometimes to England, of "ad- vancing in the van of European civilization." Yet, however flattering to our vanities, it would be a matter of deep regret if European civilization should ever become so far one and indivisible, that nations,' whose instincts and geographical conditions of life are different, should make it a point of fashion or of 'education to live on the same model. One longs to see a freer development than exists at present, of the immense variety of aptitudes and peculiarities that are found in the human race, and are fostered by different geographical circumstances. Let us, at least hope that a united Italy may develop a vigorous and high-class, but an autogenous form of social life. If she did so, it would be as welcome to the majority of educated Europe, as a new face and a new mind to a small provincial society. Yet an exception to this latter statement must be made on behalf of the French to whom any hope of the kind would be wholly unintelligible. They are strangely unconscious of their own monotony, and seem honestly convinced of the doctrine they subscribe-that all which is not Frenchified is pagan, that there is but one path of perfection, and that the panacea for afflicted aliens is French influence and the Code Napoleon. SWith feelings very different from theirs, it was an inexpressible pleasure to me to witness a busy, thriving nationality utterly distinct, as I have already said, from any I had seen before, and, moreover, of a character which strangely fitted into my peculiar tastes. Every wheel of life in these northern parts of Spain, so far as a stranger can judge by what goes on in the streets before his eyes, appears to move TIME OF THE ECLIPSE OF 186o. freely, while the whole forms a machine absolutely different from any other in Europe. Nothing in common use seemed borrowed from other countries. The dresses of the men, women, priests, porters, and muleteers, were peculiar and not ineffective. The cattle were mules and oxen, and did their work excellently-better, I dare say. under a driver of Spanish temperament than a horse would. The animals and the men are notoriously well matched; indeed, the skill of the muleteers, the mastery they showed over their art, and the ingenuity and novelty of their harness and pack-saddle appliances, were an endless astonishment to me. The street architecture was peculiar and exceedingly imposing, with its large, square, well-glazed balconies, and numerous awnings. Every act of the people was original-their gait, their implements, their way of setting to work. I looked into many shops-such as tinkers', blacksmiths', potters', and so forth-and came to the conclusion, speaking very broadly, that if any of their patterns were introduced into England, or that if any of ours were made to replace theirs, the change would involve decided incongruity, and lead to questionable improvement. Another subject which struck me at once, and with which, up to the last moment of my stay in Spain, I became no less charmed, was the graceful, supple, and decorous movement of every Spanish woman. It was as constant a pleasure to me to watch their walk, their dress, and their manner as it is a constant jar to all my notions of beauty to see the vulgar gait, ugly outlines, mean faces, bad millinery, and ill-assorted colours of the vast majority of the female population that one passes in an English thoroughfare. The hideous bonnet is still wholly absent in these parts, and, in place of it, every Spanish woman of every class, has her dense black uncovered hair divided with a straight, clean, white parting down to the forehead, and beautifully smoothed on either side. Taking it all in all, I felt myself as one dropped in a thoroughly new land, with an infinity to learn and observe. Yet I did not feel any strangeness in its ways, but imagined I could accommodate myself with ease and pleasure to the every-day matters of Spanish life, so far as I could judge from what lay on the surface. The marked orientalism of the place captivated me. I enjoy oriental life even under the drawback of knowing that the natives are ready to spit at me as an unclean dog of a Christian; how much more then should I be at ease where I was only liable to be cursed as a Protestant heretic. 22i 222 A VISIT TO NORTH SPAIN .AT THE The nurses sing oriental airs to the children; the colours of the peasantry are Moorish in hue, pattern, and harmony, yet Spain is no mere Moslem country in its appearance. Among many others, there are two notable points of difference in its favour-the one that unveiled women form more than half of the population in the streets; and the other a consequence of non-seclusion of the sex, that the houses are enlivened, as I have already observed, by their large projecting windows and numerous balconies. We were treated with marked courteousness wherever we were recognized ; but another minor welcome delighted me the most by its evident sincerity. It was this; I have always noticed that a stranger is soonest discovered and objected to by children and by dogs. Now it was a fact, which I do not recollect to have experienced elsewhere, that although I was dressed like an Englishman-for instance, I usually wore a light-coloured shooting-coat, while all the Spaniard upper classes wear black, and the lower ones national costumes-yet, when- ever I explored side streets and came unexpectedly upon groups of children or scattered curs, they one and all treated me as a fellow- countryman, and hardly ever raised a cry of terror or a bark of antipathy. I fairly fell in love with Spain at first sight, and have continued constant in my admiration ever since. Let me devote a paragraph to the Public Promenade. I had never realized that truly Spanish institution until I saw it. A large half- deserted square, or suburban garden fills towards night with a well- dressed swarming crowd, that hums with low conversation. All the spare population of the town takes part in it. They walk in ranks of three or four, the two sexes never intermingled in the same group, and they pace rank behind rank, on a broad gravelled path, under the warm starry sky, between low trees. The promenade leads down the walk, round at the end, and back again. The ascending and descending stream almost touch each other, that everybody may have one good view of everybody else in each round. Conversation seems to be carried on merrily, but in a well-bred gentle tone of voice. All ranks except the lowest take part in it, and all have the air of ladies and gentlemen. It is a very pleasing exhibition to a stranger, the more so, as there is no gendarmerie or beadledom. These great crowds 'seem to keep order for themselves; there is no appearance of military or police. :I saw. few beautiful faces in the north of Spain, but I rarely saw TIME OF THE ECLIPSE OF 1860. a mean one. The men were all moulded in a high order of a high type, especially the peasantry. It was an absolute grief to me, when I left Spain, by way of that fashionable watering-place, St. Sebastian, to see the inferiority of physique, manner, and address, of the upper classes of Madrid society, who congregate there, to those of the Basque peasantry I had so lately travelled amongst. How remarkable is this in many oriental and semi-oriental countries l With us, the higher classes, speaking generally, have the higher make of body and mind, and by far the nobler social tone; they form a true aristocracy in our land, to whom Scriptural depreciations of the Syrian wealthy in respect to the Syrian humble are singularly inapplicable. I have no fault to find with the inns in the only three towns where I stayed--Bilbao, Vittoria and Logrofo. (I do not reckon St. Sebastian as a genuine north Spanish town.) The lodging and cooking were not only equal, but considerably superior to that in the large towns of France, not on any regular line of tourist traffic-superior, for instance, to that in Nantes. There was no disagreeable quantity of garlic, or of anything that was unusual in the food; and much of the common wine was exceedingly good. Some of the eatables, for instance, the sugary biscuits like hardened froth, or fine pumice stone, but white and soluble, which all the world consumes, dipping them into chocolate or water-are excellent. The chocolate is really good. far better-I wonder why-than I can get elsewhere. As for the solid articles, I don't care to enter into details; suffice it, that I found them toothsome and digestible, which English inn dinners are not. If the inns were dirty, yet the bed linen was clean, and the towns, from end to end, were remarkably free from dirt and bad smells; It is not doing justice to these parts of Spain to talk of them as being extraordinarily backward; as for mendicancy, it does not seem to exist. I had with me a recently published nnmber of the "Journal of the Statistical Society,"-that for June I86o--in which is an exceedingly interesting account of the recent progress of Spain. aThe conclusion of the writer is, that her exports and imports had doubled between 185o and 1856, and were steadily increasing (the last published census being of X857), and that whatever tests may be applied to the stated fact of her rapid advancement, the result is uniformly favourable. I would strongly recommend all who care to learn the actual state of modern Spain, to study this paper. The road from Bilbao to Vittoria is full of interest. Besides the 223 A VISIT TO NORTH SPAIN AT THE history of the great Peninsula struggle, which gives some memorial to nearly every village, brook, and road, there is abundant intrinsic charm of landscape, and wayside incident. One interesting pheno- menon of physical geography, on which, by the way, our eclipse prospects were intimately dependent, was a subject of continual inquiry and remark. It was the rapid change from a humid sea- coast climate at Bilbao on the north face of the Pyrenees, to an arid soil and a clear blue sky on the south of them. It is the old story. The cold mountains condense a large part of the moisture in the Atlantic winds; therefore, whatever air has passed over the mountain- tops is comparatively dry and cloudless. The valley of the Ebro is literally parched and would be utterly barren if it were not for an elaborate system of field irrigation-elaborate, I mean, in its extent and comprehensiveness, but simple enough in its details. We had naturally sought information with eagerness, from the moment of our landing, about the relative sunniness of different places on the calculated path of total eclipse-it was an all-important question to us-and I heard that, as a rule, travellers to the interior left Bilbao under an overcast sky, that they ascended the mountains in fog and rain, that the clouds broke- long before reaching Vittoria, and that from Logroio onwards the sky was cloudless. I do not know that anybody has examined into the proportionate effect of this nature produced by mountains, with reference not only to their height, but to other geographical conditions. There seems to be considerable variation that is difficult to account for; for instance, not to travel further than our own country, the west wind is far wetter than the east wind, but the district at the eastern foot of many of the W estmore- land hills is little, if at all, drier than that on their western, notwith standing the enormous quantity of rain that falls upon the latter. I believe the average distribution of cloud and blue sky, as distinct from rain and drought, to be far less uniform over any given district than is commonly supposed. In a country like England, a difference of a few miles makes a considerable alteration in the average character of the sky. Clouds collect over clay soils, and are dispersed over chalk. In fact, I endeavoured once,* but failed from an absence of anything like a sufficient number of recorded facts, to compile, for my amusement, a sun and cloud chart of England, the intensity of shading to represent the average amount of cloudiness. I, however, * Mem : This was written in x86o. 224. TIME OF THE ECLIPSE OF 186o. collected enough matter to make me believe that there was, as I have stated, great inequality in this element of climate. Thus with all the faults of a London atmosphere, the clearness of its sky at a late hour of the night, or rather at a very early one of the morning, is probably unsurpassed in all England, but in this case Sir J. Herschel has well described the cause in his valuable article on Meteorology, in the Encyclofcedia Britannica. Until our arrival at Vittoria, my two companions and myself were almost as helpless as babies in the art of expressing our wants. Spanish is so obviously a language that one ought to know, from its resemblance to Latin, etc.,--the mere light of nature enabling one to read it with reasonable fluency, after the rudimentary matters of grammar have been once mastered, and a few minor words learnt-- that I felt quite ashamed of myself at my inability to frame an intelligible sentence. What made the matter worse was, that the Spaniards I accosted did not seem hopeful about the possibility of understanding me. The power of impressing on a foreigner, of whose language you know but little, that it is within his power to compre hend you if he only chooses to try, is a sine qud non to success in conversation. With mutual faith abundant interchange of ideas may be carried on through the medium of an abominably broken dialect; without it a fairly good vocabulary may be absolutely useless. French was an unknown language to hotel servants, diligence-office keepers, and all that genus. I heard of exceptions to this rule, but saw only one or two instances myself. However, after our second day at Vittoria, the spell of dumbness was broken by the effective assistance of a railway inspecting engineer, whose invaluable services had been made available to us through the kindness of Mr. Vignolles, and he henceforth managed all our little difficulties and wants. This gentleman was one of a class who form an influential element in the districts where railroad making under English superintendence, is being carried on. A line of railway is undertaken by a contractor, inspecting engineers are appointed, each to a particular section of the line a few miles in length, to see that the contractor does his work fairly. They live in strange out-of-the-way Spanish villages, lodging with some Spanish family, and spending all the day in riding about the line. Now and then, it is possible for them to take a few days' holiday at Vittoria or Logrofio, or at the reputed Paris of these parts, Bilbao. They have exacted fixed charges for them- 225 A VISIT TO NORTH SPAIN AT THE selves at the hotels, introduced some good dishes into the bills of fare, and in one case at least where accommodation was bad, had established a respectable person as the landlord of a new inn to the convenience of the travelling public. They are all of the class of young rising engineers, receiving considerable salaries, and looking forward to some future time when they themselves shall be con- tractors and wealthy men, in Europe, Australia, or America, or wherever a good opening for them may then happen to exist. It is of course impossible for a Protestant to forget for one moment that he is a reputed heretic, and that on however good terms he may be with a Spaniard, there is an essential difference between them, which any accident may unmask. I was curious to know how far this feeling would affect the somewhat intimate relationship which must necessarily spring up between a lodger and his hosts. I under- stood from our friend the engineer that, as a general rule, there was no appearance of meddling intolerance, the Englishman being considered as an unaccountable sort of animal, and allowed to go his own gait; the more so, as an Englishman's probity and energy has a name in these parts of Spain. Yet little circumstances constantly arose to show how easily this thin crust of forced indifference might be broken through. The death of a Protestant, and the question of his burial, is sure to create a difficulty. Our friend told us that he every now and then received a serious, but kindly lecture, from some elderly female, pointing out to him the danger of his heretical ways and the certain future that threatened him, and far more frequently, that semi-serious allusions were thrown out to the same purport. I made many inquiries about the honesty and the morality of the Spanish peasantry, and being assured from different sources that it is very high, much higher than in England, I believe it. However, the use of the knife is rather common. We hired a carriage at Vittoria, and passed, by a little used mountain road, over the Sierra di Tolonio to Logrofio, beyond which our proposed station was situated. The crest of the Sierra formed the northern boundary of the valley of the Ebro, and we felt much anxiety to witness the reputed blue sky of the new country, for hitherto the weather had been capricious and frequently overcast. When we attained the ridge, and had descended clear of the clouds that lay on it, the largeness and aridity of the view took me by surprise. The i26 TIME OF THE ECLIPSE OF i86o. valley was almost as tawny as an African wady, and some forty miles in breadth, running in ample sweeps between lines and groups of mountains that towered in wild disorderly masses, flanked with some noble crags, and garnished with a few isolated peaks. It was a first- class view, deserving to rank among the best ten or twelve of those with which I am acquainted. There are three views, more or less, of this description, to which I habitually refer myself as convenient standards of comparison, and which I usually quote as the finest that I know. Their similarity lies in the amplitude of the mountain shoulder whence the view is taken, in the vast unbroken sweep of rich country, extending from its foot, and in the completeness of the picture, owing to its limits being framed with natural objects, and not passing out of sight in an untidy, indistinct haze. These views are-. That from the hills above Trieste. 2. From below the cedars of Lebanon, over the plains of Tripoli; and 3. From our own Devil's Dyke, near Brighton. The sweep of the valley of the Ebro is little inferior to any of these. The Spaniards, at least in the northern provinces, seem mad upon road-making; here and there were pieces of our present way tended with incommensurate care. It debouched by no less than three roads down into the valley. One was a bad one; then came another, with grand zigzags, and parapets, as good as could be desired : but not contented with this, a third road, also'with zigzags, cutting across the second one at many places, was newly constructed. The hill- side looked a labyrinth of roads from their curious inter-crossings. Our driver, as he spun down hill, was constantly puzzled which turn to take, and the mules were pulling in opposite directions, at many awkward corners. We saw some ascending waggons in similar in- decision, passing up different ways. Everywhere the road-makers seemed to revel in funds, though they certainly do not apply them equally. On reaching the plain, our way led us through a village, called La Guardia. It was perched up on the top of a detached conical hill, burrowed with wine-vaults, in a situation that dominated the plain. It was battlemented with ancient walls and towers, and suggested the very ideal of its name. Here we had to stop to bait-it was eleven miles short of Logrofio-and our proposed station was twenty miles on the other side of that town, on the opposite boundary of the Ebro valley, on a broad hill-top-inaccessible to carriages on account of 227 228 A VISIT TO NORTH SPAIN AT THE some broken bridges, and deficient in buildings where our instruments could be housed and got into order. But La Guardia was fully as well situated both as regards the path of the shadow, and the position of the stations of the other observing parties. House room for our instruments was there, the view of the plain towards the south-east, along which the black skirt of the shadow of totality would sweep when the sun reappeared, was uninterruptedly visible; and, lastly, the clouds clung about the high hill-tops, while all the sky above us wvas bright and clear. A few words sufficed to show that we all appreciated these advantages; so we sallied forth, up the principal church-tower, among the clock and bells, about the tumble-down ramparts, and everywhere where we could hope to select the best station, to the wonderment of the natives, who did not at first com- prehend the object of our proceedings. The result was, that we ventured to transmit a civil message to the owner of a house that rose high and had a flat top, used for clothes-drying, and partially roofed over. It proved to be tenanted jointly by a priest and doctor. They cordially and most courteously welcomed us. We clambered up the little stone staircase that led to its roof, knocking our heads and grating our elbows, and found the place exceedingly well fitted for our wants. Our hosts put it at once at our full disposal. They gave us trestles into which wg could screw the telescope-stands, tables, and chairs. We then went to a carpenter, who took in hand some little matters that were wanted by us, and did them, as I find foreigners usually do on such occasions, with an intelligence and quickness of apprehension rarely seen in an English mechanic. Finally, we locked up our precious instruments, in an empty room, to await the day preceding the eclipse, when we were to return to mount them in readiness, and to make a few prefatory observations. La Guardia was not a place to stay at with comfort-it was a mere village; besides, we had letters of introduction to Logrofio, so we went on there and established our quarters, taking Spanish lessons, bathing in the Ebro, buying trifles, and prying everywhere. Logrofio was the most thoroughly national town we saw, and I have carried away a great affection for it. The streets and arcades are busy in the morning, for besides business, there is a good deal of church- going. I was vastly interested in the movements of the ladies' fans ac church. All the world knows that Spanish fans are in perpetual motion, and betray each feeling, real or assumed, that passes through TIME OF THE ECLIPSE OF 85o. the mind of its bearer. I felt convinced I could guess the nature of the service at any particular moment by the way in which the fans were waving. The difference between a litany and a thanksgiving was un mistakable; and I believed that far minuter shades of devotion were also discernible. In the afternoon the military were paraded, and the bands played in the square. Of course, all the spare population went to see them; but what amused us especially was the part taken by the nurses and the children, both here and at Vittoria. They came in hundreds, scattered among the crowd. The instant the music began, every nurse elevated her charge sitting on her hand, at half-arm's length into the air, and they all kept time to the music by tossing the babies in unison, and slowly rotating them, in azimuth (to speak astronomically), at each successive toss. The babies looked passive and rather bored, but the energy and enthusiasm of the nurses were glorious. At each great bang of the drummers a vast flight of babies was simultaneously projected to the utmost arms' length. It was ludicrous beyond expression. The environs of Logrofio greatly pleased my particular taste. The land is utterly arid when in a state of nature, but whenever a runnel of water can be led, pumped up from the Ebro, there is fertility; consequently the charms of an oasis are always present: there is the air of the desert, with abundance of neighbouring verdure to cheer the eye. I could not understand how it was, that not a single country residence had been anywhere seen since Bilbao. The landscape was exceedingly varied, and in all cases exhibited the appearance of a most liveable country. I had been everywhere looking for "gentlemen's seats," like the Yorkshire servant in Kinglake's Eothen when riding across the Balkan; yet I saw nothing but peasantry-hard-working men, who seemed only to want a good pattern of agricultural imple- ments, and modern agricultural knowledge, to become first-rate small farmers-or else muleteers and others riding on gaudy saddle-cloths, so gaudy, that one which I bought at Logrofio of the common pattern and material, is now amongst the most showy pieces of drapery in my drawing-room. It is woollen, woven in bands of colours, and absolutely Moorish-looking. The day before the eclipse, we drove to La Guardia, to arrange our instruments. It was there I discovered a disaster which had befallen mine. I had taken an actinometer (Herschel's), and on exposing it to tlhe sun, found something had gone wrong. It proved that the enclosed 17 229 A VISIT TO NORTH SPAIN AT THE thermometer stem had broken. I candidly confess that a rising though stoically repressed feeling of exultation accompanied this dis- covery. I was not now necessarily obliged to spend the precious three minutes of the eclipse in poring on an ascending column of blue fluid in a graduated stem, and noting down the results by a feeble lamp-light, but I was free to enjoy in full the whole glory of the eclipse. I should here say, that there is something very faulty in the mechanical arrangement of these very important instruments. Negretti and Zambra, who are the makers of them, tell me, that in no instance have they ever sold one that was not sooner or later returned for repair, the enclosed thermometer being broken. It now became necessary to fix on some other limited class of observations; and I decided upon sketching the Corona, and also on endeavouring to determine the exact colour of the eclipse light, about which there had been discrepancy of opinion. For the first, I required merely my naked eye, pencil, paper, and a lantern. I happened, how- ever, to possess a small theodolite telescope of the lowest power, very conveniently mounted, that would enable me to isolate any portion of the Corona I chose, and thus to guard against the possibility of optical illusion from adjacent appearances. For ;experimenting on the eclipse light I happened also to have with me a tiny box of twelve colours, which I had selected some years ago, after numerous trials, as being those which were most distinct each from the other, that I could obtain. Whenever I wanted to paint upon a map different marks, meaning different physical features, or travellers' tracks, I used these colours. I accordingly painted a sheet of paper in squares, numbered very legibly, and proposed observing them from time to time during the eclipse and to note whenever any of the twelve became mutually indistinguishable; then it would always be in my power, as I supposed, to reproduce this effect by light passing through glass, of a colour to be determined by after trials. After I had found a piece of glass that produced the required effect, its colour, when looked through, would be the average of that thrown down by the sky at the time.of the eclipse. My colours were as follows-I especially mention their names, because I can recommend the selection to any person who wants a box for purposes similar to those for which I originally procured mine, and about which I took a good deal of trouble:--Violet carmine, Vandyke brown, Prussian green, Hooker's green, Emerald green, Orange chrome, Cobalt, Vermilion, Crimson lake, Olive green, Burnt 230 TIME OF THE ECLIPSE OF i860. sienna, Indian yellow. Nine of these, including most of the greens, strangely enough, are very distinguishable by candle light. Mr. Atwood and Mr. Gray had large telescopes, and chiefly devoted themselves, as I have said, to the Red Protuberances. We arranged our lanterns and watches in convenient positions, and rehearsed the proceedings of the morrow. The weather was far from being as satis- factory as we had expected. The clouds hung about the mountains, while La Guardia was comparatively free; so we felt reassured as to the wisdom of our choice, although exceedingly anxious as to the prospect of the precious three minutes of the eclipse, next afternoon, finding us under a favourable sky. The wretched weather of this summer has afflicted even Spain, but we returned to Logrofio in hope. The morning of the eventful day broke grey and unpromising-wind north, and therefore over the Sierra di Tolonio--drifting clouds from its summit, where an abundant reservoir of them lay piled. The drifted clouds were low cumuli, with few indications of blue between them; however, the sky improved as the day advanced, and when we had reached La Guardia, the clouds were settled into rounded forms, with large blue spaces in their intervals. The wind gradually died away, and our massive enemies moved very slowly and undecidedly, sometimes in one direction, sometimes in another. We had a good view of the beginning of the eclipse; after that, a succession of clouds passed before the sun, hiding it from time to time, and making us sorely anxious; but about twenty-five minutes before totality they gave place to our wishes, and the welcome crescentic sun shone perfectly clear from out of a good English blue sky,-perfectly clear, I say, but not so deep a blue as we had previously seen in the magnificent atmosphere of the Ebro valley. There was, doubtless, vapour in the air, which the chill of the eclipse might possibly convert into a thwarting haze, or a source of accidental and puzzling appearances; nevertheless, from this time onwards, we had no trouble, the blue space above head enlarged rapidly and continuously, and the evening closed with a constant sun- shine. Crowds of people were clustered at the foot of our tower, and about a dozen spectators were on the roof-top by our side. They carefully and courteously respected the portion we occupied and added to our pleasure by their shrewd remarks and manifest interest in our proceed- ings. My notes were as follows :-Eclipse commenced at Ih. 5om. by 23I z32 A VISIT TO NORTH SPAIN AT THE my watch. 2h. 15m. Light sensibly diminished. 2h. 22m. No apparent difference; my colours unchanged. B-- thinks the landscape is becoming fainter. 2h. 35m.,Light still more peculiar; the colours as before. The people on the roof remark the colour of the sky to be darker. I doubt it. The spots on the sun as seen through a telescope, appear decidedly darker. We all agree in this. 45m. The light certainly appears more yellow, but the country is yellow, and is now everywhere in full sunlight. My colours just as distinguishable as ever. 5om. Indian yellow, cobalt and emerald green are lower in tone. I can distinguish all twelve colours perfectly. Light much fainter. 55m. Light far fainter. I made a hole in a paper screen, and watched the crescentic image of the speck of sun-light that shone through it on the floor. The shadows were very dark and sharp. Air cold. 58m. The numerous pigeons of the place began to fly home, fluttering about hurriedly, taking shelter wherever they could. There was something of a hush in the crowd. At about 3h.-I forgot to note the exact:watch-time, I am sorry to say --totality came on in great beauty. The Corona very rapidly formed itself into all its perfectness. It did not appear to me to grow, but to stand out ready formed, as the brilliant edge of the sun became masked. I do not know to what I can justly compare it, on account of the peculiar whiteness of its light, and of the definition of its shape as combined with a remarkable tenderness of outline. There was firm- ness but not hardness. In its general form, it was well balanced, not larger on one side than the other. It reminded me of some brilliant decoration or order, made of diamonds and exquisitely designed. There was nothing to impress terror in the sight of the blotted-out sun; on the contrary, the general effect of the spectacle on my mind was one of unmixed wonder and delight. A low buzz of voices arose among the crowd at the foot of the tower, like what is heard when an exceed- ingly beautiful firework is displayed at a fete. The Corona-light sufficed abundantly for writing rough notes and for seeing my colours. Oddly enough, the burnt sienna and the vermilion alone ceased to be distinguishable from each other. Indian yellow had greatly lost brilliancy. I made a rough sketch of the Corona-it was too manifold in its details and too beautiful in its proportions for me, bad artist as I am, to do justice to it in the short time the spectacle lasted-yet the drawing which I made, and which is given here, is to my mind a fair diagram of this splendid meteor. I drew it without taking any measure TIME OF THE ECLIPSE OF IS6o." ments to guide me, but simply as I would sketch any ordinary object. The uppermost part is that which was uppermost vwhen I drew it. I used no lantern, and required none; there was a sufficiency of light. The principal facts were, firstly that the long arms of the Corona, Fig. 2, do not radiate strictly from the centre, neither are they always bounded by straight lines. The upper edge of a was truly tangential, that of d and of others, nearly so; c was remarkably curved, and so was the lower edge of b, though less abruptly; it was like a finch's beak, and rremarkab' dtnned. �Secn3ly, the shape of the Corona was not absolutely constant; speaking generally, it was so; but in small details, it appeared to vary continually, by a slow diorama-like change. There was no pulsation or variation of intensity, visible in its light: I was particularly impressed by its solemn steadiness. It seemed scarcely possible to believe that the light of the Corona was other than the rays from the sun, made visible in some incom- prehensible manner round the edge of the moon, the appearance being eminently suggestive of a brilliant glistering body, hidden behind a screen. The nearest resemblance I can think of, to express my mean- ing (not that I am to be understood as supposing the remotest analogy between the causes of the two appearances), is the effect of a jet of water, playing from behind against s me obstacle, and throwing an irregular halo of spray around it, on all sides. That a reasonable foundation may exist for ascribing part of the Corona to some diversion of the ordinary rays of the sun, howeve r unintelligible the cause of this diversion may be, and not to a luminous atmosphere surrounding the sun, was powerfully impressed on me by certain appearances that were observed when totality had passed: they were these. Four or five minutes after the reappearance of the sun, Mr. Atwood called attention to remarkable, luminous radiations, like sunbeams slanting through a 233 234 A VISIT TO NORTH SPAIN AT TIIE cloud, and proceeding in narrow but long brushes from the cusps of the sun. They changed their angular directions, and even their shapes with such rapidity, that I was almost bewildered in a first attempt to draw them. If I looked down on my paper to draw a few strokes, the appearances had become changed when I again raised my head. Nevertheless, between 3h. IIm. and 3h. I3m., I managed to make three sketches; the two that were most characteristic are here very fairly represented. After 3h. I3m. the light of the emerging sun was too strong to admit of further observation. The brushes were perfectly distinct and unmistakable; they were best seen by holding up the TE- _________P = -- - - - : .. ...... =- _ I _-- -- ---I- - ----- --- hand so as to mask the sun, and they were perfectly visible through the telescope when it was so turned as to exclude the sun. There was no mistake whatever about their existence. I trust the attention of observers of future eclipses will be directed to them, both before and after totality. Now, whatever may have been the cause of the brushes, would also, I should guess, be competent to create the greater part of. the Corona : the two appearances being of identically the same genus. It will be observed that the brushes in Fig. 3 enclose an angle of about I33�, on.the side of the emergent sun, and that this same angle had changed to about x95� in Fig. 4, to say nothing of the new appearance of a central bar of light. The angular change of the brushes was continuous, so long as I had an opportunity of looking continuously at them. TIME OF THE ECLIP.SE OF 186o. The skirt of the shadow of totality sweeping over the country to the south-east, did not impress me as I had expected; there happened to be the shadow of a broad distant belt of clouds near the horizon, in which the eclipse-shade merged, and the skirt was never well defined. Our range of vision in that direction was immense. We could see but little, and I looked for nothing, towards the north-west. The lightening of the landscape was rapid: even at 3h. I6m. every- thing looked to my eyes as almost natural. At the time of totality, the sky did not appear to me to descend. The sky was quite yellow near the horizon, but I remarked the absence of light, rather than the colour of the light; and a strangeness, rather than a mournfulness of effect. A couple of gusts of wind preceded totality. As to my colours: after a good deal of trouble, I find I can reproduce the exact effect that I witnessed, by placing them in a closed box having a dark ceiling, and admitting a faint white light at a low angle. I then view the colours, also at a low angle, through a piece of dull yellow glass. All these details seem essential to effect: they are, in some sort, the equivalents to a yellow sky near the horizon, and gloom above head. Thus was completed the object that had brought us to Spain, and we drove down the hill of La Guardia amid cries of "Viva Ynglaterra ! " for we had become exceedingly popular in the town, thanks to the kind way in which our hosts had introduced us everywhere, and we increased the triumph of our departure by scattering coppers among the raga- muffins who had collected to see us go. It was a marked instance of the local nature of sunny weather, that " the people at Logrofio could not credit we had been so fortunate in our day. At that town, nothing of the eclipse had been seen; and a party from the Himalaya, Mr. Pole and Mr. Perry, who were stationed on a hill-top near it, and in full view of us, though some ten miles off, were greatly annoyed by clouds; they, too, could with difficulty understand our good fortune. The instances are as many in this eclipse as in others, of discrepant ob- servations and of important things forgotten. My fault was not noting the moment of totality. It would have been of service in calculating the extent to which the sun had emerged, and the exact position of its cusps at the time when Figs. 3 and 4 were drawn, in order to find out whether these brushes of light were exactly or not, in a line of pro- longation of them. One very unlucky piece of forgetfulness is rumoured 235 2 t VISIT TO NOR TII SPAIN AT TILE to have been made by an eminent photographer, not of the Himalaya party. He went, partly on commercial grounds, excellently provided with instruments, and all the way overland, on purpose to photograph the eclipse. Everything was prepared, the day was glorious, the totality came on, and the slide of the camera was carefully inserted. When all had passed, and the slide was opened in the dark chamber, alas 1 the operator had forgotten to put his plate into the slide! Gray and myself did not return by the Himalaya, but went to St. Sebastian, and ultimately spent a part of the summer together, in the Pyrenees-I having in the interim joined my wife at Bordeaux, and taken her with me. The valley of the Ebro is separated from the Pyrenees by a belt of broken country, almost untraversed except by horse-roads, along some few of which, invalids are taken as they best can go, to the baths of Panticosa, etc., and occasionally across the Pyrenees, by one or other of the horse-passes, to the French watering-places of Eaux-bonnes, Luz, Cauterets, or Luchon. This belt I did not traverse. The northern part of it afterwards became very familiar to my eyes, owing to the numerous mountain-tops, beginning with that above the dili- gence-road by St. Sebastian, and ending with the Canigou, near the Mediterranean, whence I looked down upon it. The part adjacent to the main chain, including the small republic of Andorre, is very little traversed or known. On the French side, the plain is prolonged up the valleys, to the very bases of the mountains; but the Spanish side is far more tossed and tumbled. Here that remarkable madness of mountain climbing, to which every healthy man is liable at some period of his life, and which I had hitherto believed myself to have gone through once for all, in a mitigated form, began to attack me with extreme severity. I will spare the reader the details of the direction which my malady took, because none of the Pyreneean mountains are sufficiently high to afford a field for feats, though glorious for actual enjoyment. Yet they are of no despicable elevation or grandeur: there are plenty of Io,ooo feet, and three of II,ooo; while the ruggedness and steepness of their sides is fully equal to those of any other chain. I like, too, the absence of fir and pines, and the varied forest foliage that replaces them. The climate is more southern than that of Switzerland, being finer and gloriously hot. Again, when one is tired, a vast deal may be done on horseback along TIME OF TIE ECLIPSE OF i86o. the numerous bridle-paths, that lead to many admirable points of view. One drawback is that the guides are rather a poor set, ignorant of the country, unable or unwilling to carry weights, and bad walkers. There are not half a dozen in Luchon with whom I would care to be accompanied, yet Luchon is the destination of 2,000 yearly visitors. The French give a bad name to the Spaniards of the Pyreneean chain; and as the accommodation of the country is, for the most part, villanous, and the language a ~atois, and there is nothing to do but to climb and to shoot chamois, and explore the beauties of a new country, they do not care to penetrate there. There is no lack of chamois. Bears exist; in fact, I saw one just shot, but the brute had been tracked and mobbed. A single sportsman would have had small chance of finding him. There are abundance of eagles, and a few ptarmigan. The Spanish side is doubtless a wild land, and is not to be explored except by persons prepared to sleep in chalets or cabins, and to cook for themselves. It was always most annoying to me when I had clambered, for some hours, to a distant peak, that the absence of accommodation and means of bivouac drove me prematurely to return. I had long been convinced that the only way of exploring the interesting mountain tracts that still remain almost unknown in Europe, such as these Spanish Pyrenees, Dauphin6, the Savoy Alps, the Carpathians, the northern parts of Turkey and Greece, and so on, is for the traveller to take some means of making himself independent of beds, and, to a certain degree, even of a roof. But what those means should be, I could never determine. Alpine travellers (up to this year of I860) seem wholly unversed in the art of comfortable bivouac. I hardly know a single instance when the nights spent by them on the hill-sides have not been recorded as nights of discomfort, and often of misery. Let those who doubt it refer to "Peaks and Passes." This is an old opinion of mine, and one which has set me widely to inquire about facts bearing on the subject. Saussure's experience is not much to the point, except in showing that a tent will stand in any weather; witness his hurricane on the Col du Gdant. The brothers Schlagintweit also used tents, and they drove sheep for food. Dr. Rae's Arct'c equipment is exceedingly interesting; he relied on snow houses, built with great neatness, for protection against the weather: so did Sir Leopold M'Clintock. I have, indeed, a selection of that energetic officer's travelling-gear; sledge, cook's apparatus, and tent-poles,-which he and Captain Allen 237 238 .A VISIT TO NORTH SPAIN AT THE Young used in their search after the fate of Sir John Franklin, and were afterwards so good as to: give me. But none of these precisely meet the want I feel. The travelling-gear should be light and con- venient for carrying on the back, and require no previous practice in its use. Each man should be independent of his neighbour; for the close proximity of snoring and flea-covered guides is a nuisance. Finally, the bedding must be capable of withstanding a night of severe weather,-wet, snow, and tempest. These desiderata were well fulfilled by a contrivance I becarme acquainted with during the very close of my stay in the Pyrenees, A w hen, I am sorry to say, it was hardly in my power to give it a fair trial. I must, therefore, speak from hearsay and the experience of others. I found a large class of.men who were liable, at any hour, in any weather, to be ordered off to any place in the mountains, there to keep watch for two or three days; while everything was so systematized, that they simply had to take down a sort of large knap- sack from their shelf, certain specified articles of dress, and a sufficiency of bread, meat, and wine, and were ready in a minute to be off to their post. These are the French douaniers, who go in twos, to watch any pass where a smuggling attempt may happen to be expected by their chief; and the contrivanc w;ich makes it possible to do so, is a TIME OF THE ECLIPSE OF I860. sheep-skin sleeping bag, of a kind I am about to describe, which folds up in the simplest manner possible, and is secured by five small straps. When so folded and secured, it shapes itself into a large, but military- looking knapsack, weighing seven pounds and a half. The bag is shown bottom upwards in Fig. I. It is open from D to the end, and its coffin shape makes it fit a man without any superfluous space. Fig. 2 represents a gusset inserted between the top and bottom faces of the bag, of which the edge c d is sewn to the upper edge from C to D, and c e is sewn to the lower edge from C to E. This is very important, in order to give sufficient space to the breast and arms. The peculiar shape of the gusset gives an exceedingly cozy lay to the machine, about the back and sides. It is easy to spring in a moment' out of a bag thus constructed, there being no embarrassment whatever at the sides or shoulders. In folding it up-the bag, of course, lying on the ground with its upper side uppermost, and not as shown in the drawing-is folded at m: again, first at o, and secondly, at n. Then it assumes the appearance of Fig. 4. Next, the straps are buckled to the correspond- ing buckles, the arms are slipped into the straps, and off walks the douanier, with his house on his back. Fig. 3 represents the fastening actually used for the knapsack straps, shown on a smaller scale in Fig. I. I strongly suspect it is the best for these rude purposes. The left-hand part is a piece of wood, round which a thong is sewn. This makes the button. Two or three button-holes are cut in the corre- sponding knapsack strap. From the time when a man is lying fully dressed, shoes and all, inside one of these bags, to that when he has begun to march off with it, strapped upon his back, need not exceed ninety seconds. It is an invention, as I was informed, of about twenty- five years standing, and has, alone, rendered it possible to watch this mountain frontier, with regularity and strictness. The Spaniard Customs' men, on .their side, use cloaks, and cannot approach to the effectiveness of the French. The French douaniers seemed to speak with great fondness of their bags. They make them themselves, and they last many years. It is easy to buy one that has been more or less used, at a cost of about fifteen shillings. They are not oppressive to sleep in, as a slight half-unconscious fidgetting will pump out the used air, and re-supply it with fresh. Besides, the skin of a man who has been perspiring all day in a rare air, is incomparably more quiescent at night than that of a sedentary citizen. During the day- time the bags are of use, for the douaniers sit with them pulled up to 239 240 A VISIT TO NORTH SPAIN. their waist, when the weather is wet or cold. At night they take off their shoes, but nothing else, and wrap a small cloak round their heads and shoulders. The sheepskin is that of the beautiful merino sheep; it is double at the feet and legs, and also in the small of the back; those are the places where the cold is most felt. Numerous travellers have used sleeping-bags, and there is no novelty in the fact of their weather-proof capabilities, but the way of folding them into a knapsack in place of carrying them in a cumbrous roll, is new and well worthy of record: so also is the fact that the high snow regions may be securely braved in one of them. :. NABLOOS AND THE SAMARITANS (in SG6t). BY SIR GEORGE. GROVE. FEW places in Palestine are more interesting than the town of NAbloos. To begin with, there is something unusual about its name. N1bloos-or Naplouse, as the French write it-is the Arabic attempt to pronounce the Greek name Neapolis, the "new city," the title given to the old Canaanite town of Shechem when it was restored or rebuilt, pro- bably during Vespasian's reign. It is rare to find a modern or foreign name in the East that has succeeded in supplanting the ancient home- born Semitic one. In Egypt, at one time, almost every town of any importance was called Heliopolis, Lycopolis, or some other Greek or Roman name. Now, hardly one is to be found along the whole length of the Nile. In Palestine itself, Ptolemais, Diospolis, Antipatris, lElia, have all completely disappeared, and the old names, which existed before these high-sounding titles were conferred-Akka (Acre), Lydd, Kefer-Saba, Jerusalem, have re-established themselves as firmly as if they had never been displaced. Sebaste and Neapolis have, however, succeeded in maintaining themselves, and preventing the return of Samaria and Shechem. In its situation there is something still more unusual. It lies in a valley, between two lofty hills, while nineteen-twentieths of the towns of the Holy Land-at least those in the highlands-are perched on the top of eminences. The reason for the prevalent custom is obvious. In a country so open to the incursions of marauders of all sorts as Palestine has always been, it is important to seize any little natural advantage of situation which can assist the peasant against the robber, he Philistine, Midianite, Roman, Crusader, Frenchman, or modern NABLOOS AND THE SAMARITANS. Bedouin Arab. And this, .amongst other reasons, explains why the villages are so often put in the most inaccessible spots possible. Why Shechem should have been an exception to this rule is not obvious. It was one of the most ancient places of the country, and also powerful. Possibly it was founded before there were any marauders to attack it, or was built so strong that it did not fear their attacks. Another thing impresses it without trouble on the favourable recol- lection of the traveller. It is usually the first place he reaches which has any natural charm or beauty about it. After riding the whole day in the burning sun over the hills north of Jerusalem, often as bare and nearly as hard as the foot-pavement of the Strand, the springs and brooks of the valley of NAbloos, its green trees and vegetation, soft moist atmosphere and twittering birds, are naturally very pleasant and refreshing. But besides this, it is one of the most characteristic examples of a Moslem town in the whole of the country. Compared with Damascus, or even Jerusalem, it is but a small place--some 12 to I5,ooo in- habitants. But what its people want in numbers, they make up in independence and spirit. The district of the Jebel NAbloos is now-- as it was when it bore the name of Mount Ephraim-one of the most difficult to manage in the whole of Syria. If an Englishman wants to know something of a sphere of human life about as diametrically opposite to his own as can be imagined, he cannot have a better opportunity in all Syria of doing so than he will have in the bazaars of NAbloos. He will see less of the grace and charm of Oriental life than is to be found at Damascus or Cairo; but he will see more of the fanaticism of Islam, and it is but fair to warn him that there is no place where he will be more soundly cursed as he works his way through the bazaar, or stands a better chance of being mobbed and illtreated. Native Christians are sadly at a discount. There are very few of them, and they have a furtive anxious look about their thin sallow visages, contrasting very disadvantageously with the noble countenances and lofty figures of some of the other inhabitants. But there is more than all this in NAbloos. Its archaeology is indisputable. Not even Dr. Robinson doubts the tradition which identifies the two long, rough, lofty, ridgy hills, that rise so steeply on either side of the valley, with Ebal and Gerizim, or which sees in the ruined well at its eastern end, the well of Jacob. It would puzzle even Mr. Fergusson to find any arguments with which to assail the genuine- 242 NABLOOS AND THE SAMARITAN1TS. ness of the flat sheet of rock on the summit of Gerizim, which has been the holy place of the Samaritans for more than 2,000 years. We have now arrived at that which gives its great charm to this place--the little community of Samaritans, who inhabit one corner of the town. Interesting they will always be for their own sake, as one of the smallest and oldest sects in the world, occupying the same spot, and clinging to the same identical sanctuary, through nearly twenty-five centuries, and that sanctuary not improbably the very earliest holy place in the Holy Land. The bare platform of rock on the summit of Mount Gerizim they believe to be the place on which Abraham was commanded to sacrifice Isaac, and arguments are to be found (not few or feeble to those who will consider them dispassionately) in favour of that spot, instead of the so-called Mount Moriah at Jerusalem. Of persecution, the Samaritans have had plenty. From the time when Vespasian slaughtered I r,ooo of them on their holy mountain, to the petty oppressions of the Turkish Beys, so touchingly described by Jacob esh-Shelaby, the hand and tongue of every dweller in the East, Heathen, Jew, Mahometan, seem to have been against them. This persecution has had its usual effect. It has attached them more closely than ever to their faith, and has perpetuated their peculiarities-their rites and their books-to a degree of minute conservatism, which at first sight is almost incredible. To name only two instances of this. Justin Martyr, himself a native of Neapolis, writing in the middle of the second century, mentions that the Samaritans roasted their Passover lambs on a spit in the form of a cross. They still do the very same thing after the lapse of 1,700 years. The.second is, that they use the ancient Hebrew alphabet instead of the ordinary square letters introduced after the captivity by Ezra. These square letters they vehemently repudiate, and it almost takes one's breath away to hear an act of Ezra's, dating from five centuries before the Christian era, stilli denounced as an absurd and wicked innovation. I brought away a primer from which the little Samaritans are taught in their school at N.bloos, and it is covered with the thin sprawling forms of the venerable letters, much more rude and complicated than the usual Samaritan type of the Polyglotts. And this is shown in many other things. Their copies of the Pentateuch differ in many grave (if not material) points from the Hebrew one. That these differences are at least 2,00o years old is 243 244 NABfLOOS AND THE SAMARITA, S. rendered very probable, by. many of them being found also in the translation of the Septuagint, which is known to have been begun in the third century before Christ. Their mode of chanting (as we shall see afterwards) is peculiar and archaic. Their laws of marriage are most strict; they never marry out of their own people. With the jews, the Passover has long ceased to be anything but the feast of unleavened bread; but the Samaritans encamp on the mountain for a whole week, and slay, roast, and eat the lambs, with their loins girt and staves in their hands, and with every minutest particular of the Mosaic ritual observed. And so in purification and other small enactments, they observe the regulations of the Law in a far stricter manner than the Jews of Palestine or any other country. Now we know from their letters to Scaliger, in 1589, that they kept all these things as strictly three centuries ago as they now do, and this is a strong evidence that they have preserved a great deal from a still earlier age.* Indeed, that they are conservative there can be no doubt. But then comes the question, "What do they conserve ? " Are they Israelites ? or are they, as usually seems to be taken for granted, mere heathens, who adopted a bastard Jewish religion for their own ends, and whose whole system is an imposture ? This is obviously not the place for the discussion of such a question as this. I will content myself with naming one or two circumstances which seem strongly to favour the idea that the Samaritans have, to say the least, a very strong Israelite element in their composition, and which incline me to the belief, that in * Those who would like to pursue this interesting subject farther, may be referred to the following sources :-The letters from the Samaritans to Scaliger (A.D. I589), are given by De Sacy in Eichhorn's "Repertorium," etc., vol. xiii., p. 257. Those to Ludolf, with others to De Sacy himself, and with a resume of the whole correspondence, in his Paper in the "Notices et Extraits," tom. xii. See also Schnurrer in the " Repertorium," vol. ix., p. I. On the whole, the fullest report of the existing community is that of Dr. Wilson (" Lands of the Bible," ii. 46-78, and 687-7oI). He gives lists of their names, a copy and translation of a marriage covenant, their Creed, and other information, which his knowledge of Hebrew and Arabic enabled him to obtain. The narrative of the Abbd Bar gs (" Les Samaritains de Naplouse ") is worth reading. But as interesting as any is a small book called "Notices of the Modern Samaritans," the personal history of the family of Jacob esh-Shelaby, as dictated by himself to Mr. Rogers our excellent Consul at Damascus, who was formerly stationed in the neighbour- hood of Nabloos. NABLOOS AND THE SAMARITANS. their seclusion they may have preserved some traits of the Israel of the Bible, and of the ancient worship of Jehovah, which the Jews (properly so called) have lost during their close intercourse with nations and institutions differing so extremely from their own. I use the words " Israel" and " Israelite" advisedly ; because, though the Jews were Israelites, yet the Israelites were not always Jews. The word '" Jew "(Judus) is really " Judrean," and dates only from the return from Babylon, when Judah became the head and representative of the nation. The Samaritans always call themselves the children of Joseph, and the Jews Yehudhim, or Judathites. Perhaps, of all the ancient practices of the Samaritans, none is more startling than their habit of insisting, in the nineteenth century of the Christian era, on the distince tion between " Judah and Ephraim," with all the strength and animosity that can have been thrown into the terms in the days of Jeroboam or Amaziah. The same distinction occurs constantly in their letters to Scaliger. But to return. It is usually assumed that the kingdom of Samaria was completely cleared of its Israelite population before the Assyrian colonists were sent there. Was this so? Subsequent occurrences seem to show that it is at least doubtful. The "remnant of Israel" are mentioned in the reign of Josiah as being sufficiently numerous to make it worth while to collect their subscriptions for the repair of the temple at Jerusalem.* That some considerable affinity existed between these people and Jerusalem is evident from a remarkable narrative of Jeremiah, which shows that large caravans of devotees from the chief cities of Samaria were in the habit of making pilgrimage to the ruins of the Temple after its destruction by Nebuchadnezzar, for the purpose of lamenting over it.f After Judah returned from captivity, the Samaritans showed their anxiety to join in the worship of Jehovah, and to assist in rebuilding the temple. This, however, the leaders of Judah would not hear of. They repulsed the offer with scorn, as made, not by friends, but by " adversaries of Judah and Benjamin."$ This was the beginning of the strife. But that very strife was, perhaps, destined to cause a stronger infusion of the Jehovah element into the Samaritan community than * 2 Chron. xxiv. 9. ' Jer. xli. 5, and the article on Ishmael, son of Nethaniah, in Smith's " L ltionary of the Bible," vol. i., p. 895. $ Ezra iv. 1-3. , 245 NABLOOS AND THE SAMARITANS. would have been the case had they remained at peace with the Jews. For it so happened that Manasseh, son of the high-priest at Jerusalem, and himself acting high-priest, having married a daughter or grand- daughter of Sanballat, the Samaritan chief, was expelled from Jerusalem by Nehemiah, upon which he went over to his father-in-law, with a large number both of priests and laymen, and became the first priest of the sanctuary on Gerizim.* Thus, the religious establishment of the Samaritans was actually inaugurated by a high-priest of Jehovah directly descended from Aaron, in a city, the inhabitants of which, to use the words of Josephus, were chiefly "deserters from the nation of the Jews." These facts certainly seem to indicate a much stronger connection between the Samaritan people and Israel, and a much broader Jehovistic element in their religion, than is commonly assumed. They certainly had the true succession in their priesthood. The political animosity which began with Zerubbabel's rude repulse (or rather, perhaps, centuries earlier, before the separation of the northern and southern kingdoms), was fanned by the constant secessions of dis- contented and turbulent Jews from the Holy City, and is quite enough to account for the exaggeration and ill-will which have existed on both sides with such virulence and pertinacity. I will now endeavour to describe the rites of the Y6m kzi oor, or Day of Atonement, of the Samaritans, as I witnessed it at NAbloos in I86--in an extract from a letter written at the time. "I arrived at the town on Friday, October IIth. One of the first persons I encountered was a Samaritan, who was well known in England some years back, Jacob esh-Shelaby. In his house I re- mained during my stay, and to him I am indebted for all that I saw and heard. From sunset of Thursday, the IIth, to that of Friday, the 12th, was the Sabbath of the Samaritans, and from the sunset of the 12th to that of the 13th, the y6m ki5poor. This is, I believe, about a month later than the date at which the day is kept by the Jews. The reason of this I could not discover, either from the Samaritans, or from some learned Jews of whom I inquired in Damascus: I can only conjecture that it arises from a difference in the calculation of the days which have to be added to adjust the difference between solar and lunar years. The Samaritans, who number between ninety and a hundred souls, * Josephus, "Antiquities," xi. 8, � 2-7. 246 NAfBLOOS AND THE SAMARITANS. besides women and children, inhabit a quarter of their own at the south-west angle of the town. The Synagogue is situated within the quarter. I entered it first on the evening of the Sabbath, at 5 o'clock, so as to see the conclusion of the ordinary service, and the commence- ment of that of the Fast. They tell you that the building is 60o years old; and though this is probably exaggerated, it has no ornamentation or other evidence to contradict it, and it is a venerable edifice, quite in keeping with the venerable sect who worship within it. Through a little garden, shut in by high walls, I entered a. small square covered court, which at that time was filled with women and children. From thence two low steps lead up into the church. Here I put off my boots, and left them amongst the numerous slippers of the community who had already entered. The building may be best described as i...i.... ....... . N.B.-The points of the compass are only used relatively, for description's sake. The building did not point E. and W. a nave of two bays, with chancel and north and south transepts of one bay each, and a chapel between the north transept and the west end of the nave. The three last-named portions are raised one step. Each bay is groined, and there are two small round apertures in the roof. Besides these the only opening is the door. The walls are white, and from the vaults hang two quaint glass-chandeliers, and one small glass oil-lamp. The door is in the north transept, so that on entering, the recess forhe e Torah, or Book of the Law, answering to the chancel, was on the left. Directly opposite the door hung a Eur oan clock. I retreated to the corner immediately on my right, 247 NABLOOS AND THE SAMARITANS. from whence, being raised a step, I could overlook the rest, without being myself too prominent, It was a striking scene. The floor was covered with carpets. Except a space left up the transepts, the whole building was nearly filled by about eighty persons, of whom fifteen or twenty were women and children, the rest men. All were in white surplices or gowns, with white turbans round their red tarbooshes. All were squatted on the ground, and looking towards the recess of the Torah, which points in the direction of the Kibleh on Mount Gerizim, the one holy place of the community. The back of this recess was hung with a veil of dull red and gold-the one piece of colour on the walls; behind which, among other similar, but less precious treasures, was the Book, or rather Roll of the Law, which the Samaritans affirm to be by the actual hand of Abishua, the son of Phinehas, the grandson of Aaron. The only articles of furniture in the chancel were a stool, and some- thing which looked like a high-backed chair-a stand for the exhibition of the sacred rolls. On the stool lay a bundle in blue silk. It was a famous book of the Pentateuch (not a roll) wrapped in handkerchiefs, the offerings of the pious. In front of the chancel, a little towards the right, was the priest, erect. He was dressed exactly like the others, and was reading some service in a loud, harsh, monotonous chant or plainsong, varied by occasional jerks or barks, and by strange gestures, as if he were trying to bite violently something immediately in front of him, produc- ing altogether not exactly a ludicrous, but a most disagreeable and discordant effect. Every here and there the congregation joined in with him, with no concord, but the most extreme discord. I soon discovered that there was a division in the congregation. Between the door and the corner of the chancel was a single row of figures squatting against the wall. These were the learned. They also filled the recess of the further transept, and one was even within the line of the chancel itself. This single individual, I after- wards learned, was the younger of the two priests of the community. After the minister had proceeded for some time with his violent minis- trations he stopped, and this second priest began in a different tone, much quieter, and evidently on different matter. Presently all rose, and prostrating themselves in the Moslem fashion, with their faces to the ground, uttered a sort of booming sound--the only approach to concord or an agreeable noise which I heard during the whole evening. This 248 NA'BLOOS AND THE SAMARITANS. I took to be the general Amen at the conclusion of the regular service. So it was. It was sunset. The Sabbath had ended; but the rites of the y6m kifpoor commenced without an instant's interval. I had noticed water-bottles circulating freely amongst the worshippers for several minutes before this. They were now emptied and placed on a shelf over my head. The fast had begun, and till the next sunset neither meat, drink, smoke, or even medicine will be tasted (however grave the case) by man, woman, child, infant, or suckling. That the service had changed was quickly evident. The elder priest re-commenced reading, and now the whole congregation with him. It was the first chapter of the Law-the first verse of Genesis-Barashit bara Elooim.* The services of this great day, the only fast in the Samaritan calendar-which, from its severity, is looked forward to with uneasiness for the whole year--consist of the recital of the whole Pentateuch by priests and people, interspersed with common prayers, of the kind already described, and creeds, or professions of faith. A few of the congregation had books; but if all had possessed them it would have been of no avail for a considerable part of the time, for the service is continued through the night, without even the feeble lamp, which, on every other night of the year but this, burns in front of the holy books. The two priests and a few of the people know the whole of the Torah by heart; others know a single book; others a few chapters; so that there are always respondents. All stood up, and the storm of harsh voices raged around. They seemed to repeat very fast, and with a metrical, jumping sort of measure, which converted it almost into a gallop. Now and then--at what particular passages I could not discover-they roared or barked still more loudly; now and then they prostrated themselves. The prostrations are made at certain solemn portions of the law, such as the Ten Commandments. They are made by rising from the squatting posture to the knees, then the two hands are placed flat on the floor, the palms down, and the forehead (not the nose, as in the Moslem prostrations) is brought to the floor between them. After going in this way through two or three chapters, they stopped; and the younger priest re-commenced prayers in the plain chant, with occasional responses. His part was very similar to the old Gregorian plainsong of the Roman Church, but even more archaic in its turns. * This is the Samaritan pronunciation of the words which in Hebrew are pronounced Bereshith bara Elohim. 249 yt5 NABLOOS AND THE SAMARITANS. After a quarter of an hour of this, an aged man, seated next the door, began to read the Law. His peculiarity seemed to be the repetition, four or five times over, of the last syllable of each sentence, with a rumbling, mouthing sound, inexpressibly' tedious of hear, but which evidently afforded him the greatest satisfaction. Then the reading in chorus began again, and then I came out. A good deal of private devotion had gone on during the general service. For instance: rmy host and several others came in, and, taking their places here and there, went through a series of prostrations and elevations, of the same kind as the ordinary prayers of the Moslems, except the small gestures of touching the ears, turning right and left, etc.: and during these, it is only right to say, they were most devout and entirely absorbed. But there was also a good deal of talking amongst the general body in my neighbourhood, arising, in some measure, from the presence of the children, who pushed in and out, and already began whimpering and teasing for water. It was not, however, the talking or minor interrup- tions that struck me, so much as the hard, undevotional, violent character of the proceedings. Not a soul seemed to be touched or interested. It was not disorderly, nor undignified, but seemed a service without worship. I have already spoken of the extreme strictness with which the fast is kept. The wails and screams of the unfortunate infants in the neighbouring houses during the whole of the evening and night, testify that this part of my statement is not exaggerated. The next morning was occupied in a visit to a village called Awertah, a few miles off, which contains the traditional sepulchres of Eleazar and Phinehas, the son and grandson of Aaron; and a cave, reputed to have been the residence of Elijah. In the afternoon, I returned to the synagogue. It was 3.45 P.M.: more than two hours of this weary day still remained to be passed before the sunset should release the worshippers. The reading of the Law was going on in earnest. They were deep in Deuteronomy. The church was not quite so full as when I first saw it; but there were still a large number present. The divan on the right was occupied as before by the unlearned, who looked on with. a listless air, and shouted a verse or two now and then, as memory served; and by sleepers, taking a short rest before the final scenes. Two or three women kept their ground in my corner: and several children and youths, completely exhausted, were stretched like dogs on the mattings. On the other hand, the NABLOOS AND THE SAMARITANS. initiated on. the lower part 9f the floor had gathered closer, and were formed into a wide circle, facing the chancel, squatting round with books of the law open on their knees, or supported on low stands. Some of these books were very large, written apparently with great beauty and width of margin-some of them still in separate sheets. The priests were taking no part, but seemed to have relinquished the reading altogether to the congregation, reserving themselves, no doubt, for what was coming. The younger man occupied himself in wrapping up, in its hundred and twenty handkerchiefs, the book of which I have already spoken, and which had been used during the morning. The sound of the service was much the same as it had been last night, only, if possible, more discordant; but the aspect of the scene was most pleasing, and struck me even more than at first. Many of the men were models of manly beauty, tall and dignified in form, and with lofty, open, and most engaging countenances. There are few postures in the world more noble and graceful than that in which Orientals sit on the ground. But all these were not sitting. A few were standing, if possible, in a still more striking posture; propped up against the wall, like Belisarius in the well-known picture, on long staves, and holding out both hands in an attitude of deprecation, or adoration. Then, the pure white dresses, just relieved by a little dash of colour in the red caps emerging from the turbans, or of a red or yellow scarf escaping here and there; the quaint charm and glister of the antique chandeliers, the venerable vaults above, and the rich solid hue of the carpets underfoot, all tempered by the sweet soft light of the Eastern afternoon as it flowed in at the door, or wavered down from the apertures overhead--these things combined to form a picture which, to a deaf man, would have been without alloy, and which was so beautiful as to make even me (who am not deaf) forget the discordant voices for a few moments as I contemplated it. But I was not long in coming to myself; and then I found that the speed of the recitation was increasing. At last it became a perfect race. Then they fell as before, only more decidedly, into a metrical pace but with a concord of measure only, not of etc. ,his sort of but with a concord of measure only, not of ditch. 1 his sort of 251 NABLOOS AND THE SAMARITANS. metre was constantly varied during the rest of the service; now it was and now etc. When at length the two great songs, with which Deuteronomy concludes, had been reached, there was a general stir, and a movement towards the front of the sanctuary. The priests came forth from behind the red veil, clad in dresses of very light green satin down to the feet, and the recitations proceeded with greater clamour and impetuosity than ever. Then the two great rolls, which, according to the Samaritans themselves, have stood to them in the place of the ancient glories of their temple since its destruction, and have certainly been the desire and the despair of European scholars since Scaliger's time, were brought forth, enveloped in coverings of light blue velvet, and placed on the sloping stand in the centre of the recess. At last the law was ended, amidst a perfect tumult, by the reiteration of one syllable--akh or lah-at least thirty times. Then the two priests again emerged from behind the curtain, this time with a white cloth, or shawl, covering the head and reaching nearly to the knees; they put off the velvet cover- ings, and exposed the cases qf the rolls to view. That to the right was bright silver, and evidently of modern make; the other puzzled me more. It was too distant for me to see any of its details, but the whole effect struck me as that of Veneto-oriental work, of a date some cen- turies back. The sequel will show what it really is. The production of the rolls was the signal for prostrations, fresh prayers, and fresh re- sponses, which lasted at least a quarter of an hour. And now came the great event of the day-nay, of the year. The priests opened the cases so as to expose their contents to view; and then, with their backs to the congregation, and their faces towards the Holy Place on Gerizim, held them up over their heads, with the sacred parchments full in view of the whole synagogue. Every one prostrated himself, and that not once, but repeatedly, and for a length of time. Then the devout pressed forwards to kiss, to stroke fondly, to touch, or, if none of these were possible, to 25z NABLOOS AND THE SAMARITANS. gaze on the precious treasures. Several children were allowed to kiss. It was past five; and now commenced, if indeed they can ever be said to have ceased, a succession of prayers and catechisms between priest and congregation; he intoning, and they vociferating, after him, with him, before him, apparently in the wildest confusion. His chant had a strong resemblance to the ordinary plainsong in the Roman Church, and was tuneable enough, with the exception of a sort of jerk or hiccup which occasionally occurred, and which threw an individual, and quite a savage character into it. Their part I can compare to nothing but the psalms for the day as performed at St. George's-in-the-East during the riots, when a majority said, and a minority sung them; and even that wanted the force and energy which here lent such a dreadful life to the discord. These responses--which I was afterwards told were avowals of their belief in Jehovah and in Moses-were accom- panied by constant sudden prostrations, the effect of which was most remarkable, and by frequently rubbing down the whole face and beard with the right hand, a gesture which I had not noticed till now.* At intervals during this time, the kissing and stroking of the rolls, as they lay in state on the sloping stand, was going on to an extent which must seriously injure them, and would be fatal if it happened oftener. The one in the old case was the favourite. Had I not been present this day, I doubt if, even with Jacob's influence, I should have seen it; for it is brought out with great reluctance, and all kinds of subterfuges are resorted to, to avoid showing it to travellers. One little episode of this part of the proceedings struck me. There was a youth, whom I caught sight of timidly hovering behind the bolder spirits who pressed round the rolls, as if anxious, yet afraid, to come forward :-- "Still pressing, longing, to be right, Yet fearing to be wrong." Poor fellow I after all he missed his opportunity, and only succeeded in summoning his courage when the roll was shut, and it was too late to do more than touch the silver case. I pitied him from my heart, and * I afterwards saw this gesture frequently used by the Moslems. " It signifies blessing," I was told. It is used when any sacred name or form of words is said, and seems to be an attempt actually to catch the grace of the words, residing in the breath of the speaker himself, and communicate it to his countenance. 253 2'ADLOOS AND THE SAMARITANS. longed that such modest, Christian diffidence in sacred things, might have a worthier object for its exercise. It was a pretty little incident, and formed one of the few touches of human feeling which softened the harshness of this most singular service. The catechising I have mentioned went on for nearly an hour, till it seemed positively interminable. My weariness now became extreme. The length, the discordance, the noise, perhaps more than anything the unintelligibility of the whole, and also my anxiety for the poor fainting children strewed around, like so many Ishmaels in the last stage of existeuce for want of water and food--all combined to make me heartily wish it over. At length came an indication that the end was near. An elder advanced towards the door and put a fla,' on the ground for contributions. This attempt at a " collection" was the only part of the whole in which I could find any connecting link with the practices of our Church. It may have been a customary thing; but I fear it was aimed at the Nazarene stranger. At any rate, the sums put in by others were so exceedingly minute, that I feel pretty confident they were only deposited as baits for me. I did not disappoint the expec- tations of my friends, though it required some nerve to drop my mite, as the plate was taken in charge by two ancients, who seized my five- franc piece, almost before it left my fingers, and scrutinised its look and weight with the greatest care. At last the Holy Books were consigned to their retirement behind the veil, there to remain for another year. By degrees all went out. The little lamp was lowered from the cieling, lighted, and left burning in the twilight before the sanctuary, and the ydm kipoor for the year I270 (as the Samaritans reckon, according to the Mahometan era) was at an end. I confess that I was fairly exhausted. And if this was my case-a mere spectator of a small portion of the proceedings-how must it have been with those who had gone through the whole labour of the day and night ? the priests, the weak, the old, the women, who to the severe privations of the fast had added the pain of twenty-four hours almost incessant vociferation ? For a few there were, such as the old man by the door, and some in the transept at the end, who had shouted the whole time. Any one who has taken part in the chorus of an oratorio knows how fatiguing that is, even for the two hours and a l:alf or three hours of its duration, and how absolutely necessary refreshment becomes between the parts, even to those who are in the 254 NAJBLOOS AND THE SAMARITANS. habit of singing regularly and frequently. But here were people who had been undergoing a similar exertion for twenty-four hours, after the interval of a twelvemonth, with no refreshment whatever, beyond an occasional expectoration I Strange to say, they were not nearly so exhausted as I imagined. I made my host take me to the elder just mentioned, and he really seemed neither hoarse nor weary. Smoke was the refreshment most immediately in request, and food only later in the evening, when the wants of the children and women had been satisfied. And so finished this most curious and suggestive scene. My chief desire throughout, as far as the strange sights and sounds left me any room for reflection, had been, as you will imagine, to see if any illustration could be gained from it of the ancient Jewish ritual-the general ritual I tnean, not that of the Day of Atonement only. If the Samaritan community be, as Stanley seems to believe, the most faith- ful representative of the old nation of Israel, is there not some reason for believing it possible that the services of NAbloos may retain a likeness to those of the times of the monarchy ? I do not pretend to have examined the subject at all sufficiently to have come to any conclusion upon it. But what I saw and heard certainly threw a new light upon it in my mind, and as it is an interesting question, I will name one or two points which seem to me worth further con- sideration. I. There is the fact of the undeniable likeness which I have noticed between the chant or plainsong of the priest, and that which is always considered to be the oldest part of the music of the Christian Church, and the eastern origin of which is now, I believe, pretty generally admitted. 2. The probability that a small persecuted sect like the Samaritans would retain such a thing without material change, as they certainly have retained other trifling usages; such, for instance, as the cross on the spit of the passover lambs (of which more anon). 3. The dissimilarity between the method of responding of the Samaritans, and that in the zikkrs or common worship of the Moslems; which, wild, repulsive, and heathenish as they are, are of an entirely different character, for instance, are always in concord both of time and tune with the leader. 4. The sentiment or sacredness of the words of the Psalms employed in the ancient Jewish liturgy, would be no argument against their having been sang in the discordant tumultuous manner of 255 NABLOOS AND THIE SAMARITANS. the Samaritans; for what can be more sacred or pathetic than some of the passages in the Pentateuch, which I actually heard so sung ? 5. On the other hand, may there not be some positive indications of the existence of similar discord in the ancient services, in the constant mention of "horns" (nothing but horns of animals, recollect), and "cymbals; " of "mighty men " (that is great, strong persons) chosen as singers and players; the frequent use, in describing these services, of such expressions as "loud noise," " make a noise," " shout," " roar," etc. The predominance of wind instruments-the "horns" just mentioned, as well as "cornets" and "trumpets " of metal, in the displays of which David was so fond, is in itself an evidence of the discord which must have reigned in them; for those instruments are still the great difficulty of our orchestras, and with all the modern resources are extremely difficult to keep, and still more to play, in tune. But it would be premature to argue the question on such slender grounds, and, indeed, I should be almost reluctant to pursue it further, for it would be a real calamity for which even the truth could hardly console one, to discover that the "Songs of Zion," which the Christian world has always regarded as the perfection of beauty (according to the modern ideas of beauty in music), at all resembled the harsh vociferations of the Samaritans, or that the "services of the sanctuary" were so bereft of enthusiasm and feeling as theirs are, and so exactly like the repetition of a hard and uninteresting lesson. There was one reflection, however, which forced itself on me con- tinually, without my having the least doubt whether I should entertain it or not. I could not help recollecting the great Christian Spectacle at which my wife and I had been present last autumn at Ammergau, and wondering at the force of the principle, which had been sufficient to raise that miracle of ordered beauty, fitness, reverence, and intelli- gence, out of such chaotic beginnings as those before me. I must not forget to tell you that later in the evening, when all the rest of the quarter were in bed, through the good offices of my host, he and I met the priest at the synagogue, and in consideration of a liberal backsheesh, and the prese at of my knife, I was allowed to examine the case of the Great Roll, and even to make some rubbings of parts of it-very imperfect, for I had not at all the proper things with me. He began by assuring me that it was I,400oo years old. I told him 256 NABLOOS AND THE SAMARITANS. if he took away the T,ooo, I thought he would not be far from the truth, and so it proved, for not only was my former conjecture confirmed, but on examination, the priest himself found a date which he read as equivalent to A.D. 1420. It is a beautiful and curious piece of work; a cylinder of about two feet six inches long and ten or twelve inches diameter, opening down the middle. One of the halves is engraved with a ground-plan of the Tabernacle, showing every post, tenon, veil, piece of furniture, vessel, etc., with a legend attached to each-all in raised work. The other half is covered with ornament only, also raised. It is silver, and I think-but the light was very imperfect-parcel-gilt. My visit would probably have been very much resented by the community, if they had known of it; and the feeling of this added a curious zest to it; as it was, I could not help fancying I was committing sacrilege; stealing-in in the dark and thus handling holy things. Of the roll itself I say nothing, partly because, knowing nothing of the subject, I hardly looked at it; and, partly because it has been thoroughly examined by, and, I believe, copied by, or for, a Russian Jew named Levisohn, at Jerusalem, who is devoting him- self to the Samaritan Pentateuch, and will very soon publish his discoveries. f One thing more, and I have finished. I have solved the mystery of the cross-shit. The Passover lambs (they require six for the community now) are roasted all together, by stuffing 'them vertically, head down- wards, into an oven, which is like a small well, about three feet diameter and four or five feet deep, roughly steined, in which a fire has been kept up for several hours. After the lambs are thrust in, the top of the hole is covered with bushes and earth, to confine the heat till the lambs are done. Each lamb has a stake or spit run * These rubbings have since been shown to the authorities of the South Kensington Museum, and pronounced to be Venetian work of the fourteenth or fifteenth century. t A short account of these discoveries was published in the papers not long since; and among other statements it was said that 24,ooo variations had been discovered between this and the ordinary Hebrew Pentateuch. I have very lately heard from Jerusalem that Mr. Levisohn's progress is stopped for want of funds-a want common enough in that part of the world, but one which surely might be remedied without difficulty. s57 258 NABLOOS AND THE SAMARITANS. through him to draw him up by; and, to prevent the spit from tearing away through the roast meat with the weight, a cross piece is put through the lower end of it. This is all. But it is still a curious thing, and must have startled the first Christian who noticed it in modem times, though he may not have drawn the same inference from it as old Justin did. October x861. / ' ,, il ! / lllll 11110 GARIBALDI S BIRTHPLACE AT NICE. III. NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (i86o). BY W. G. CLARK, M.A., F.R.G.S. THROUGH Tuin to Naples.-I left London on the i8th of August for the tour which has become a matter of annual recurrence. It had been my intention to go to Scotland, but the almost incessant rain which spoilt our last summer drove me to seek for sunshine in some southern land, and the interest attaching to Garibaldi's daring enter- prise drew me irresistibly to Italy. The route from England to Naples, travelled every year by thousands of our countrymen and not new to myself, would, in ordinary circumstances, be too hackneyed a topic; and a writer who should suppose that he had anything to say about it which had not been said before--the only justification for writing at all-would show great confidence in his own powers of observation. But I saw Naples under circumstances the reverse of ordinary--at that critical period when it was the centre of interest to all the nations of Europe; during the occurrence of events so strange and sudden that they resembled incidents of a romantic melodrama rather than real history. The achievements of Rollo and Robert Guiscard were repeated before the eyes of men who are never tired of saying that they live in a prosaic age. The interest of these events is scarcely abated, for they involve momentous consequences yet to come. The great captain who is now playing the part of Cincinnatus at Caprera has potentially-like another captain who once enjoyed a temporary repose in the neighbouring Elba-an army at his command. He is one of the great powers, who, though not officially represented, makes his presence felt in all the councils of Europe. [ reached Naples two days before the departure of the ki g. What NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (i86o). 1 saw and heard during the eventful three weeks which followed will form the main part of my story. I prefer to tell this story'(at the risk of occasional repetition) in the words of a journal written on the spot and at the first leisure hour after the occurrences. In this journal I have gorrected nothing but slips of the pen. I have inserted no ex host facto prophecies. I have merely added a note here and there by way of correction or explanation. As the political interest of the time is my only justification for writing at all, I have cut out from my narrative almost all that had not relation to passing events. The excavations at Pompeii and the treasures of the Museo Borbonico have, for the present, lost their interest. Besides, there would be an incongruity in thus mixing con- temporary history with antiquarianism and dilettantism; nor would the space at my disposal allow me to do so, in any case. I might have touched in passing many such topics and given conclusions without arguments; but I remember the warning, " Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio," and I have reason to think that a love of brevity is liable to be mistaken for an affectation of smartness and a tendency to dogmatism. I crossed from Folkestone to Boulogne in a storm of wind and rain. The rain accompanied me to Paris, scarcely abated during the two days of my stay there, chased me in flying showers to Macon; then, with- drawing for a while, hung in masses of threatening cloud in front and flank as we crossed the plains and wound along the valleys, guarded with bastions of limestone crag on either hand, the first approaches to the great fortress of the Alps, to Culoy, now, alas! a frontier place no more, thence by the lake of Bourget and Chambery, where we saw skeletons of triumphal arches destined for the reception of the new master, to St. Jean de Maurienne, where we exchanged the railway for the diligence. The route of the Mont Cenis is, to my mind, the least picturesque of all the Alpine passes, but what it lacks in scenic beauty it makes up in historical interest, as being the route of Hannibal.# * This is conclusively established in a work entitled, " A Treatise on Hannibal's Passage of the Alps," by Robert Ellis, B.D., Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, I853. The subsidiary arguments derived from the Peutingerian table, the names of places, etc., however ingenious and pro- bable, are less convincing than the main arguments, and tend, on a first reading, rather to invalidate the conclusions. I am disposed to think that Mr. Ellis lays rather too much stress on the fact that the plains of Italy are visible from a point near the summit of the pass. Polybius, from his 26e NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (186o). At Lanselebourg the clouds, which I had been comparing to hovering bodies of barbarians hanging on the line of the Carthaginians' march, burst upon us in a torrent of rain which lasted to Susa. When at length we reached Turin, at one a.m. (about thirty hours after leaving Paris), there was a cloudless sky overhead, and the soft sweet air of summer Italy to breathe and move in. I had been much entertained by one of my companions in the banquette of the diligence--an Englishman going to join Garibaldi. Evidently a gentleman, he had "roughed it" through life with the strangest comrades. He had dug for gold in Australia, had driven an omnibus for six months in Melbourne, etc., etc., and now was about to seek his fortune in Italy. "Not," he said, "that he cared a button for one side or the other; he wanted, if possible, to get a commission in the Sardinian army, and meanwhile, at all events, to have a lark." I fancy that a good many of the volunteers, if they would confess it, were actuated by similar feelings. I stayed nearly a week at Turin, where I found several old friends and acquaintances, several of them Neapolitan exiles, who gave me letters to their friends at home. Among them was Baron Charles Poerio, the gentlest and most innocent victim that was ever tortured by tyrant. I observed in him, as well as in others of his fellow-prisoners whom I saw at Naples afterwards, a subdued manner that was infinitely touching. It was as if long imprisonment had crushed their spirit and robbed life of its vitality. Poerio said that during his short tenure of office, the king affected to treat him as a confidential friend, would offer him a cigar when he went for an audience, and so forth. On the anniversary of the day of his accepting office, he had the chains put language, seems to suppose that the plains would be visible, as a matter of course, from the summit of any pass, and he himself probably crossed the Alps only once in the way of business; and if he had such weather as has always been my fortune in crossing the Mont Cenis, he could not verify the fact. The story of Hannibal's encouraging his men by showing them Italy is, perhaps, after all only a rhetorical figment. Everybody not familiar with Alpine travel would take it for granted that Italy was visible from the summit (not having a clear understanding of the distinction between "peaks" and "passes"), and the situation, "Hannibal pointing out Italy to his soldiers," is too striking not to be accepted as true: " ut pueris placeat et declamatio fiat." I doubt, too, whether we have got at the true significa- tion of XeVK6rerpov. However this may be, Mr. Ellis seems to me to have proved his point abundantly. 261 NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (186o). on in the court of one of the prisons, the benevolent monarch looking on from a window. I went one day to a charming villa on the " Collina," near Moncalieri, to visit an exile of a different race. I found him playing with his children, as youthful at heart as any of them. No prison had bowed his spirit down, and even eleven years of exile had not sickened his hope of triumphant return. He had not a shadow of doubt that the sword of Garibaldi would open through Venice a road to Hungary. "Shall we meet next year in London?" I said at parting. " We shall meet next year, if anywhere, at Pesth," was the reply. On the 28th of August I went to Genoa, on the chance of finding a steamer for Livorno or Naples, there being no trustworthy information to be had in Turin. When I arrived there, I found that I had no choice but to wait till the 31st for the French boat. Three days soon passed among the varied sights of Genoa, the most beautiful as well as one of the busiest of the cities of the world. Garibaldi's portrait was in every window, ballad-singers were chanting his praises, and as you passed a group standing in the street or seated at the cafe, you were sure to hear the magic name. I was made all the more eager to get to Naples, fearing that he might get there before me. I here insert some leaves of my journal, omitting, as I said, almost all that related merely to the regular "sights" on the way. Aug. 23.--Turin is the most regularly built city in the world. It would have delighted an ancient Greek. Hippodamus himself might have planned it. Pausanias would have been in ecstasies if he had seen it, all its lines straight and all its angles right angles. And in his eyes the beauty of the regular city would have been enhanced by contrast with the rough shapeless mountains, glimpses of which you get at the end of the streets that run towards the north and west. Only the Contrada del Po deviates somewhat from the due direction, but this is scarcely appreciable by the eye. The spacious porticoes are thronged with people, notwithstanding that this is the season of the Villegiatura, and there is "nobody in town." I went this morning to call upon a friend at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which is modestly lodged in a corner of the Piazza Castello. I was surprised with the quietness of the whole establishment. The porter was dozing at the door; my friend the employd was not at home, nobody was waiting for an audience, and M. de Cavour was "disengaged" in the inner room. "Did I want to see him ?" asked 26z NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (1860). the porter. Having no pretext for an interview with the great man; and having neither invention, nor impudence sufficient to extemporise one, I was obliged to decline the honour, and I went away wondering at the stillness which reigned at what may be called the central point of European diplomacy. It reminded me of the brain, which though the source of all sensation, has no sensation itself. Aug. 24.--This morning I had a call from Signor -, a ministerial deputy, and an able as well as honest man. He takes a gloomy view of the state of things in Italy. "The Ministry is excessively embarrassed by the exigencies of France, on the one hand; by the remonstrances of the great Powers, on the other; and by the popular enthusiasm for Garibaldi, on the third. (We may suppose an Executive to have three hands, at least: in this case all of them are tied.) Garibaldi is a brave man, but 'a fool' (sic); he is easily led by the people about him, and he is surrounded by the most worthless advisers-as, for example, Crespi. The Mazzini party are taking advantage of the discontent excited by the late measures of the Ministry against the volunteers, and of Garibaldi's easy temper, and hope to proclaim first the Dictatorship of Garibaldi, and then the Republic in Southern Italy. The ultra-liberals are blind to facts and consequences; they will not take account of the difficulties in their way; they menace Rome in spite of France and Venetia, in spite of Germany (for it is certain that Prussia has agreed to make common cause with Austria). "Things are going from bad to worse, and we may lose all we have gained. Old animosities--la olitica di campanile-are reviving again, and are fanned by the ultra-liberals for their own purposes. The people were humiliated at the loss of Savoy and Nice, but all reasonable men felt that the Government had no choice. The citizens of Turin cared much more for Savoy than Nice, because the change brought the French frontier within sight of their walls. Turin is now a defenceless frontier town, and can never be the capital of Italy." Aug. 25.-I met another gentleman, neither deputy nor ministerial. He was enthusiastic for Garibaldi, "the honest man and great captain." " Cavour," he said, "has lost all his popularity, not so much from the cession of Savoy and Nice-for there was no resisting the armed brigand who took them-but from the way in which it was done. Cavour did it jauntily and unconcernedly, when, in decency, he ought to have worn an air of dejection. To parody what Jean Jacques said of a bishop: ' Quelque v~ridique qu'on soit ii faut bien mentir quelques 263 NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (18o6) fois quand on est diplomate;' but Cavour lied gratuitously. People have lost all confidence in him since he has sold himself to the devil. "Garibaldi is true as steel; he will conquer Naples and proclaim the R6 Galantuomo King of Italy, who will then find some honester man than Cavour to be his prime minister." Aug. 26.-Notes of a Conversation with----. "The franchise in Piedmont is given to all who pay forty francs per annum in direct taxes, which, in a country divided into small holdings, is almost equivalent to universal suffrage. But all landholders are conservative, and those of Piedmont Proper exercise it admirably; they are the mainstay of the constitution. "The so-called Tuscan autonomy is not an autonomy in fact; the word is misapplied. It means in this case that, for the present, the judicial system of Tuscany is maintained intact. For instance, if a dispute arises in Tuscany, it cannot be tried at Turin till they send it for trial. "Ten years ago, I foresaw that the idea of Italian unity was mounting like a flood, and would sweep all before it. The existence of this idea is a great fact which people at home would not see; I mean, Secretaries of State. Naples might have been saved to the king if he had joined Piedmont. In March, 1859, Lord Malmesbury wanted Sir James Hudson to go to Naples and advise the king to grant a constitution. He said, ' It is no use unless you allow me to advise his sending twenty thousand troops or so, to make a demonstration to the Italian side; a very small demonstration will suffice.' Lord Malmesbury refused; ' he did not wish Naples to be mixed up in the quarrel between Austria and France.' Now the quarrel between Austria and France was 'in the second plan. The battle of Italian unity was uppermost in men's minds. The great Powers urged the Piedmontese Government to stop the departure of the volunteers as soon as Garibaldi turned his designs on the mainland. Legally, there is no distinction between Sicily and Naples, but morally there is a distinction, because the Sicilians had been deluded by the Bourbons. The promise of a constitution, made in 1812, was never fulfilled. And, as you remind me, Lord Palmerston said in Parliament, droos of non-intervention, that there was no point of international law which is not liable to exceptions in practice. Farini's circular was the result of this diplomatic pressure. If after that he had not prevented the departure of the volunteers, the power of Minister of the Interior would have been at an end. He 264 NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (i860) could not act otherwise than he did. The papers cry out, but their influence is almost nil, since Parliament has begun to perform its functions regularly.' Ten years ago the press was very powerful. Cavour himself used to write articles. Now each paper is the organ of some little knot of politicians. Like a volcano (as you say) where there are at first a number of little outlets, which all cease when a great crater is formed. If Garibaldi is beaten, the Piedmontese Government will see that it must bide its time; it will still represent the idea of unity, which sooner or later will be realised in fact. The more moderate papers are beginning to see the necessity of waiting for an opportunity of getting Venetia. " If Piedmont receives any further accession of territory, there is a notion afloat that France will demand the island of Sardinia as the price of her assent. The plains are enormously fertile, yielding, they say, fortyfold. A large outlay would be required for draining, etc., to bring land now idle under cultivation. The volcanic rocks and the high mountains which prevent a free current of wind from west to east, are the cause of the unhealthiness of the place. All the island is unhealthy part of the year, and part is unhealthy all the year round. Sardinia is the most retrograde portion of the kingdom, and disaffected because the high taxation has been most felt there. There is an English party and a French party eager for annexation to one or other country, which is rich, and, as they think, would spend money there, but it would not strengthen either. The Bay of La Maddalena was of service to England in the former war, when they were blockading Toulon; but now that steam-vessels have taken the place of sailing- vessels, and can keep the sea in any wind, it will no longer be of service even in war. But politicians at home are governed by traditional views about British interests. That is why we stick to the Ionian Islands, which are no use to us. If we could only get rid of the notion that France is our natural enemy, and that we are bound to keep up posts of possible annoyance to her! The Ionian Islands are a perpetual sore between England and Greece. With Malta it is different. It is an island-fortress-prize of war, and I am for keeping it as long as we can. It would be ridiculous at Malta, or Gibraltar, to submit the question of ownership to universal suffrage. "The notion prevalent in Germany that the line of the Mincio, or at all events that of the Adige, is necessary to their security in a strategical point of view, is quite unfounded, It has not even the excuse of 265 NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (z86o). tradition. Read Metternich's letters, written at the time of the Congress of Vienna, and you will see that he was unwilling to accept the fatal gift of Northern Italy. But now that they have got the four fortresses, and that the Germans conceive their honour as well as their safety involved in the Austrian retention of Venetia, they will keep it as long as they can! "After all, we must submit all questions at last to the inexorable logic of facts (as the French say)." GENOA, Aug. 29.-Walked for an hour after sunset with a French gentleman, whose acquaintance I had made at dinner, up and down the delightful promenade of the Acqua Sola. It occupies an elevated platform on the "eastern side of the city, flanked externally by the walls of the inner circle of fortification, and looking over a valley set thick with painted houses and gardens, the sea to the right, and on the left the hills crowned with fortresses. It is planted with rows of ilex, acacia, and plane, and in the centre is an oval pond with a fountain, set round with weeping willows. It is well provided with stone seats. As we sat upon one of these, looking towards the sea, still lighted with reflected splendour from the west, " It is a shame," said the French- man, " to talk politics in so lovely a place, and at such a time. We ought to talk poetry." "It is your restless Emperor," said I, "who forces everybody to _think and to talk politics at all places and times." "Maybe so," he replied; "but his view is the true view, namely, that there will be no secure and lasting peace for Europe, until its political system is based upon the principle of nationalities. It may cost us years of disturbance to establish this principle, but it will be the best for peace in the long run. Europe will then be in a position of stable equilibrium (as the mathematicians say). This is the object of French policy. Surely it is nobler and wiser than the hand-to-mouth, purblind policy of your Government, which huddles up all quarrels and has for its object only the adjournment of war in the interest of merchants and fundholders." -He spoke as volubly and rapidly as an actor in a Greek comedy delivering the wrv~yos. When at last he paused for breath, I interposed : " Stop ! what do you mean by 'the principle of nationalities' ?" "What do I mean! Surely it is clear enough. It is a phrase universally used. Everybody knows it." " But if it has a definite meaning, it is capable of definition. 266 NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (I86o). "Well, I suppose we may express it thus: Every nation has a right. to belong to itself, and to choose its own form of government, and its own governors." "What do you mean by a nation ? " "Diable! mon cher Monsieur, comme vous vous posez en Socrate I The words of which one knows the meaning best are precisely those which one feels it most difficult to define. Of such words no one asks for a definition in good faith, but only for the sake of puzzling you, and in order to divert a question of facts into a question of words." "Don't be angry ! In all good faith, I do not know in what sense you use the word 'nation.' Its etymology-----" "Oh, confound etymology-je m'en soucie guere. I use the word in its modern sense, meaning a people of the same race, speaking the same language, inhabiting the same country." " As for instance ? " "The French, the English, the Italians----" " Stay a moment. I doubt whether your instances are to the point. Are the people in Brittany, Lorraine, Alsace, and Gascony, of the same race as the people in the centre of France, and do they speak the same language ? Yet they are integral parts of the French nation. So it is with the Welsh, the Scotch Highlanders, the people in the Channel Islands-they are not of the same race, nor do they speak the same language as the bulk of the English nation, yet they belong to it,. inseparably attached. Of Ireland I do not speak----" " No, you would find a difficulty there." "I may find a difficulty in combating the rooted prejudices existing on the Continent with respect to Ireland, but you must admit-without prejudice to the future rights of King Macmahon-that it forms at present a part of the United Kingdom, while two-thirds of the people are of Celtic blood; and a small portion still speak a Celtic tongue. As for Italy, it is inhabited by a multitude of races: Celts and Lombards in the north, Greeks in the south, and a fusion of old Italic tribes in the centre. As to language, a Lombard peasant and a Neapolitan peasant are as mutually unintelligible as an Englishman and a German." "But there is one language for the educated classes. They under- stand each other." "Yes, but that was not what you meant when you mentioned ' a people of the same race speaking the same language.' Look at 267 NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (I860). Hungary again. I suppose you would help in the establishment of a separate Hungarian nationality if you could ?" " Oh, certainly." "Well, in Hungary there are, I believe, at least four separate races, and four distinct languages, yet all these are united against the Austrian Government, and desire to form one independent nation. We read in the papers how cordially they fraternised at Pesth on the feast of St. Stephen, the 'other day." " I admit, my definition will scarcely apply to actual facts; it is rather a definition of the beau iddal of a nation. Let me see if I can modify it so as to make it practical. You English can only comprehend what is practical. As the Emperor said, you will never go to war for an idea." " For my part, I don't see that the annexation of Savoy is a whit more ideal than the annexation of Scinde, unless the combination of fraud with force in the case of Savoy--" "Ah I" (with a prolonged sneer) " quant A la fraude un fils d'Albion a beau parler." "Allons I let us not quarrel like a couple of commis-voyageurs, but revenons A nos moutons. By the way, where does that phrase come from ? Is it somewhere in Moliere ? " " No; it is in the Avocat-Patelin, where you will find the source of a great many popular sayings." He mentioned several; and, restored to good humour by this display of erudition, he said, with a smile, " Ah oui nos moutons; oif en 6tions nous ? " " You were proposing," I said, " to modify your definition of a nation. If you had stuck to it, I would have asked you further what you meant by 'race,' and then what you meant by 'language ;' and each of these words seems to me to be as difficult to define, practically, as nation itself; that is to say, to lay down any rule capable of practical applica- tion as to what constitutes identity and what diversity in race and language." "Well," said the Frenchman, "let us not quibble any more about words, let us come to things. I say, then, that a people, of whatever race or language, wishing to separate itself from, or join itself to, another people, has a right to do so." "Pardon me, I don't wish to quibble about words; but in using the term 'people,' you are, in fact, begging the question as much as if you had said ' nation.' ' 268 NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (186o). "You are hard to satisfy. I will say, if you like, instead of 'a people,' 'a number of persons living together.' " "Therefore, if the city of Bordeaux, for example, thinking its material interests more closely connected with England than with France, were to vote for annexing itself to the former country, the French Govern- ment would acquiesce ? " " To say the truth, I don't think it would." " That is to say, that when it found its interest opposed to its principle, it would follow its interest." "No ; your reductio ad absurdum is itself absurd. When I said ' a number of persons,' I meant, of course, such a number as might reason- ably claim to form a separate nation." "But in the case I put, it was not proposed that Bordeaux should form a separate nation." " It would be ridiculous for Bordeaux to pretend to have a will of its own distinct from that of France, of which it forms perhaps in popula- tion the three-hundredth part. We punished, if you remember, a similar insolence on the part of Toulon." "Yes, and you punished a similar insolence on the part of La Vendde, without any particular reference to the numbers of the revolted population." "That was in time of war, and the necessity of self-preservation imperiously demanded the reconquest of Toulon and La Vendde." " If you assist the Hungarians to revolt, will it not be 'time of war' then, and will not the necessity of self-preservation, from an Austrian point of view, demand the reconquest of Hungary ?" "Have you then no sympathy with an oppressed people ? (You will permit me to use the word in this case.) Do you not think that it is the duty of a great and free nation to protect the weak against the strong?" "Certainly; but then independent states, represented by their respect- ive governments, existing for the time being, have their rights. These may be respected, and yet much good done in behalf of what you call oppressed nationalities, by peaceful diplomacy, friendly advice, grave remonstrance, or even formal protest. I doubt whether the principles of international law (which I imagine knows nothing of your 'nation. alities'), would sanction a declaration of war in any case." "There are extreme cases in which necessity knows no law, inter. national or other. The state of Italy could not have been remedied last year without war," 269 NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (z860). " I doubt that. In a general congress, Austria, by the threat of war, might have been induced to erect Lombardo-Venetia into an indepen- dent kingdom, with free institutions, under the Archduke Maximilian, who was personally popular. I believe that the state of Italy would have been better than it is now. At all events, a 'congress ought to have been tried. France would have saved 50,000 men and 50o,00o,ooo of francs, but then Louis Napoleon would have missed the glory of commanding in a real battle, and Nice and Savoy would have still belonged to Sardinia. When once you unchain the demon of war, you know not where the end will be. Over and over again peace has been made at last without any reference to the original objects of the war. No evils are comparable to those of war. The English policy to adjourn war as long as possible, seems to me to be the really noble and humane policy. Induce oppressive governments to adopt gentler means of keeping public order, and time may soften down the fiercest antipathies. Alsace and Lorraine, which detested the yoke of France at first, have now become French at heart; but if Germany.had been constantly inciting them to revolt by promises of military support, successive insurrections would have been quenched in blood, and mutual hatred perpetuated for centuries. The policy of your Govern- ment towards other nations seems to me the most mischievous possible; it keeps up discontent among the people, who are perpetually told how much they are oppressed, and it piques the pride of the rulers, who will not relax their system, lest it should be said that they do so from fear of France." Surprised that I had not been interrupted during this long speech, and receiving no reply when I paused of my own accord, I turned towards my companion. He was, or feigned to be, asleep. Aug. 3.-I sailed from Genoa by one of the French steamers "making the scala," as the coasting voyage from Marseilles to Naples is termed. There was a great crowd of passengers-the Neapolitan and Sardinian boats having.been taken up for purposes of war. Next morning we stopped at Leghorn, and the morning after at Civita Vecchia, and remained there six or seven hours, enough to enable a party of Anmericap gentlemen to pay their visit to Rome, by aid of the new railway. They returned in triumph, having effected their purpose, and spent, as they said," fifty minutes, sir, in the E-ternal city I" A moist sirocco, the prevailing wind during last autumn, brought 7o0 VIEW OF NAPLES. NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (i86o). languor and discomfort to all We were right glad when about six next. morning, September 2, we found ourselves sailing by Capo, Miseno, and entering the Bay of Naples. Everything, however, was shrouded in a fog more worthy of England than of Italy. As soon as we came to anchor we were boarded by large parties of Neapolitans, chiefly in the new uniform of the National Guard, coming to meet their friends. After a very cursory examination of passports and luggage, we drove off to the Hotel Vittoria, where I established myself for the next three weeks, in an upper-room, looking over the ilex, acacias, palms, and pepper-trees of the Villa Reale. I kept my eyes and ears open, went diligently wherever there was anything to be seen and heard; taking copious notes day by day, and occasionally writing long letters to friends in England. The tomb of Virgil, Cumae, Avernus, Pompeii, the statues and frescoes of the Museum, occupy a considerable space in my note-books. All this I suppress for the reasons before mentioned. Extract of a Letter from Nafles, dated Tuesday, Sept. 4th. Naples is officially in a state of siege; practically there is no Govern- ment at all. Every man does that which is right in his own eyes, says what he pleases, writes and prints what he pleases, and acts entirely irrespective of all law, military or civil. For instance, three officers of Garibaldi's army on their way to England, charged with the duty of bringing out the 800 volunteers from Liverpool, landed this morning. Their passports bore no Neapolitan visd, so the police at the custom- house refused them permission to enter the city, whereupon they pushed the said police aside, and walked on in spite of them. A crowd ot papers has sprung into existence during the last few weeks. They are all openly for Garibaldi. They record triumphantly the progress of the insurrection, and exhort the citizens of Naples to be ready for action at the right moment. They are sold everywhere in the streets, and as the price is generally one grano (something less than a halfpenny sterling), everybody buys them. At the theatres the audience demand " Garibaldi's hymn," a patriotic composition, which is to the Italians of to-day what " Yankee Doodle ' and the " Marseillaise" were respectively to the Americans and French in their time. The hymn is sung; the audience stand up, join in the zI NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (186o). chorus, and, at the conclusion, cry out tumultuously "Viva Garibaldi," "Viva Vittorio Emmanuele," "Viva l'Italia Unita." I see portraits of Garibaldi and of Victor Emmanuel in every shop; I have not seen one of Francesco II. The universal opinion here is that the reign of the Bourbons is over, and that Garibaldi will enter Naples without the faintest show of resistance. If the King had had, as was supposed, any party among his subjects, whether nobles or lazzaroni,* some manifestation would be made in his favour; but there are no signs of-the existence of a Royalist party. When the King drives out-as he did daily up to the end of last week-no notice is taken of him. Here and there a spec- tator, out of pity and courtesy, lifts his hat; but the majority ostenta- tiously keep theirs on. Numbers of officers in uniform are driving about in hackney cabs, chatting and smoking, evidently in high spirits at the thought that they can turn their backs on the enemy as soon as he appears, and this time without dishonour. All accounts agree, that neither officers nor soldiers mean fighting. There is not one regiment upon whose fidelity the King can rely. There is one man in the army who is said to be faithful, viz., Bosco, who commanded at Melazzo: but Bosco is a Neapolitan. The National Guard, just organised, and very conspicuous in their uniform of blue coats and red caps, mount guard at various places in the city. They are to a man in favour of Garibaldi. I am informed, on good authority, that the King has given a promise in writing to the British Minister, and probably to all the foreign Ministers, that he will not in any case order his troops in Sant Elmo and the Castelli to bombard the city. A better security than the promise, written or * Lazzaroni. There is great doubt even among well-informed Neapolitans as to the existence of an organised body to which this term is specially appropriate. In general it is used vaguely to designate the poorest classes. A species of tax called "gamorra" is levied upon cabmen, small green- grocers, fishmongers, and other tradesmen, by the authority, and for the benefit, of a body of bravoes, called thence gamorristi, who co-opt into their body those who, by strength of arm and skill in the use of the stiletto, may have shown themselves worthy of the distinction. One of Garibaldi's earliest decrees declared this tax to be illegal. The account I have just given was told to me by a secretary of legation, long resident at Naples. This he believed to be the only organisation among what are called ' lazzaroni," sys NAPLE.S AND GARItBALDI (i860). otherwise, of a Bourbon, is the assurance that the troops would not obey such an order. The bombardment of Naples would not save the dynasty, and would eventually ehtail upon the bombarders certain destruction from popular vengeance. Whenever on the mainland the Neapolitan troops have encountered the Garibaldians, they have fired a few shots, for form's sake, and then surrendered. If such was their conduct when the ultimate result of the war was doubtful, how can we expect that they will act otherwise when the Bourbon cause is evidently desperate ? If the I4,ooo Swiss who served Ferdinand had been still here, they might have made a last stand for his son. Hated as they were by the people, their best security would have been a desperate defence; but they are disbanded, and, as I before said, the unhappy Francesco has not a regiment upon which he can count. The very soldiers on guard at the gates of the palace seem to be under no discipline and no restraint. I saw them last night lounging in all attitudes, laughing, smoking, and playing at inora, with shouts that rang through the courts and must have reached the ears of the King. As to where Garibaldi is, and when he may be expected here, per- haps you in England know as much as we know. All sorts of reports are circulated. The Cafe d'Europa is crowded all the evening with people circulating the bulletins issued every hour by this or that com- mittee, and telling and hearing news the authenticity of which cannot be tested, and of which one half contradicts the other. "Garibaldi is at Vallo "-" Garibaldi is at Sorrento "-" Garibaldi is at Salerno"- "The King embarked last night "-" The King is going to-morrow "- "The King declares he will stay at Naples "-" The Ministry has resigned "-" The Ministry has fled in a body "-" The King wants to go, but the Ministry will not let him "-and so forth. This much we know for certain, that the insurrection has spread from province to province and from town to town. Even Salerno * has established a Provisional Government and proclaimed Victor Emmanuel; and Salerno is under the very eyes of the commander-in- chief of the royal army. The least sanguine expect that, within a week at farthest, Victor Emmanuel will be proclaimed at Naples. Meanwhile, the city itself, with the exceptions I have mentioned, wears its ordinary aspect. Business goes on as usual; all the shops are open, the streets are crowded with carts and carriages of all sorts. * This anticipated the truth by two days. 273 274 NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (1860). (By the way, Naples is the only Continental capital which is liable to "blocks" such as occur in the thoroughfares of London.) Life and property are just as safe under the new police and the Guardia Nazionale as ever they were; indeed safer, because there are no sbirri to inform against honest men. Almost all the exiles have already returned without permission from Government, but certain that it dares not, and cannot, molest them. I have talked during the last two days with many persons of all ranks-I was about to say, of all opinions--but, in reality, I find only one opinion. All agree that the Bourbon rule is practically at an end-and the sooner it is nominally at an end also, the better. All look forward with joyful hope to the impending change, but there are some who fear that, between the fall of one Government and the installation of another, there may be an interval of anarchy, during which the lowest class may take an oppor- tunity for acts of pillage and private vengeance. In case of this fear being realised, I am told that preparations are made for landing sailors and marines to guard the embassies and consulates, where, if necessary, strangers of the various nations may find refuge. But in this fear I do not share. Naples can never have a weaker Govern- ment than it has at this moment, when it is not governed at all; and yet, as I have said, the thieves and assassins are no busier than at ordinary times. In fact, the lazzaroni are a bugbear, which has long frightened the shopkeepers, and led them to suppose that a rigorous police was necessary to the protection of their goods and chattels. It is a generic term, including all the very ragged men and boys of the city-a class which, in times of revolution, may be terrible enough, but which is no more organised for mischief than the mob of London. The upper and middle classes, including in the latter class all labouring men with regular employment, are in this instance of one accord. Therefore I believe that the change of Government will be made without any disturbance and without any interruption in the ordinary business and social relations of the place. In all likelihood, however, the conquest of Naples will only be regarded by Garibaldi as a starting point for fresh enterprises much more uncertain and much more arduous. "The end is not yet." .Sett. 6.-After spending a long morning at Pompeii, I went with a young English officer by the train at one o'clock towards Salerno. NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (i86o). A' soon as the railroad turns away from the Bay of Naples, it traverses a valley which at the farther end narrows into a ravine. Castles crowned each peak, towns and villages stretch in white lines along the slopes. The mountains are covered to the top with trees, ilex, elm, chestnut, the lower slopes with vines in festoons, olives, mulberries, maize yellowing to the harvest, cotton with pink and white blossoms, tomatoes golden among the green. At Nocera we saw the Neapolitan soldiers * in their light blue dresses, crowding the staircase and galleries of the great palace which serves for barracks. There was a citizen of Salerno in the train, who made polite offers of his services there. We got to Vietri in about an hour, and taking a carriage, drove at a furious pace from that village to Salerno, perhaps two miles distant. There we found the place all excitement. That morning a Provisional Government had been installed. Four officers of the national guard had taken the place of the Intendente nominated by the King. The Intendenza itself was decorated with Italian colours, and the arms of the Bourbon dynasty over the door were similarly concealed. A few of Garibaldi's men in red shirts, the only article of dress which . is .de rigueur t in his army, were walking about the town. One of them told me that he had just received a telegraphic despatch, announcing that the general had left Eboli, and would be at Salerno by six. Inquiring of another for General Ttirr, to whom I had an introduction, he took me into the Intendenza, and presented me to a white-haired, white-bearded old gentleman, who, as I understood was the general's secretary. He was very civil, but could not or would not give me any information. We then strolled about the town, and went to the cathedral, which has an atrium in front, with columns and capitals taken from some Roman Temple. There are a number of sarcophagi under the arches, which had been appropriated by Normans. You may see a knight in armour sculptured rudely, reposing above, and on the side a group of Cupids and Bacchantes. Two pulpits and the screen of the choi are beautifully preserved specimens of glass mosaic work, such as * They were part of the force which had Just evacuated .he lines in front of the capital, and were retreating to Capua-the fatal move which cost Francesco his crown. t Even the red shirt, as I afterwards observed, was not indispensable, There was nothing de rigueur in that army. 275 NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (186o). the tomb of Henry III. at Westminster, long ago defaced.* In the crypt below, rich in marbles, is the body of St. Matthew. Returning to the beach, we passed one of the King's "Bavarians," very drunk, wearing a kind of cockade of the Italian colours, crying, as well as he could, "Viva Garibaldi," and supported by sympathising natives. A bystander informed us, with an air of triumph, that two hundred of these Bavarians had the previous night mutinied at Nocera, killed (ammazato) one of their generals, and one of their captains, and then fled in various directions, several having come to Salerno to offer their services to Garibaldi. This story was, we found, true in the main, only "the general " was an addition. They had murdered a captain. My companion, as a military man, took a very different view of the feat, which our Italian friends seemed to think meritorious on the whole. As the day declined, the crowd gathered more thickly on the terrace which runs along the shore in front of Salerno. New detachments of tumultuary national guards poured in from the neighbourhood, armed with guns of all sorts and sizes, and without any pretence to uniformity in dress. A strong wind was blowing from the west, and clouds of dust swept along the terrace, so that I thought if the General delayed his entry much longer, we should have no sight left to see him withal. The sun went down, and left the hills purple against the clear orange and rose of the sky. Still he came not. By-and-by, men set out to meet him, with bundles of torches ready for lighting, and the householders prepared to illuminate their windows. Bands of music paraded the town, and the crowd kept up a running fire of vivas to pass the time. At last, about half-past seven, a louder and more continuous cheer was heard; two or three carriages drove in, surrounded with people waving torches. It was he at last. As he stopped at the door of the Intendenza, the national guard closed in to keep off the crowd, and escorted him up the staircase. A few minutes after he appeared at the balcony, while some one next him held a moderator lamp so as to throw the light full on his face. He stood bareheaded, fanning himself with his black wide-awake, and looking like anything but the daring freebooter that he is. He has the most benign expression of countenance, and his Is it our damp climate, or our mischievous nature, which mutilates every monument in England ? The mosaics at Salerno look as if they had been wrought last year. 76 GENERAL GARIBAI,DT. NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (I86o), partial baldness and long beard give him even a venerable look. He might serve as model for the portrait of the most benevolent of ancient philosophers, whoever that may have been.* Long after he had retired, the crowd continued to cheer "disturbedly" as the old stage direction says. In a little while all the town was lighted up. Nothing could be more beautiful than the lines of light spreading along the steep slopes of the hills and flashing in the sea below. By-and-by the moon rose, and touched with cold greenish light the rocky summits of the hills, convents, and castles, and white villas in the slope, bright enough to distinguish the grey rows of olives above from the thicket of lemon and fig trees below, and at last blending with the ruddy splendour that shone upon town, and beach,- and sea. We retired at last to sup and sleep at the Hotel Vittoria (almost the last house on the road to Vietri). Sept. 7.-About half-past nine we heard the roar of vivas in the street, and coming to the window, saw Garibaldi himself, passing in the direction of Vietri. One of the crowd, while cheering in the most frantic manner, suddenly fell in a kind of convulsive fit. I asked our landlady, a vivacious, black-eyed Calabrese damsel, whether he had not been drinking the General's health. " No," she said; " it is joy. Ah," in a tone of reproach, "you English, who have been always free, cannot imagine the delight of deliverance." And she made a gesture as if she were about to fly. Beside Garibaldi sat a person with gold lace round his cape, who we were told was General de Suget, commander of the national guard. .The question for us was, Whither were they bound ? Our landlord assured us that they. were going no farther than La Cava: he had it from the best authority-it was certo certissimo. So we forthwith engaged a carriage to take us to La Cava. Just as we were setting off, came our acquaintance of the railway in the uniform of a national guard, who told us that Garibaldi was going straight to Naples, and that we might still be in time to catch the special train that was to take him. We drove with all speed to the station at Vietri, which was crowded with carriages outside and people inside. There was no chance of getting through in the regular way; so climbing up a somewhat steep bank and getting over a low wall, we gained the railway. The train * The busts of Euripides, in the Vatican, have a striking resemblance to Garibaldi. 20 277 NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (x86o). was not gone. Without asking any one's leave, we got into a third-class carriage, containing already about thirty people, like ourselves, a self- invited escort for the Dictator. We were welcomed with cries of "Viva l'Inghilterra." It seems that the Neapolitan authorities, after the departure of the King, had sent a telegraphic message to General Garibaldi, asking when and where it would be his pleasure to receive a deputation. The answer was : "Immediately, at Salerno." Accord- ingly, the deputation came early on Friday morning. To their question, when would the General honour Naples with his presence, he answered, "At once," saying that he preferred a spontaneous to a prepared welcome. So every one was taken by surprise. We congratulated ourselves upon our good luck in being there to see. During the whole of our journey, the thirty or forty occupants of the carriage where we were did not cease shouting and singing. Some were in the uniform of the national guard, and almost all were armed in one way or other. The most conspicuous figure was a priest on the podgy side of forty, in the usual long black gown and broad-brimmed hat, with a musket and wide tricolor scarf. His bass voice was loudest of all the choruses, and in the cheers as we passed each successive station. In the intervals he was smoking regalias, which he brandished with the left hand, as he brandished the musket with the right. The songs were interminable. Rather, as it was always the same tune and the same chorus, I should call it one song, of which the verses were extemporised by one or other of the company. I managed to remember two of these verses, which I give by way of specimen. "Siamo Italiani, Giovani freschi, Contro ai Tedeschi, Vogliamo pugnar. (Chorus.) "Viva l'Italia I Viva l'unione ! Viva Garibaldi I E la liberty I U Morte a Francesco, Del nome seconds Piu belva nel mondo, Trovar non si pub ( ) Viva l'Italia,'' etc. 28 (Chos). NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (186o). The tune resembled the ordinary chant of the saints' litany " Sancte -, ora pro nobis," allegro instead of adagio. At every station a mob of curious people were gathered, who exchanged cheers with the occupants of the train, but it was evident that they scarcely believed Garibaldi himself to be present. Events had hastened to their dinouement so rapidly, that people could hardly credit the evidence of their senses. We stopped at Nocera, Torre dell' Annuziata, and Portici, for a few minutes. The demonstrations of welcome came from all classes; from the fishermen who left their boats on the beach, from the swarthy fellows naked to the waist, who were winnowing their corn on the flat house roofs, as well as from the national guards who crowded round the carriage to see the famous chief. At Naples there was a little delay while the Minister of the Interior, who has transferred his services directly to the Dictator, made a complimentary speech, not a word of which was audible to us. Then Garibaldi got into the carriage which was waiting for him, and drove slowly by the Strada Nuova, the Strada di Porto, and the Largo del Castel Nuovo to the Foresteria. A few carriages followed containing the deputation, and perhaps a dozen of his officers in their red shirts. He himself wore his ordinary costume, red shirt, black wide- awake, black neckcloth, and a coloured silk handkerchief knotted and hanging down his back, to serve, I suppose, on occasion for protection against the sun. A detachment of national guards went before and behind. We elbowed our way among the shouting crowd, and kept close by his carriage all the time. The excitement and enthusiasm were great, but the crowd was an extemporary crowd, composed of persons who had suddenly left their work at the news. Naples had been taken by surprise. The windows were not filled with expectant faces, the houses were not decorated with flags, because no one knew that he was coming. This robbed the event of its beauty as a spectacle, but it threw no doubt on the heartiness of the welcome. Garibaldi sat, for the most part, apparently unmoved, but from time to time he lifted his hat, and smiled, as it were, with the eyes rather than the lips. One of his men, with red shirt and plaid scarf and plumed hat, well armed, stood behind the carriage at his back, keeping, as I thought, a sharp eye upon all who came near, as if looking for the handle of a dagger, or the butt end of a pistol. As we passed the Castel del Carmine, a number of the King's troops, 27g NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (i86o). still in garrison there, were looking on. The mob in passing called to them, and, with menacing gestures, demanded that they should cry, "Viva Garibaldi." Some few obeyed, but the majority stood with folded arms and closed lips, notwithstanding the imprecations of the crowd below. The procession at last reached the great open place (its shape forbids me to call it a square) in front of the palace. Then Garibaldi left his carriage and entered the Foresteria, a large house intended for the reception of foreign guests of distinction. A few minutes afterwards he appeared at an open window on the first floor, and walked along the balcony to the centre of the building. Loud cries, not like the rolling cheers of an English crowd, but con- fused and inarticulate, greeted his appearance. He leaned with his left arm on the iron framework of the balcony, and waited patiently hat in hand. At last the crowd began to understand that he wanted to speak to them, and gradually the cries and shouts died away into silence, obedient to reiterated, "Zitti, zitti," from the quieter spirits. It was to the following effect:-" You have a right to exult in this day, which is the commencement of a new epoch not only for you but for all Italy, of which Naples forms the fairest portion. It is indeed a glorious day and a holy that on which a people passes from the yoke of servitude to the rank of a free nation. I thank you for this welcome, not only for myself individually, but in the name of all Italy, which your aid will render free and united." * He spoke with a clear and loud voice, which was heard by all. The phrase "Italia intiera" occurred twice in his speech, and was pro- nounced with unusual distinctness and emphasis, eliciting cheers of especial meaning. Wearied with dust, heat, and excitement, I went home to bathe and rest, and found that some patriot had picked my pocket. Mean- while the Dictator went to the cathedral, where a service of some kind was performed, and thence to the Palazzo d'Angri, where he has taken up his abode for the present. About three o'clock I drove up the Toledo, and found the street in front of the Palazzo blocked up by a dense mass of carriages and people on foot, crying "Viva Garibaldi 1" at the top of their voices, to bring him to the window. At last one of his men appeared and laid his cheek upon his hand, implying that the General had gone to lie down- * No newspaper, that I saw, contained a perfectly accurate report of this speech. s8o NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (i86o). "his custom always of an afternoon " (as I am told). He gets up about three in the morning, and transacts a vast amount of business before the rest of the world is out of bed. Before the day was over, every house, almost every window in the Toledo and Chiaia and main streets of Naples had its flag. There seemed to be considerable difference of opinion as to what the Italian tricolor was. All were agreed as to the colours, green, white, red; but whether they should be placed like the French parallel to the staff, or like the Dutch, at right angles: and whether the green should come first, or the red, seemed to be a moot point which each householder decided according to his fancy. The white portion of the flag was adorned either with a portrait of Garibaldi, or with a red shield and the white cross of Savoy. At sunset the town was illuminated, as the Italians say, d giorno; crowds of pedestrians and a multitude of carriages paraded the main streets. The noise was indescribable. The hero's name was repeated in all manner of forms, as if it was a declinable noun. Garibaldi, Garibaldo, Garibalda-nay, it was metamorphosed into Gallibar and Gallipot, and Galliboard; at last the two first syllables were suppressed, and "Viva 'Board" was the favourite cry, the sound of the last syllable being prolonged to the utmost. You heard, too, "Viva Vittorio Emmanuele," and still more frequently, "Viva l'Italia unita," which at length was shortened into una, and when people got so hoarse that they could not articulate any longer, they held out the forefinger and shook it as they passedt indica- tive of their desire for unity. Men, women, and boys crowded the carriages and clung to them like swarming bees--I counted thirteen persons in a small vehicle drawn by one horse. Some waved flags, some brandished daggers, holding them occasionally in unpleasant proximity to one's throat, and shrieking with menacing scowls, "Viva Garibaldi !" others danced frantically along, waving torches over their heads. I have never seen such a sight as the Strada di Toledo presented as you looked up it, the long lines of stationary lights con- verging in the distance, and the flags drooping from the windows, and down below the mad movements of the torches and the waved banners and gleaming arms. Here and there an excited orator addressed the crowd about him in wild declamation; little bands of enthusiasts, headed sometimes by a priest and sometimes by a woman, went dancing through the streets and burst into the cafes, compelling all present to join in the popular cry. I was forcibly reminded of the scenes of the French Revolution and Mademoiselle Louise Theroigne. 28i NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (i86o). When I was in the Cafe d'Europa a priest rushed in with frantic gestures, with eyes starting from his head, with a banner in one hand and a knife in the other, uttering horrible and inarticulate howlings. Having seen him, I can understand the frenzy of the ancient Bacchantes. A friend of mine saw a young and beautiful girl, belonging appa- rently to the upper class, who, standing up in a carriage, began to address the crowd quietly at first, but warming gradually into a fury of enthusiasm, the veins in face and neck swollen, and ending with 'Morte ai Borboni," shrieked out with the accents and gestures of a Rachel. Sept. 8th.-The diversion was repeated on this night (and again on Sunday, the 9th) with more vigour, and violence, and extravagance than ever. An unfortunate man who did not cry "Viva Garibaldi "when he was bidden, was ripped open by one who carried a dagger, and died on the spot. An English officer saw him lying dead. A proclamation next morning from the new minister of police entreated the people to leave their arms at home, but it did not appear to have much effect. These people have not been.accustomed to official entreaties. On the afternoon Garibaldi went to the Church of the Piedigrotta, seeing (as the paper informed us) that it had been the ancient custom of the Neapolitan Sovereigns to pay their devotions to the Madonna of that ilk on the 8th of September. There used to be a great parade of troops on this day, and country people came in from far and near; but this year it had lost all its usual characteristics. There were no troops and few visitors, and a heavy fall of rain completed the failure. This I heard from others, as I spent the day at Puzzuoli Cumae and Baise. I returned in time for the per- formance at the San Carlo, which the Dictator was present at. The performance was listened to with impatience; people seemed to care for nothing but shouting " Viva" between the acts. Some English mid- shipmen, from boxes in the third tier, made themselves very conspicuous by the energy with which they waved their tricolor. The spectacle was spoilt by the avarice of the managers, who had doubled the prices, and consequently halved the audience. The thousand or fifteen hundred who were present did their .best to compensate for the beggarly account of empty boxes. "Viva Venezia" seemed to be the favourite cry. I saw the Dictator smile grimly when he heard it. Among the persons who came to pay their respects to him was, as I 282 NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (i86o). was told, the very Admiral who had commanded the Neapolitan fleet at Palermo, and also Liborio Romano, who bowed in the humblest manner "con illimitato rispetto." The ballet was brought to an untimely end by some one in a shooting- coat rushing on the stage and crying out "Viva," etc., in which the whole corps de ballet joined, crowding round the box where the General was, and lifting their arms in the theatrical fashion of supplica- tion. A body of national guards, with drawn swords, escorted Garibaldi through the thronged corridors to his carriage. Some one, in loud voice, cried "Silenzio nel nome de Garibaldi 1" which was answered by a prolonged shout. Sept. 9.-About ten o'clock, as I was walking by Sta Lucia, I saw a great crowd gathered round a brightly blazing pile-a curious sight on a summer's morning. Asking a bystander the meaning of it, I was informed that the pile consisted of the furniture, books, and papers of an obnoxious agent of police. Ide was about to make his escape. Some of the mob being informed of it were on the watch, and as soon as the cart containing his chattels emerged from the door of the fortified place where he lived, they pounced upon it, made a heap of its contents, and set fire to them. They were dancing round the fire in wild excite- ment. Old women threw up their skinny arms and shrieked, and the children were mad with delight. I saw one man seize a loose sheet of manuscript, which had been blown away from the pile, crumple it in his hand, throw it down, and stamp on it, then fold his arms and "stare with his foot on the prey," in the attitude of Clytemnestra stamping on the corpse of Agamemnon. The Neapolitans, generally speaking, are not handsome in feature nor picturesque in dress-they are commonplace when in repose, but when excited with passion, their countenances and gestures are a study for an actor or a painter. While they were thus engaged, a rumour spread that the owner of the furniture was making his escape by sea. Instantly the crowd dispersed. Some put off in boats, others clambered round the rocky point and along the sea-wall-all animated with a desire of vengeance. They were, however, disappointed. The obnoxious functionary either was already gone, or else he prudently waited for a more favourable opportunity. It is probably because the officials of the King have been, for the most part, as prudent as their master, and made their escape in time, that so few acts of violence have been committed during these revolu- tionary days. It is not for want of will on the part of the people. 283 . NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (1860). To-day I read in the paper, that as Garibaldi was returning from a drive, some one followed him crying, "Viva Francesco II.," when a "Guardiano della Dogana" came up and shot him dead! The mob wanted to inflict indignities on the corpse (as their wont is), but the Dictator interfered, and ordered that it should be decently buried. It does not appear that he blamed the slayer for excess of zeal. This afternoon I saw at the Castel Nuovo the King's troops with bag and baggage and arms evacuating the place, and the national guards marching in. A considerable crowd assembled, but there was no manifestation of feeling against the soldiers. About 150 of them waited for an hour or more in the street outside. Passers-by talked to them in friendly terms. As far as I could judge from the coun- tenances of the men, they were quite indifferent, and did not seem to care where they went. They were well armed and clothed, and evidently had been well fed. Had they been well led, too, things would have taken a very different turn. While they were still waiting for orders, a regiment of Garibaldians came by, marching, it was said, under General Tilrr, to repress a reactionary movement at Ariano. The contrast which these filibusters presented to the royal troops was exceedingly striking. Of the Garibaldians, no two men were armed or clothed alike: some had only one shoe, some no shoes at all. There were boys of twelve and thirteen years old in the ranks, side by side with grey-bearded veterans; there were the most bizarre contrasts as to personal stature, such as one has only seen in the army of Bombastes Furioso, and they made no pretence of keeping line or keeping step. Many of them carried loaves stuck on the end of their muskets or bayonets. Yet these are the men before whom a well-appointed army of 150,oo0 men, with a king's name for a tower of strength, have broken, and fled, and melted into nothing. A1roos of the boys, I was told by one who had seen the battle of Melazzo, that they did excellent service, and showed no sign of fear- laughing and singing, when exposed to a murderous fire, as if their young lives were of no account. "If such things be done in the green tree," the kingdom of Italy may in reality be formidable to her neigh- bours a few years hence, and justify the alarm which led Louis Napoleon to appropriate Nice and Savoy for the protection of France. Sept. II.-Now that the shouting is over, we have some leisure for thinking what it means, what realities lie under this surface of triumph. On Wednesday night, Sept. 5th, or rather, early in the morning of 284 NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (i86o). Thursday, the King left his palace, committing the town to the care of the general commanding the national guard. The official paper, Constitutional Journal, as it was called, contained on Thursday a pro- clamation from the King in dignified terms, promising that when it should please the Divine Justice to restore him to his throne, he would still preserve the constitution which he had granted. To this was added a protest, countersigned by the prime minister De Martino, in which Garibaldi is called "un ardito condottiere." The same journal of Friday, changing the title of constitutional to that of official, and substituting Naples for the Two Sicilies, contains a proclamation of Garibaldi to the people, dated that morning at Salerno, and a letter from Liborio Romano to "the most invincible Dictator," announcing the impatience of Naples for the arrival of its "Redeemer," and professing " to await his further orders with unbounded respect." This man had two days before countersigned the deeds of Francis II. in his capacity of Minister of the Interior. His ostentatious treason has offended even the Neapolitans. The mode in which the title now borne by Garibaldi was conferred is singular. Some half-dozen persons, including Liborio, announced that on the invitation of the General they had formed themselves into a Provisional Government, and in virtue of the authority so derived they declared General Garibaldi Dictator. A curious ruse this for investing the transaction with a semblance of legality. It can only impose upon those who do not see that arguing in a circle proves nothing. By what authority, we may ask, did Garibaldi invite the said half dozen to form a Provisional Government ? The gazettes of Saturday and the two following days are filled with decrees nominating ministers, confirming all subordinate employds, except pluralists, in their posts, recognising the national debt, etc. The ministers named are not in general (as I am told) men of com- manding ability, but they are all moderate men, and, as such, give satisfaction to the party represented by the Comitato Unitario, the Cavour party. The party which calls itself the Partito d'Azione, of which Crespi, De Pretis and Bertani (perhaps I should now include Mazzini) are the leaders, is, however, believed to have the Dictator's affections, and in reality to guide his councils. Garibaldi has already alarmed the moderates by the violence of his language more than once. On Friday, in answer to an address, he called Lamoriciare, ".a rene- gade head of a set of ragamuffins without country and without faith." 185 NAPLES AND GARIBALDI ( 86o). The King of Sardinia (I am told) sent an aide-de-camp to consult about the mode of annexation, to which he replied, "It is not even to be thought of till I get to Rome;" and this story is confirmed by the proclamation of this morning, September IIth, to the Sicilians, in which he declares his intention of proclaiming Italian unity from the summit of the Quirinal. This audacious boast has dismayed the moderate party exceedingly. In a constitutional regime the ministers would all have resigned. In the midst of all these political agitations I have found time to visit many of the permanent "sights " of Naples, and especially the Museo Borbonico, which, like the British, contains several museums in one. The picture gallery may, I suppose, be ranked as the sixth in combined excellence and size, after those of the Louvre, Dresden, Madrid, and the two at Florence. It has not so many great pictures as the Vatican, or even perhaps our National Gallery, but they are small galleries. In sculpture, it ranks next to the Vatican and before the Louvre; in ancient bronzes and mosaics it is facile frincefs; in ancient frescoes it is unique. The frescoes, taken all from Herculaneum and Pompeii, are exceedingly interesting. In point of art, their quality is very various. Some figures are drawn and coloured with a breadth and boldness that reminds one of the Venetian school. There is, for example, a brown stalwart Bacchante which Titian might have painted. But in general they recall the style of the earlier naturalists of Florence more than any other modern school. The "house-sign-and-ornamental painters" of a country town in the first century had attained a mastery over pencil and brush, which, till Masaccio came, the greatest artists of modern times failed to equal. But then the devotional feeling, the divine calm that charms us in Giotto and Fra Beato, is altogether wanting. Their conceptions are of the earth, earthy. I suppose, however, that we should have found this devotional element in the works of the best painters contemporary with Phidias. He, at least, believed the gods he mounded, Zeus and Athene. In these frescoes, even when the drawing is bad, the conception is often good, and now and then we meet with a dash of humour, which, coming to us from a long-buried world, is infinitely charming. The idea we derive from our schooldays of the old Romans is that of a grim, savage, earnest people, who were always fighting, marching, sacrificing, making military roads, innumerable laws, and interminable orations, growing by-and-by foully and desperately wicked. Nothing brings us '86 NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (i860). so near to them as a glimpse of their capacity for fun such as we get in the dramatists now and then, in Cicero's letters, or in Suetonius, or in these frescoes from Pompeii. For instance, there is a series of small pictures (absurdly described in the catalogue as signs of shops) representing fat winged Cupids hard at work at various trades. In one they are making boots, very like the modern "Bluchers." I cannot tell why they are comical, but I defy any one to look at them without laughing-which I take to be the best proof that they are comical. In the centre of the room is a recent addition, quite the reverse of comical-a wax mask found in a tomb at Cumae along with a headless skeleton, from which it is inferred that the person interred had been decapitated. It is, I believe, the only relic of the kind in existence. The chances are immensely against the preservation of so fragile an object. In the tomb were found some coins of Diocletian. A few years ago the remains would have been at once assumed to be those of a Christian martyr, and a new saint added to the calendar. I have been to-day, September 12th, with a party of English and Italians to visit the prisons of Naples, in virtue of an order given by I know not what minister. First we saw some dungeons at the Prefecture of Police, behind the Largo del Castello-places without light or air, or bed or seat, where we were assured people were kept for a fortnight, or even a month, without trial. One of these, built for a common latrina, had been used, as one of the new officials told us, for a prison, and a man was confined for eight days there, at the end of which time his toes were found to be gnawed to the bone by rats. The sight and smell of the place made two of our party ill for the whole day. Then we went, by steep, narrow, filthy by-streets, to Sta. Maria Apparente. There the cells had been newly cleansed and whitewashed, so that there was nothing disgusting in their appearance; but the prison system in vogue under Ferdinand was such as to convert the most spacious and airy room into a place of torture. There is also a winding passage cut in the rock, which seems formerly to have been divided into cells. Several unfortunates had carved their names, with the date of their imprisonment. One recorded that he had been buried (sebolto) for four years, 1856-860; another added to his name the words, " Reo senza delitto." After that we climbed up to Sant Elmo, saw its vast subterranean galleries tier above tier, with sloping staircase (if that may be so called which has no steps), like the passages in the Mausoleum by Hadrian. 287 NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (i86o). There are prisons also in St. Elmo, though they have been chiefly used to punish military offenders.* We walked round the ramparts, now sentinelled by Piedmontese troops and by the national guard, and soon, it is said, to be demolished. As a fortress, St. Elmo is formidable to the town, but of little use against an enemy from without, at all events if he approached by land, as it is completely commanded by the hill on which the Camaldoli stands. If we may trust the story told us by the officer who was in command of the fortress, the gunners wished to bombard the town on Sunday, and when their officers refused, they shut them up in a guard-room, all but the commandant, who, as he informed us, pretended to be with them in feeling in order to prevent their design. According to his account, he, with the aid of a few soldiers, got a gun in such a position as to command the mutineers, who, not being able to point the guns themselves, at last desisted from their purpose, and went away to their homes or elsewhere. So the officer in question retains his command under the Dictator. When I told this story to an eminent Garibaldian colonel, he said that he did not believe a word of it. The story is, indeed, palpably inconsistent. Why should sixty gunners (for that was their number) not be able to point a gun without their officers ? and how could he get a gun to bear upon all the soldiers within the fortress ? Fancy a man, wearing epaulettes and a sword, telling such a lie with unblushing face Sept. 13th.-The same party which had visited the prisons at Naples * A long account of what we saw that day in the prisons was given in a letter published in the Times early in October, by Lord Llanover, who was one of the party. The facts there stated are, of course, strictly correct, but I hesitate to accept some of the inferences drawn or implied. We must remember that the prison at the Prefecture of Police, far the foulest of all, had been recently devoted to the purpose for which it was originally intended, and we had no proof beyond the word of an employi of a few days' standing that it had ever been used for a prison at all. And in the other cases our informants were all men who had just been appointed to their offices by the new Government, who knew nothing of the former system of their own knowledge, but were anxious to blacken the late reign, and could not fail to see that each atrocious detail communicated a thrill of sensation, rather agreeable than otherwise, to their auditors. We have evidence enough, from more trustworthy sources, of the cruelties practised by Ferdinand. But I do not think there is any proof that the prison system at Naples under Francesco II. was at all worse than it was in England under George the Third. 288 THE MARINELLA, NAPLES, NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (186o). went to that of. Ischia in a despatch-boat, commanded by Captain Marryat, a son of the novelist, and kindly placed at our disposal by Admiral Mundy. On our landing we were assailed by a crowd of natives offering donkeys and figs, three donkeys at least to each man, and more figs than one could eat in a month, clamouring in all tones from howls of exultation to whines of distress, till the poor stranger became so bewildered that he did not know whether he was expected to mount the figs and eat the donkeys, or vice versd. The prison we were to see is in the Castle of Ischia, which Stanfield's picture has made familiar to English eyes. Only as we saw it the sea was rippling quietly about the base of the breakwater in the foreground, not tumbling in wild billows over it. Some difficulty was made about our admission; but the combined authority and eloquence of Lord Ll---- and Mr. Edwin J-, aided by the fact that we had come in a ship of war, triumphed over all obstacles. The prisons here were tenanted only by fleas. They were not particularly dark or dirty, or in any way horrible. We asked in vain for the torture-chamber and the thumb-screws, and on the whole could not but feel disappointed at the result of our inquiry. We were shown the room where Poerio was confined during some of his ten years of durance. There were four rooms en suite so arranged that an inspector could look on from a window in his chamber above, and see what was doing in any of them. The wooden tressels on which the prisoners slept, and some fragments of their clothing still remained. They had the liberty of walking in a small walled courtyard. The Ischian prisons were under the charge of the same keepers as before, old soldiers chiefly, who were very much alarmed at our visit and our questions, and as anxious to dissemble the rigours of the former Government as the new keepers of the Neapolitan prisons had been to exaggerate them. Sept. I5th.-I went by railway to Castellamare, and thence, with a carriage, in an hour and a quarter to Sorrento. The Neapolitan coachmen drive like Jehu the son of Nimshi. Even when one takes them by the hour they scarcely abate their ordinary pace, which is very different from the snail-like motion of a London or Paris cabman under similar conditions. One of Dr. Johnson's immortal truths was com- municated to Mr. Boswell in these words: "Sir, there is something very exhilarating in the rapid motion of a post-chaise; " and I fancy that the Neapolitan driver feels the pleasure so intensely that he cannot 289 NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (i86o). forego it for the sake of sparing his cattle or spinning out the time, even' when to him time is money. The drive to Sorrento is one of the most beautiful in the world. The road at first follows the coast-line, winding into each cove and rounding each headland, then strikes across the valley where Vico is situated, crossing the gorge by a noble viaduct, doubles the next promontory, and, by a gradual descent, comes to the comparatively level plain of Sorrento. This plain is composed of a coucke of tufa perhaps three hundred feet deep at the base of the hills, and sloping gently down to the water's edge, where it breaks away in an abrupt precipice, varying from one hundred to one hundred and fifty feet in height. This tufa has been deposited in the hollows_ of the lime- stone hills by some pre-historic volcano. It has been cut into deep gorges by mountain torrents many years ago by slow degrees, for the channel is not sensibly deeper than it was two thousand years since, as may be seen by the substructions of Roman bridges, cellars, etc., still apparent. The plain is of wonderful fertility, and, except where there is a street, a house, or a lane sunk between high walls, it is like a con- tinuous garden, " a contiguity of shade," fruit trees of all kinds, oranges, lemons, figs, pomegranates, and trellised vines, where you may walk under a roof of matted leaves and pendent clusters. On the amphitheatre of hills which shelters the plain on east, south, and west, you see terrace above terrace, partly artificial and partly the natural formation of the white limestone rock, sprinkled with grey olives, relieved by the brighter green of carob-tree, or fig, or vine, up to the foot of the steep crag, or the verge of the native forest. No wonder that the Romans were fond of such a place. The beauty of Baiae must have been in great part artificial, even before its neighbourhood was altered and spoiled by the eruptions of the Solfatara and the Monte Nuovo, and now it presents a somewhat bare hill-side cumbered with shapeless ruins. Baiae, too, must always have been much hotter than Sorrento, for the former looks towards the south-east, the latter due north.* When the poet said, "Nullus in * The modern Sorrentines maintain the superiority of their town to Naples in amenity and healthiness. They have a couplet, the produce of a native genius, which they quote with as much pride as if he had succeeded in making it rhyme:- "Napoli bella, Sorrento civile; Chi venga ammalato a Sorrento si sana." 2ao NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (t86o). orbe sinus Baiis praelucet amoenis," he meant an especial stress to be laid on " amoenis," and referred not to the natural beauty only, but to the society and various artificial agrimens of the place. If people ever read Statius nowadays, they would find that even among the Romans there were some who preferred Sorrento. Perhaps the eruption of Vesuvius in '79, which half-suffocated the people at Baiae, but so far as we know did not affect Surrentum, may have contributed to establish the latter in popular favour. Certain it is that the ground there was so valuable they built villas below the cliff on foundations laid in the sea itself. Large blocks of lava in a regular line may be seen below the water from the Hotel della Sirena, and to reach the shore you descend through galleries still covered with stucco, and showing traces of colour. The face of the rock is filled with artificial niches and caves, evidently belonging to Roman houses. On either side of the city is a deep ravine, offering at every step the most lovely combinations of tufa rock and ruins and luxuriant creepers. Round the city is a mediaeval wall of great strength once, but now crumbling and ruinous. In the centre is the Cathedral, an ancient church with an open atrium like that of Salerno, but thoroughly modernized. Outside there are some columns of costly marble fitted with capitals not originally belonging to them, the spoils probably of one or more ancient temples. Near the Cathedral is a remarkable loggia, open on two sides, like the Portico of Orcagna, only on a smaller scale. The arches are round, and the capitals are carved in the flat manner characteristic of Italian Gothic. It is called the " Settina dei cavalieri," but I was not fortunate enough to find any one who could give me an intelligible account of its destination. I rode in the afternoon of Saturday to the Deserto, a convent now abandoned, and situated on the crest of a hill south-west of Sorrento, commanding a view of the bay of Salerno as well as the bay of Naples. The place was tenanted only by a peasant (a " colon " they call him, still retaining the Latin word) and his family. The cells were fast going to ruin, and so was the wall which had inclosed round the con- vent an irregular space of perhaps a hundred acres. Though the wind was "proprio scirocco," there was a delicious coolness about it as I stood on the convent roof. My guide, a good-humoured and in his way intelligent fellow, had been employed with others by the Count of Syracuse to excavate an ancient cemetery close by, which, from his mention of the gold ornaments and other relics found, I suppose may 2g1 NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (186o). have been the burying-place of Theorica, a Greek city, supposed to have occupied the site of the neighbouring village of Torca. "This campo santo," said my guide, "was two centuries (due secoli) old; before the world." "Before the world ? " I asked. "How could that be ? " " I mean," he said, "before this world; in the time of another world, which was destroyed by a deluge." "And that," I asked, "was two secoli ago ? " " Precisamente, eccelenza." "And how many years are there in a secolo ?" "A hundred, or thereabouts." "Well," said I, with the air of an inquirer thirsting for information, "what happened about the deluge ? " "The flood was sent, eccelenza, because the world was full of bad people; but there was a signore called Nod, who was good. Dunque," he proceeded, putting his finger alongside of his nose, as their manner is when coming to the point of a story, "Jesus Christ, made a great ship, and put Nod in it;" and so he went on with the narrative. I have given the man's exact words. I tell the incident, as it seems to me characteristic of the amount of education of an ordinary Neapolitan of that class. There is no point in the story except this--that it is a fact. I have always noticed that genuine tradition has a tendency to diminish the interval of time which has elapsed since the event of which it preserves the memory. I remember asking a farmer, who lived on the field of battle near N6rdlingen, whether he had ever heard of such a battle. " Oh yes," he said, " he had often heard his father speak of it, and his father, who had seen it, told him." The remotest event is always supposed to be "in my grandfather's time." This is characteristic of genuine tradition. Forgery, on the other hand, has a tendency to magnify a nation's antiquity, and may sometimes be detected and distinguished by this mark. Sept. i6th.-I learn that, last night, a commissary of police, accom- panied by some gens d'armes, arrested the Archbishop of Sorrento and carried him off to Naples. He had been the King's tutor, and so, I suppose, was suspected very naturally of favouring the Royal cause. He is much respected, they say, by the people, and is a good man. Surely it is a mistake for a Government which has just proclaimed 2grs NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (i860). liberty to tread in the steps of the old tyranny. What harm could an aged priest do if left alone ? Though the Palermitan monks, and Father Gavazzi, and a few priests have declared loudly for Garibaldi, and though some have even joined the Neapolitan volunteers, the great majority are evidently for the King. The spirit of Garibaldi's movement is thoroughly anti- Papal. Attempts are being made by the clergy to enlist the superstitious feelings of the people in favour of the King. It was reported that, on the day of the King's departure, the Virgin of Santa Lucia wept tears of blood. The church was crowded with persons who went to see next day. My informant saw the streaks which the tears had left. Last Sunday, too, I have heard vaguely that a friar preaching somewhere appealed suddenly to an image in the church, and asked whose emissary Garibaldi was, and the image answered distinctly "Satan's." We shall see whether Saint Januarius's displeasure will be shown in the non-liquefaction of the blood next Wednesday. And in that case, will Garibaldi adopt the plan of the French general in command at Naples, who threatened to shoot the officiating minister unless the miracle were immediately performed ? Sept. I7th.-In company with an English friend, I took a boat from Sorrento to Gapri. A steady sirocco carried us in an hour and a half to the entrance of the Blue Grotto, where a smaller boat from the little port of Capri met us. In this we entered the low mouth of the cave with some difficulty, as there was a swell rolling in. One has a natural aversion to hackneyed sights which you are bound to see because " everybody" sees them, and I went to this grotto prepared to find it unworthy of its fame; but I was compelled to admit the contrary. It is like a scene of enchantment, or the dream of sine Eastern tale-teller -a cave with a floor of liquid turquoise and a roof of frosted silver. How is it that the same effect is not repeated in other instances There are caves enough in other shores. How is it that Capri alone is favoured with two exhibiting this wonderful appearance, and why is one a "blue" and the other a "green" grotto ? The colour of the sea outside the cave was a mixture of dark purple and indigo-such a colour as I have only seen when a strong wind wa. blowing; and the sky was rather veiled than clouded-as is the case generally during a sirocco. We remember the vivora wrovrov, " the wine-like sea " of Homer, but it is not likely that the familiar cp:Act 21 293 NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (I866). w hich is as frequently applied to the sea as "swift-footed" is to A hilles, should have been suggested by a rare and exceptional pheno- mrnnon. The phrase probably came down to Homer from earlier and ruder poets, who would observe nature as the author of " Chevy Chase " observed it, but would not scrutinise it like Wordsworth. They saw that gold was red, and woods were green, and that they needed no other epithet even for variety's sake. I believe that oLvo4, simply meant coloured, like wine, as distinguished from the bright transparent water of a fountain (ayXaov), and from the dark black water of a well ( FXav). In this sense, the epithet -is always applicable to the sea, whether it be calm or troubled, whether it be blue, or green or purple. We landed at Marina, a little village lining the beach at the only point where there is a beach. Elsewhere a wall of steep rock rises abruptly from the sea. We rode on donkeys through the vineyards and olive-grounds, to the little town of Capri, perched along a ridge, and thence up to what are supposed to be the remains of one of Tiberius' villas. It was a festival at Capri, so we saw all the belles of the island, plump brunettes, with dark eyes and hair, tight-laced black bodices, and white muslin handkerchiefs thrown over their shoulders. Capri is famous, we are told, for the industry and Imorality of its inhabitants, which, we will hope, is the resson why so many of our countrymen have chosen this island for the site of their hermitage. Or does the gloomy spirit of Tiberius still dwell there as the genius loci, attracting kindred spirits ? Lest this should offend any one, let me hasten to say that I do not consider the stories told by Suetonius and even Tacitus as worthy of belief. Court scandal is the most easily invented of all scandals, it is the most readily credited, and the most difficult of disproof. The memoirs of hangers-on about a Court are always to be received with suspicion, be they even written by a Duc de Saint Simon, or a Lord Hervey, much more when they are written by some nameless lackey who has no honour to tarnish, and is therefore quite irresponsible for his statements. Suetonius and Tacitus probably derived their Court gossip from a similar source, for it is very rarely that they give authority for their assertions. They orgy reject a story when it is palpably inconsistent with some other story they have heard. When two memnoir-writers had told the same tale, they accept it and endorse it without a suspicion that both may be lying. The medals which are supposed to confirm the worst charges against Tiberius are found, to the disgrace of the ancient world at many other 294 NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (i86o). places besides Capri. The story told by Suetonius about Tiberius throwing criminals down from a precipitous rock for his amusement, is probably a fiction. But it is likely enough that the tremendous precipice shown as the Salto di Tiberio (or Timperio, as the Capriotes call him) may have been in Suetonius' mind when he repeated or made the tale. The peculiarity just alluded to in the Capriote dialect reminded me of a cognate fact-that the modern Greeks express the sound of b by m and p. For instance, they spell tobacco, "tampakko." One bourgeois, a Corsican, has opened a little restaurant at the Salto\ di Tiberio. He has bad wine, worse water, and makes exorbitant charges. I am sorry to say this of an old soldier decorated with the St. Helena medal. He has put up an announcement at the Marina in the following terms (I give it litera/im etl unctuatim): "Avis au Salto Tiberio onna ovver un restaurant de ce lo calon guii de la vue du golfe de Salerno et Presto." * Apropos, I noticed at Pompeii a jocular recommendation of the H6tel de Diomede, printed by the landlord, beginning, "Je ne suis pas ce terrible Diomede qui faisait tant de peur aux Troyens et Caesar." The "et Caesar" is admirable. A name at which the world grew pale is always good for surrounding a sentence. Extract of a Letter, dated Nap les, Se1ft. I8th. Naples has passed from the government of the King to that of the Dictator with more ease and with less disturbance of public order than one could have anticipated. Business has not been suspended for a single day, and, but for the noisy demonstrations of delight which continued for three days after the entry of Garibaldi, a stranger might have lived in Naples without knowing that there had been a change of masters. The newspapers will have given you fully detailed accounts of Garibaldi's facile conquest, and of the tumultuous joy with which it was hailed at Naples. I have been throughout an amused and interested looker-on; but I need not tell a tale with which you are already fami- liar. I will merely mention summarily the successive events in order to add a touch here and there from personal observation. Up to the last moment there were some who believed that the King would not abandon Naples without a struggle. On the afternoon of Wednesday, * The interpretation is this :-" Avis: au Salto de Tiberio on a ouvert un re.:taurent. De ce local on jouit de la vue," etes 295. NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (i86o). September 5th, it was known that his troops had received orders to fall back from Salerno, and it was supposed that they would occupy La Cava and Nocera, and defend a pass which is so well calculated for defence. But later in the day we heard that they were abandoning all their positions in front of Naples, and were marching by way of Nola to Capua. It was obvious that the King had given up the game for lost, and that he himself must follow his troops and abandon his capital. All that night there was an unusual stir about the Palace; every window was lighted, and hurrying shadows flitted past within; crowds waited round the gates in the vain hope of seeing the departure of the Court, their motive being, as I gathered, not loyalty, but curiosity. Carts loaded with furniture passed out from time to time, the property, I suppose, of Goldsticks, and Chamberlains, and Lords-in-waiting. "The rats are leaving," said one of the crowd. A Council of Ministers was held in the Palace, which did not separate (it is said) till three in the morning. They were engaged in "redacting" the two proclamations which appeared in the Gazette of next day, in the second of which, countersigned by D. Martino, Garibaldi was called "un ardito con- dottiere." At the breaking up of the Council, the King went on board ship for Gaeta, the Ministers dispersed to their homes, except Liborio Romano, who hastened to offer his services to the Dictator. The conduct of this Romano is universally condemned. While Minister of the King he was in correspondence with Garibaldi, and, instead of defending the interests of the Crown, he did all in his power to thwart them. He wrote, immediately after the retirement of the Sovereign, a letter to Garibaldi, couched in the most fulsome and abject language. A man must be morbo troditor to be proud of his treason, as Romano seems to be. On Thursday, September 6th, I went to Salerno, saw Garibaldi's entry there, and returned with him to Naples. In some respects his reception at Salerno was more striking than that at Naples. The people at Salerno had been expecting him for some hours, and had had .time to make preparations; the people of Naples were taken by sur- prise, and the crowds that gathered hastily all along the line of his passage through the city were evidently half-incredulous, and doubted whether it were he or not. There were no flags on the houses. This was all Garibaldi's doing, who said he preferred a spontaneous welcome. The square in front of the Foresteria, from a balcony of which he addressed the people, was not a quarter full. The demonstrations, however, on that and the two following nights were the most noisy and tumultuous 236 NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (i860). scenes that I have ever witnessed. As far as I could judge, the makers of the noise, in very few instances, belonged to the lower classes. The shriekers, the spouters, the torch-bearers, the wavers of flags, and the brandishers of daggers, were persons from the well-fed, well-dressed orders. The lazzaroni are, I believe, quite passive and indifferent; the priests and peasantry Royalist-but the priests are naturally timid, and the peasantry only feel keenly on a question of cheap bread and cheap fruit. A Masaniello must appeal to this sentiment to have success either with peasants or lazzaroni. The process by which a show of decency and order was given to Garibaldi's nomination as Dictator was curious. First half-a-dozen individuals, with Romano among them, constituted themselves a Provi- sional Government on the invitation of the Dictator of Sicily, and then, by virtue of their authority as Provisional Government, they nominated him Dictator of the Two Sicilies. His first acts gave satisfaction. He' chose his Ministers from the Moderate party--the party (that is) which follows the inspirations of Cavour. And for a few days "all was for the best, under the best of all possible" dictatorships. But latterly, the acts and words of the Dictator have given great alarm. In his pro- clamation to the people of Palermo he spoke of the miserable men who counselled immediate annexation, and declared that he would proclaim Italian unity on the top of the Quirinal. Then, in an order of the day dfrofos of the death of De Flotte, he alluded sarcastically to the Government of Louis Napoleon. Finally, in a letter to one Brusco, he contradicted a rumour that he had been reconciled to Cavour, and said that he could never be friends with "men who had humiliated the national dignity and sold an Italian province "-which seemed even to include Victor Emmanuel. People here are aghast at his imprudence. They ask themselves, Is this a game which he is playing with the :secret connivance of the French Emperor, whose heart is with Italy, though he is obliged, as the eldest son of the Church, to keep up a show of opposition ? Or is the Emperor bribing Garibaldi's counsellors to urge him on a path that must lead to his ruin ? Is Victor Emmanuel consulted, and, if so, does he approve ? The telegraph is, of course, interrupted at Gaeta, and we only heard, yesterday, of Victor Emmanuel's entry into the Roman provinces. Is this step taken in conjunction with Garibaldi, or is it intended to anticipate and in a measure thwart him ? These questions may be 297 NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (I86o). answered before you receive this letter. At present, every one seems lost in uncertainty. I have spoken of the Moderate party, which includes, I suppose, the vast majority of educated men above twenty- five years old. The other party--the party of action--consists of Bertani, Crespi, and, of course, Mazzini, and boys in general. The latter party seems to have lost its head in the intoxication of success. They talk of marching to Rome as one talks of taking a drive along the Chiaia. Father Gavazzi * is the prophet of the party. His somewhat commonplace declamation has had great success. He preaches every alternate evening in the square of San Franceso di Paola.' To hear democracy lauded in the front of a Bourbon palace is a fact sufficiently piquant to give a zest to the most ordinary oratory, just as the mildest jest becomes irresistibly comical in church. Several other decrees of the Dictator have given great dissatisfaction, as, for instance, that appointing Alexander Dumas t Director of the National Museum, and commissioning him to prepare a great work on the antiquities of Naples and the neighbourhood. 'the Neapolitans are justly indignant at having a vagabond foreigner, of abandoned character and no knowledge of antiquities or of art, set over the heads of so many persons infinitely his superiors The Dictator's weakness is said to be his submission to favourites. Any one may lead him by the nose, if he takes hold the right way. Bertani is, according to the " Moderates," his evil genius. Meanwhile, with the growing discontent of the Moderates, we hear from time to tim� of reactionary movements at Avellino, and other places. Forty peasants were brought in yesterday, tied together with ropes-a sight of ill omen for the new Government. On Saturday, the Archbishop of Sorrento, the King's tutor, was arrested, and brought to Naples. Last night, there was a general alarm and anticipation of reactionary * A mistake. I heard the Father once afterwards, and read other dis- courses, printed from shorthand writers' notes. He always counsels moderation, and disbelieves in unity without monarchy. t The pranks of this man, while dressed in his brief authority, were incredible. I saw him one night parading Naples in fantastic costume, attended by a score of men waving flags. At each station of the National Guard they stopped, formed a ring round Dumas, and cheered. He wrote to Admiral Mundy requesting arms and ammunition for his body- guard, and when his letter was returned to him by way of answer, he applied to the French Admiral, whose reply was as decided, and still less flattering. 298 NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (860). movement among the lazzaroni in Naples itself. The national guard was under arms all night, but nothing happened. My impression is, that things are getting rapidly worse, both here and in Sicily, and that Garibaldi will not be able much longer to govern the country. The sooner the annexation takes place and a regular Government established, the better for all parties. Sep. i8th.-I went with Mr. D- to Sta. Maria Maggiore, at. present the head-quarters of the revolutionary army. Finding that we were too late for the ten o'clock train, we engaged a large-wheeled single- horse vehicle, something like the now extinct English taxed cart, and in little more than two hours reached Sta. Maria. The road passes through Aversa, and lies for the most part over a perfectly flat and exuberantly fertile country, called far excellence Terra di Lavoro, for every yard is under cultivation. On the way, we fell in with a party of Neapolitan soldiers wearing their side-arms. They were making their way across country to join the royal troops at Capua, or where best they could. We had some difficulty in finding our way into Sta. Maria, owing to the barricades which defended the entrance of the principal streets. Happening to ask some question of a portly gentle- man whom we saw in the street, he volunteered to show us over the town, escorted us to the amphitheatre, and offered us the shelter of his house, which he .said was not magnificent, but entirely at our disposal, such as it was. The last offer we declined for want of time, but it was made in all sincerity. This is one instance of many within my experience of the especial favour with which we English are regarded at the present time by the Liberal party. Our new friend gave us to understand that he was one of the principal legal function- aries of the place, whether, as judge or advocate we did not know, and the frequent respectful greetings that he received attested the truth of his pretension. He was an ardent Garibaldian, and anti- Papal to the uttermost. As a boy, he had been educated by the Jesuits at the Collegio Romano, but the oppression under which he had suffered with his countrymen had completely effaced the lessons of the fathers, and had inclined the tree in the opposite direction to that in which the twig had been bent. He told us that Ferdinand, who lived hard by at Caserta, regarded Sta. Maria with peculiar aversion. and kept it under police regulations of extra strictness. He used to say, " Whenever I go through Sta. Maria, I tread on republican stones." The employment of Lamoriciere's mercenaries by the Pope 299 VNAPLES AND GARIBALDI (i860). had alienated, as our friend said, the firmest of his Holiness's friends. Italy was now virtually a Protestant country. The amphitheatre is still a magnificent ruin. The two walls which formed the outermost corridors of the ellipse were unluckily built of hewn stone, decorated withl marble columns at the entrance. These, therefore, were pulled down to furnish materials for the palace at Caserta, and probably also for earlier buildings. The brick and rubble work remains nearly intact. The amphitheatre of Capua, when entire, was, except the Coliseum, the largest of all. It served as a model for that of Puteoli. The subterranean constructions are on the same plan. The chambers and passages were lighted by a large longi- tudinal opening along the major axis of the ellipse, and by square open- ings all round. At the time of the exhibitions, of course, beams were laid over them, and the whole area strewn with a thick covering of sand. One may see the places where the beams rested. The vast space underground did not serve merely, as we are told in the guide- book, for prisons of criminals and dens of wild beasts, but it was the residence of the gladiators. There are plenty of conduits, wells, and drains for carrying off the rain water, so as to keep the place always dry and habitable. The stone seats for spectators have shared the fate of the outer walls, and been carried off. I observed, that in some of the corridors arches of brickwork had been added subsequently to the erection of the building, in order to strengthen the supports of the cavea. Returning to the town, we took leave of our volunteer cicerone, and went to pay a visit to the General commanding in the absence of Garibaldi, Hieper, or Eber, as his name is variously spelt. I had been acquainted with him when discharging a more peaceful mission at Constantinople some years ago. The palazzo to which we were directed is a charming residence, with large lofty rooms painted somewhat in the Pompeian style, and polished floors deliciously cool, with a garden of lemon and orange-trees behind. First came a ruddy-bearded aide-de-camp to ask our business. I begged him to aver la bontg, etc., etc. " Sprechen Sie Deutsch, mein Herr ? " he said. I answered in the affirmative, and said that I supposed he was a Hungarian, like the General. No, he was " Echt Deutsch aus dem grossherzogthum Baden." There were many Germans, he told us, in the army, even Bavarians 3co NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (i860). and Austrians, who looked forward to making "ein Deutschland," aftcr they had made Italia una. Meanwhile they must, I should think, have to exercise all their proverbial national patience, hearing, as they do, perpetually repeated cries of " Morte ai Tedeschi i" We found the General suffering from a fever caught in the marshes of Cosenza, and scarcely able to walk. However, the politeness of a true gentleman never fails. He got up from the sofa, and gave us a kind welcome, though he must have wished us at the head-quarters of Francesco II. He gave us a written permission to visit the outposts, of which we availed ourselves at once. In the streets at intervals we found bodies of the Garibaldians with piled arms, sitting or lying on heaps of straw strewn on the shady side; some sleeping, some smoking, some mending their clothes, some cheapening figs (although, without cheapening, you get for a halfpenny as many as one could eat in a day), all apparently in high spirits and good health, more like "jolly beggars " than a regular army. A barri- cade of boughs is placed across the brick arch of Roman work which formed the gate of old Capua, and is on the road to the new-distant about two miles. Half a mile beyond is the line of infantry sentrie, who stand at irregular intervals, from fifty to one hundred yards apart. They take their work easily, leaning against a vine-clad poplar in any attitude they may fancy. Provided they do their work, Garibaldi and his officers do not seem to care how they do it. A martinet would be sorely out of place here. A quarter of a mile farther in advance, four poplar trees have been felled, and lie across the road. In front of them is a sentry on horseback. We asked him if we could see the Neapolitan outposts. "Oh yes," he said; "come along with me, and I'll show you them. When we go forward, they always come out to look at us." When we had gone about a hundred yards, they did come out accordingly, two on horseback and four on foot, about a quarter of a mile off. Having satisfied our curiosity, we returned, in obedience to the advice of the General, who had warned us not to go too far, as they were in the habit of picking up stragglers. What earthly good it would have done them to pick us up, I cannot conceive. If they had taken a fancy to pick us off, it would not have been so pleasant. Our expedition terminated without the shadow of an adventure, but it was interesting as the only glimpse I had ever had of a state of war. Evidently it is not in Garibaldi's army that one must look for "pride, pomp,'and circumstance." 30I IAPLES AND GARIBALDI (i860). We returned by railway. As we passed the splendid Palace of Caserta, we saw the great square in front filled with troops. They are under the command of General Ttirr. At night, I am told, they sleep inside and outside of the palace, as they best may. This is the result of Ferdinand's policy. His army is scattered, and revolutionary soldiers occupy every corner of his favourite abode. It is reported that he had no misgivings and no remorse, and that almost his flast words were that " he died with the consciousness of having done his duty." He sowed the wind, and his son has reaped the whirlwind. Sept. I9th.--I have just returned from San Gennaro, where I have witnessed the far-famed miracle. I went about half-past eight, and found the Cathedral partially filled, and a dense crowd in and about the chapel of San Gennaro-a spacious octagon on the south side of the nave. National guards were keeping the door. At a quarter before nine a loud shout rose from the crowd within. It was a greeting to the saint, whose image in silver gilt had just been placed on the altar. The shout was renewed as the priest adjusted the mitre and cope with which the image was clothed, and again, as an attendant lighted candle after candle beside it. An aged priest, standing within the altar rails, then raised aloft the vessel containing the- sacred blood, and at once a forest of waving arms rose above the crowd, and the building rang with frenzied exclamations. Some other priests and assistants now appeared in the organ loft ready to lead the Te Deum whenever the miracle should be achieved; meanwhile the old man continued to hand round the vessel to let all the bystanders see that there was no deception, that the blood was really solid. The vessel in question is a kind of monstrance, round, with glass on each side, and two handles, one above, one below. It is more like a carriage-lamp than anything else I can think of. Inside, are two small phials containing an opaque substance, the blood of the saint. In order to show that it was solid, the priest turned the monstrance upside down, holding a lighted candle behind it, and showed it round to the spectators just as a conjurer does before commencing his performance. All this time the crowd kept shrieking and screaming; the old women especially were frantic in their cries and gestures, moaning, and sobbing, and stretching out hands in nervous tension. Some men even were affected with this hysterical passion, and wept and moaned like the women. The confusion of end- lessly reiterated prayers, uttered in such tones that they resembled 302o NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (i86o). imprecations, reminded me of the chorus of the priests of Baal in the Elijah; only here the trebles preponderate over the basses. Men- delssohn may have witnessed some such scene; but, so far as I know, the like is only to be seen at Naples, and in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem on Easter Sunday. For any other parallel one must go among fetish-worshipping savages. The priest then turned his back on the audience, and the agitation of the crowd reached a point where it could no longer be expressed in articulate cries, for nothing was heard but sobs and groans. A very few minutes had elapsed, when the priest suddenly turned round and exhibited the blood LIQuID I A wild howl of exultation rose up; flowers were thrown towards the saint, and, strange to say, a number of birds let loose,* which the spectators had brought with them for the purpose. Never had the miracle been performed so soon. All were agreed on this; and eager discussions were going on in all parts of the church as to the exact time it had taken. Was it three minutes or four, or four minutes and a half? The old women were wild with joy. It was clear that San Gennaro was in the best of tempers towards his dear clients, and- not at all displeased with them for turning out their king. Two of Garibaldi's red-shirted soldiers, who were making their way out of the chapel, were the objects of tenderly affectionate demonstrations; old women held up their hands to bless them, others patted them on the back and smiled approvingly. As soon as the shout that greeted the miracle had ceased, the men in the organ loft began the Te Deum, and the spectators joined in fervent chorus. Above the din we heard the guns of 'all the forts thundering out their joy. (There must be some means of telegraphic communication with the forts, as very few minutes elapsed before the cannon was heard.) By-and-by the sacred vessel \ was carried to the high altar, and successive bodies of worshippers were admitted within a railed space to kneel and kiss it, having first assured themselves by means of the candle that the liquefaction had taken place. Some of the crowd near us were very anxious that we should do the like. " Make way," they said, "for the English Signori. Sergeant," to the officer of the national guard who was keeping the wicket, * This, I afterwards learned, is the custom at all the great festivals of the Church, and symbolises the soul's joy when delivered from the sins and sorrows of earth. It is a literal rendering of that passage in the Psalms, "My soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowler. The snare is broken, and we are delivered." 303 NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (I860). "admit the English Signori." But we declined the honour, and waited till the priest-the same who had officiated in the chapel-brought it round. As there was no candle placed behind it for our benefit, and as the outer glass was dimmed with the kisses it had received, we were not able to ascertain the fact of the liquefaction. But all who have seen it before and after with the aid of the light, agree that the blood, if blood it be, is certainly solid first and liquid afterwards. There is no deception so far. But admitting that, I cannot but remember that I have seen the Wizard of the North and Wiljalba Frikell do as much, and more, with their enchantments. It is certain that the belief of the crowd in the chapel was genuine and profound. This crowd consisted of persons of all ranks, though the poorer classes preponderated. It would scarcely have been prudent for Garibaldi, in presence of this intense and deeply-seated superstition, to forbid the miracle, as the Times hoped he would. An emeute might have been the consequence. "Paris vaut bien une messe," said Henri Quatre. Garibaldi may say, "Naples vaut bien un miracle." Some days ago I was expressing to a Neapolitan my wish to see the liquefaction. " Do not mention it," he said; "it fills me with shame. I cannot doubt that this is the general feeling of most educated men, but it is not universal, for among the weepers and the kissers to-day I saw several who, from their dress and bearing, certainly ought to belong to that class. One young priest, of rather attractive counte- nance, came out of the chapel, his eyes red and his cheeks swollen with weeping, but most of his order seemed impassive, and did not attempt even to counterfeit devotion. The venerable old man in rose-coloured robes, who officiated, showed no feeling whatever. Probably perfect self-possession, with a little manual dexterity, is the quality most requisite in the officiating minister."* Sept. 19.-This evening our dinner was enlivened by animated accounts of a battle which had taken place in the morning, and at which half a dozen of the guests of the hotel bad had the luck to be present. They had to tell of hairbreadth escapes, exemplary coolness under first fire, the cowardice of the Garibaldian troops, and their own courage. England had nearly lost an eminent barrister and an eminent artist by a grape-shot, which carried away part of their carriage. A * The secret is known only to the priests of San Gennaro and Mr. R. Monckton Milnes, who tells me that he has not merely witnessed, but once performed the miracle, 304 NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (i860). third had arrested the flight of a regiment with his umbrella, a fourth had parried a cannon-ball with his walking-stick. The real facts, as far as I have been able to gather them by subse- quent inquiries, are these: General Hieper and Colonel Roskow, com- manding the centre and left, had orders to make a feigned attack upon Capua, while Garibaldi and Tilrr were to cross the Volturno a few miles up the river, and cut off a body of the enemy occupying a plain on the other bank. Roskow, however, mistaking his instiuc- tions, attempted a real attack. As soon as he advanced into an open space in front of the gate of Capua, and within reach of the artillery, having no artillery himself, his men were cut down by the fire from the bastions, and refused to advance. As soon as a body of royal cavalry showed itself they fled precipitately, the officers being the first to set the example. Such was the panic that they rushed through Sta. Maria, and did not stop till they had passed the town, and saw at last that there was no man pursuing. One of my informants saw with his own eyes two of Garibaldi's officers crouching under a haystack to strip off their red shirts, lest they should be recognised. A more disgraceful panic was never seen. The good folks of Sta. Maria, that republican city, made haste to take all the tricolor flags from their windows. Even that which floated from the windows of the house which was General Hieper's head-quarters disappeared. The national guards stripped off their uniforms, and all was prepared for the return of His Majesty. Had the royal army had a leader, they might have marched to Naples unopposed. Meanwhile Hieper had nothing to do, and did it. Ttir and Garibaldi, on the right wing, found their road barred by a fire of artillery which they could not face, and finally retreated to Caserta. The number of killed and wounded in the revolutionary army amounts, according to the best-informed statements, to about one hundred and fifty. The varying accounts of this engagement illustrate the propensity of Italians in general, and Neapolitans in particular, to invention and credulity combined. The Lampo, for in- stance, a Garibaldian organ, had the audacity to affirm that the royalist losses amounted to eight thousand in killed and wounded, whereas they could not, by the nature of .the case, have exceeded twenty or thirty. But invention is not confined to the Neapolitans. On the authority of one of Garibaldi's generals, it was asserted that the possession of Chaiazzo was the object which the General had in view in making his attack, and that that object had been attained. Military 305 N4NAPLES AN'D GARIBA4LDI (i860). men not connected with either party affirmed that it would be im- possible to hold Chaiazzo, being a position quite isolated on the other side of the river, and that no one would have thought of making such an attempt. Up to the day I left Naples, September 22nd, it was a matter of doubt whether it had really been taken or not. The last news I heard before leaving was that it had been retaken by the royal troops; but it was doubted whether this, too, was not an invention to cover the other lie, and account for the fact that it was in the possession of the Garibaldians no longer. One lives at Naples in an atmosphere charged with falsehood, and it is impossible to get a breath of native truth. From the evidence of independent witnesses, it is certain that the Garibaldians met with a severe check, the moral effect of which has been very great, and more than counterbalances the manifestation of San Gennaro's favour in the morning. Sept. 2ot.--Hearing that it was probable the battle would be renewed this morning, I went, in company with Colonel B- (who had seen the engagement of the previous day), an English officer, and another friend, to Sta. Maria, whence, finding all tranquil, we proceeded to St. Angelo, a village about three miles off, above which is a hill command- ing a wide view of the scene of war. Leaving our carriage at the village, we climbed through oak coppice to the sharp edge of the hill. In ascending, we had a good bird's-eye view of the plain of Capua, and of some 2,500oo cavalry occupying it. From the ridge we looked over the winding Volturnus, on the farther bank of which is another plain, divided by a low range of hills from that of Capua, and also occupied by the royal troops. There were two regiments of cavalry and three or four of infantry; double sentries, at short intervals, lining the bank of the river. We were so near that we heard the words of command, and, occasionally, one man calling to another. As we were some time examining them with our glasses, we at last attracted their attention, and a little knot of men gathered on the bank and fired about twenty shots at us, without hitting or coming near us. A tremendous thunder- storm, which had been threatening for some time and at last broke, was much more effectual in dislodging us from our position. We crept behind an overhanging rock, hoping that the rain would cease. From our lair, looking south, we had a prospect of bare, peaked hills, with castles on the top, and agreed, that it we has been transported there in sleep, we shoulds on waking, have thought ourseltves in Rhine- landJ 306 NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (i86o). But close round us were growing shrubs that never clothe the bleak northern hills-dwarf ilex, and myrtle, and the judas tree. As we descended we were caught in a still more violent shower, and took refuge in the crater of an extinct lime-kiln, where we found a dozen or more peasants and Garibaldini already housed. One was a captain of artillery, who gave us rum and tobacco, and in the course of half an hour communicated, unasked, the story of his life. He told us of his innamorata, showed us her picture and handwriting, and said that he had joined Garibaldi that he might have an opportunity of doing some heroic deed, and might say on his return to the lady of his love (here he threw open his arms), "Ecco-mi ! son degno di te !" Sept. 21st.--On going out after breakfast, instead of being assailed by half-a-dozen cabmen shouting in my ears, cracking their whips in my eyes, and driving across my path, the wheels just missing my toes, I found the stand deserted. It was the: same at another stand. There was not a cab to be had. On inquiry I found that the Government had pressed such carriages, public and private, as they could lay hold off, and sent them to Santa Maria for the conveyance of wounded men. The other cabmen had made off directly, and hid themselves and their horses. Everybody inferred that a great battle was expected, so I immediately walked off to the railway station, where I arrived just as the train was starting. (At these times a ticket is a needless formality --quite an unnecessary expense. You are never asked for your ticket, nor expected to pay anything except a small gratuity to the official who gets you a seat. It is an ill wind that blows nobody good. Even a time of war has its advantages.) When I reached Santa Maria, I found that I had again come on a false alarm. The carriages had been im- pressed to bring back to Caserta those who had been wounded on the previous Wednesday--such of them, that is, as were capable of removal. I went to see those who remained in one of the hospitals at Santa Maria. The wards were tolerably clean and airy, and the wants of the poor sufferers seemed as well attended to as circumstances permitted; but it was a sad sight. In one'case the ball had entered the eye and gone out in the neck-a terrible wound; but the surgeon said he had hopes of saving the man's life. In another case the ball had carried away part of the lower jaw and all the teeth. The saddest case of all was that of a poor child of ten years old who, with his father, was driving a cart on the day of the battle. They were compelled to come into the field to help in moving the wounded, While so engaged a 3o7 NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (i86o). grape-shot killed the father and carried off the son's leg. Amputation had been performed, and he was, they said, " doing well." Doing well ! When I saw him he seemed to be asleep. It was piteous to see his sad, pale face, rosy with health but two days ago, now showing sorrow and suffering even in sleep. No one had been to see him or inquire after him. Poor child ! I suppose, then, he has no mother, and is an orphan indeed. What a sorrowful beginning of life for him I Perhaps he was the eldest of the family, proud of having in charge his mother- less brothers and sisters, and being able to work for them. Think of those little ones, in their cottage, waiting and wondering why father and brother do not come home at sunset. How war scatters its miseries, farther and wider than its grape-shot, over the quiet happy fields ! There was one man in hospital the bones of whose hand had been splintered by a bullet. He looked as vivacious as if nothing had happened to him. He was a Venetian, had escaped to Piedmont, entered the service there, was disgusted for not having the medal for the war of '59, and so deserted to join Garibaldi and fight for the liberation of his native town. He said that his only regret was, that he had not had a chance of killing one of the enemy before he was wounded himself, and of washing his hands in his blood. And he said the terrible words, "Lavar mi le mani nel suo sangue," with the sweetest of smiles, as when a gourmet speaks of some favourite dainty. While I was there, Colonel da Porta, a Sicilian commanding his battalion, came in, and filled the man with delight by announcing his nomination as sottotenente (ensign). The field ambulance of this strange army is under the direction of a Piedmontese lady, the Contessa della T., who attracted great attention in Naples (which, without being uncharitable, one may suppose was not displeasing to her) by the singularity of her manners, language, and costume. She was dressed in a white braided hussar tunic, trousers, and boots outside, with spurs, and a Spanish hat with plumes, and a sword which clanked as she walked in an alarming way. She was attended by three or four Calabrians, dressed like the conventional brigands of the stage, who served as her body-guard. She talked in all languages, and somewhat took off the grace of her charitable deeds by blowing a trumpet so loudly before her.* * When a lady chooses to dress and behave like a man, she forfeits the immunities of her sex, and it is no longer ungallant to criticise her actions. 3o NAPLES AND CA RIB ALD I (i866). In returning, we visited the palace of Caserta. No one was permitted to enter the gardens without an order, which we had some difficulty in procuring. "I was referred from one- general to another, all royally lodged in the palace; at last General Medici was good enough to let us pas through his apartments on the ground floor. The arrangement of the gardens resembles that of the gardens at La Granja in Spain, only on a much larger scale. An aqueduct con- veys a copious stream of water to the side of a steep ilex-clothed hill about two miles off, at the back of the palace. Thence it descends' first in a natural waterfall over rough rocks, and afterwards in small cascades alternating with still pools to the plain. From the foot of the waterfall to the palace the distance is 3,Ioo yards. Avenues of ilex and other trees bound the terraces on either side, and there is an abum- dance of statues, gods, men, dolphins, monsters, and grottoes. At the foot of the waterfall are two groups in marble, representing on one side Diana and her nymphs, on the other, Actaeon torn by his hounds, all reflected in the dark deep water. The rocks about are clothed with acacia, oleander, and aloe. In the largest pool was a shoal of old carp and one stately swan, which, accustomed to be fed by royal hands, came sailing up to ask for biscuit of the intruders. From the highest terrace is a beautiful and singular view. You look over the palace and the densely wooded level plain in .which it lies, like a dark green sea, beyond the rim of which rise the highlands of Capri, and the Punta di Sorrento. The palace itself is more than two hundred yards square,* if my rough measurement be right, and is divided into four courts, with an open arcade occupying the ground floor from gate to gate. A broad staircase, lined with costly marbles, leads to a great octagon hall occupying the centre of the pile, with four windows at the angles looking each into a separate court. The octagon is supported by pillars of African marble taken from the temple of Serapis at Puzzuoli. All the palaces I have ever seen yield in magnificence to this; Versailles is mesquin in com- parison. What would Ferdinand have said had he lived to see it occupied by a rabble of revolutionary troops, lighting camp fires in the centre of his courts, cooking, playing cards, smoking, and singing * Vanvitelli, the architect, published a description of the palace in 1756 from which it appears that the outer sides measure respectively 92o and 72o Neapolitan palms. A copy of this rare work is found-as, indeed, what rare book is not ?-in the library at Keir. 22 3 NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (186o). Garibaldi's hymn ? I can easily conceive that the generals who are enjoying royal luxuries, and exercising among them more than royal power, are not anxious for the arrival of Victor Emmanuel, who would relegate them to some less sumptuous abode, and to some inferior position. When I reached the railway-station, I found a train of empty trucks and cattle waggons just starting. A number of the red-shirted gentry demanded that a carriage should be attached to it for their use. The station-master declared he had none, whereupon they threatened, hustled, and collared him, and finally carried him off to the palace, to answer to some one for his contumacy. This is one instance among many of the insolence which has made the liberators more unpopular at Naples than ever were its former masters. The train started without waiting for the issue of the dispute. I got upon a truck with a number of common soldiers (Garibaldians), whose behaviour presented a very favourable contrast to that of their officers. One provided me with an inverted basket to sit upon, another compelled me to accept a cigar (very bad, it is true, but the best he haJ), a third insisted upon my taking a cartridge as a keepsake. One of them had been an artist, he told me, and had abandoned his easel at Milan to carry a musket in Calabria. Never, surely, was there such a motley army as this. It contains men of all ranks, and of all characters; there are men of high bir'k and gentle breeding, there are also outcasts and vagabonds; there are generous and chivalrous enthusiasts, there are also charlatans and impostors, and unhappily it is not always the former who fill the highest places. I have seldom seen any earthly object arrayed in such glory as was Vesuvius in tl.e splendour of that calm evening. Through vistas of vine-clad poplars we saw the con;.,all ruddy purple, every furrow in the outer shell of the mountain distinctly marked with blue shadows, which deepened towards its base into the richest ultramarine. The more recent lava streams were (like the cone) of a bright purple, and looked, to my fancy, like piles of grapes poured out, waiting for the wine press that should extract from them the famous Vesuvian product-Lacryma Christi. The name Lacryma Christi, by the way, which shocks English cars, at least when translated, is an instance of the familiarity, and, as it seems to us. irreverence with which Italians treat sacred pcrsons 3ro NAPLES AND GARIBA-LDI (i860). and things. I remember to have read a lecture of Dr. Newman's, in which he maintained the thesis, that the profane and blasphemous oaths habitually used by the people of Italy, proved that .the objects of devotion were always present to their minds in whatever aspect, and that the state of mind of an Italian was far preferable to the apathy and indifference of the lower orders in England. To this one might reply on behalf of our countrymen, that their favourite expletive, by the same reasoning, proves the thought of eternal salvation to be always present to their minds. Again Dr. Newman's. proposition would lead to the further inference that a man is religious at heart in proportion to the profanity of his language, " which is absurd," as Euclid says. Again, many of the Italian oaths are obscene. Dr. Newman would find it difficult to twist this fact into an argument for their purity of mind. In some, too, which he who has once heard would gladly forget, profanity and obscenity are combined to form a result which outrages every good feeling. Remembering these, one can only think of Dr. Newman's argument with disgust, as something more than disingenuous. All men of education in Southern Italy disclaim any sympathy with the religion of the lower orders, which is mere paganism disguised under new names, and consists in the worship of a number of local deities. The Madonna of one shrine is-in the popular imagination, for it is not definite enough to be called a creed-quite a differe:-t person from the Madonna of another. The friar who tends the little chapel at the entrance of the Grotto of Puzzuoli begged one day of a passing stranger " for the Madonna." "''La Reina degli Angeli 6 ricca abbastanza," said the stranger. "Ah I bah I" said the friar, " non . mica la Reina degli Angeli! 6 la lovera Madonna della Grotta che le manca anche per pagare l'olio" (she has not enough to pay for the oil to light the lamps of the tunnel). A friend among many good stories told me one, ben trovato, if not vero, which illustrates the primitive simplicity of their faith. A woman at Naples, praying the Madonna to come and heal her son, took care to give her address--" Vieni, Maria, vieni, numero tredici, vicolo della Scrofa, terzo piano, seconda porta a man destra." Nowhere, probably, in the world is the separation so great between the well-to-do classes and the poor as it is in South Italy. They are quite distinct in religion, thought, and feeling. .Between the highest - and the lowest there is, indeed, outwardly a familiarity of manner which, 3tI NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (i866). at first sight, would point to an opposite conclusion. We see none of the hauteur on the one side, or the servility on the other, which is so common in England; but the familiarity is only superficial and ap- parent. There is a deep unfathomed gulf fixed between those who have something and those who have nothihg to. lose. A householder or shopkeeper at Naples speaks of the lazzaroni as a Hindoo living beside a jungle might speak of the tigers. So there is probably no country in the world where the opinion of the middle and upper classes s so fallacious a test of the popular opinion. The newspaper con- troversies and the theatre-riots of Naples only indicate the division of opinion in the middle and upper ranks--some holding with Victor Emmanuel, some with Mazzini, some with Cavour, some with Garibaldi -but they tell us nothing of the sentiments of the masses. The mob of the towns, the priests and the peasantry, are probably more inclined, by this time, to the old than to the new Government. If you asked a contadino his opinion early in September, the answer was always to the same effect: " R Vittorio, R Giuseppe, Re Francesco," it is all one provided he gives us " da mangiare a buon mercato." And when they find that prices are enhanced instead of lowered, under the new reign, they will be sure to throw the blame on the Government. I do not doubt that if universal suffrage were honestly applied to test the opinion of Southern Italy, a large majority would be found for Francesco II., at least in the Abruzzi and the provinces adjacent to the capital. Cavour threw a slur on his master's cause, and made a flaw in his claim, by resting it on a successful repetition of that French juggling imposture, which is as discreditable to statesmen as the miracle of San Gennaro is to priests. The intelligence of a country should rule it and determine its destinies; and if all the intelligence be as in South Italy, centred in one class, that class should alone be called upon to give its suffrage. Sept. 22.-The last news I heard before leaving Naples was that Garibaldi's "moderate" Ministry had resigned in a body, and that a set of Red Republicans had succeeded them. People are beginning to fear that in his heart the General wishes for a republic, and that he will play Victor Emmanuel false. After the use he made of the King's name, which has indeed been a tower of strength to him, this would be an act of perfidy without parallel in history. The confidence felt in Garibaldi has, however, been so much shaken, that it is looked upon as a possible contingency. It is reported, that to an aide-de-camp 312 NA4PLES AND _GARIBALDI (I86o). whom the King sent to him two days ago, he said, " Tell your master that if a republic should be necessary, I will do my best to make him Dictator." Thist doubt of Garibaldi's intentions was evidently felt by the Ministry, who a few days ago insisted upon taking the oath or allegiance to Victor Emmanuel. The Dictator did not take it, probably on the plea that he was already his subject In three weeks I have seen the extinction of a popularity that seemed boundless. The people who were wild with delight at the arrival of Garibaldi would: now be equally delighted to get rid of him. The reasons for this change are obvious. His refusal to declare at once the annexation of Southern Italy to Northern has alienated the moderate party, and generated suspicion of his intentions which his violent language on several oc- casions has tended to confirm. In his proclamation to the Palermitans, he said that he would proclaim Italian unity from the top of the Quirinal only-thus menacing even France. In an order of the day lamenting the death of one of his officers, he praised him for being a true democrat; in a letter to one Brusco, published in the official journal, he proclaimed his irrenconcilable hostility to the men who lhad humiliated the national dignity and sold an Italian province. All this has created a feeling that he is dragging Naples on, not towards a peaceful union with the rest of Italy, but towards an abyss of anarchy and war. Again, many of the decrees issued by him far outstep the limits of a confessedly temporary and transitional power. He declares the royal property to be national property--he banishes the Jesuits and confiscates their goods-he does the like to the most eminent prelates --he abolishes State lotteries-he forbids the payment of gamorra- he concedes the right of fishing in the ports--all which may be useful measures, but not necessary to be done at once (unless the banishment of the prelates be regarded as a measure of security). These and a number of other measures might be left to the consideration of the regular Government. His nomination of Alexander Dumas to be director of the national museum, offended all men of education. The offence was increased by the summary dismissal, without compensation, of all the employds of the museum, and by a paper issued by the new director full of insolence and arrogance, in which he told the Neapolitans that want of education had degraded them to the level of brutes, and that he was about to raise them by showing them all that was great in politics and beautiful in art. If this offended the upper classes, the seizing of the carriages yesterday was a measure which 313 NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (1860). has still more deeply offended the lower--not the owners and drivers alone, but others who see that their rights of property may be any day similarly invaded. Add to these causes of complaint the bullying and insolent demeanour of many of Garibaldi's officers, and the natural reaction and discouragement which could not but follow such a fever of excitement, and we shall see enough to account for the decline of his popularity. "I'll make you a bet," said a Neapolitan to me, "that his power will not last as long as Masaniello's." " Que venga il Re Vittorio Emmanuele e venga subito con venti mila soldati per cacciarci da Napoli questa canaglia! " was the fervid exclamation of another who had made himself hoarse with shouting "Viva Garibaldi" on the 7th of September. Garibaldi's character was thus summed up by a friend of mine, at Turin : " He is a brave soldier, but a great fool," using the phrases (I suppose) in the sense of "un grand fou." I thought it harsh at the time, but my Neapolitan friends, chiefly belonging to the "moderate" party, were agreed in thinking it not so far from the truth. He was of course the chief topic of conversation during my stay at Naples. I give, in as few words as I can, the residuum of much talk. As a soldier, he is of undaunted courage and a master of the " dodges" (passez-moi le mot) which are required in guerilla war, but he has no conception of a general's duties in the field; he is ignorant of the very rudiments of tactics, and incapable of organisation on a large scale. He is kind and gentle in his manners, and reluctant to hurt any one's feelings, while he is reckless of their lives. His bravery and gentleness, his generosity and disinterestedness, secure him the personal affection of all around him, and that constitutes his great merit as a commander. He pushes his love of simplicity to a point bordering on affectation, and is almost ostentatious in his dislike of pomp. He is illogical, prejudiced, and obstinate to a degree never before combined. He thinks cavalry useless, and has a profound contempt for cannon. He is perfectly certain, that he has only to appear before the walls of Rome, and the French will leave it, taking with them the Holy Father. "What if they don't ? " it was urged. " Oh, but they will ! " was the answer, in the tone of a man who admits no further discussion. He thinks that the walls of Mantua and Verona will fall, like those of Jericho, at a shout. He is very easily imposed on, and believes in all those who are about him. Familiarity breeds respect, and no proof will convince him of the dishonesty of any one whom he has once trusted, yr4 NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (I86o). He has not the moral courage to say " No" to a request of any of these favourites. His ignorance is such that the smallest show of knowledge completely imposes upon him. He thinks Crespia .a statesman, and Dumas a scholar. However, in forming an estimate of him, as of other extraordinary characters in history, we ought to be on our guard against the tendency natural to men to reduce eminence to the ordinary level by discovering a number of small failings. And when all abate- ments are made, there remain the great facts. His achievements are to be accounted for. He alone had gauged correctly the real weakness of the Neapolitan power, and the strength of his own seemingly feeble means, and he had the courage to test practically the truth of his conclusions. His "life-long devotion to one great idea, and his strength of will, have made him "a king of men," and distinguish him from the crowd, who are always, on their own showing, victims to "circumstances over which they have no control." 1 left Naples for Civita Vecchia on the afternoon of this day. On board the steamer I met General Bosco. He was prevented by illness from following the army to Capua, and was in Naples when Garibaldi arrived. The latter has required or advised him to leave the country for *a while; he is therefore going to Paris. He says that all the arrangements for the equipment and feeding of the Neapolitan troops are very good; that, in general, the material o:der of the army is excellent, but that the late King ruined its morale by intro- ducing a system of promotion which has neither the advantages of the Austrian nor of the French system. The officers are not, as in the Austrian army, taken from the upper classes in society, and who therefore command the respect of the soldiers, and have, or ought to have, a nice sense of personal honour; neither are they, as in the French army, chosen in great measure from among the bravest and most intelligent men ,in the ranks; but they are men without either social rank or individual merit. As far as I could understand promotion is made by seniority, and is excessively slow. There were some men, he said, still lieutenants at fifty. Most of these old officers are married men and very poor, having little or nothing but their pay to live on; so that their interest and anxieties are with their families and not with the regiment, and thus ces Beres defamille are capable of any treason cr baseness if only they can avoid exposing lives so valuable at home. In the higher grades, of course, exceptions are made. General I3osco's 3i5 NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (186o). "own case is an instance. He was only a major at the accession of the present King-if I may still call Francesco II. " the present King." Between the police-office, the custom-house, and the railway station, a traveller's patience is sorely tried at Civita Vecchia, as might be expected, seeing that there is in prescribing formalities a most elaborate system, and in executing them no system at all. One who knows Rome well tells me that utter confusion reigns in all the departments of administration, from the highest to the lowest. In their normal state the Government offices are like what they were in England, in the days when Samuel Pepys was at the Admiralty; just now they are in the condition which the said offices must have been in after the news .of William's landing at Torbay had reached the metropolis. In the best of times every official pilfers quietly, in proportion to his rank; now there is a general scramble. I was eager to see Rome in this supreme crisis of its fortunes. I find that the crisis is like that of a fever, through which the patient passes in unconsciousness. It is said that there is a committee, or committees somewhere, in communication with the revolutionists at Genoa and Naples; but no one seems to know or care anything about it. At Naples, in the last days of Francesco, the committees kept issuing, three or four times a day, bulletins of news and inflammatory placards; here I see nothing of the kind. People in the cafes talk about the movements of the Piedmontese without fear or restraint; but also, as it seems to me, without interest or sympathy. I see "Viva Garibaldi!" "Viva Vittorio Emmanuele " scribbled on the walls; but these in- scriptions are apparently of old date, and the police have not taken the trouble to efface them-perhaps the most effectual way of neutra- lising their effect, just as the Irish denunciations of English tyranny are perpetually contradicted by the fact that they are allowed to be expressed. I see no groups, as at Naples, gathered round some one who has the latest news to tell. We are in complete ignorance as to what is going on at Ancona or Capua. We do not even know for certain where the nearest outposts of the Piedmontese army lie. All communications are interrupted, and the latest intelligence is conveyed in private letters from Turin or Paris. If, however, the people here were not indifferent, we should surely hear a great deal of false news and reports, originating in excited imaginationt. The Giornale di Roma-the only paper allowed to be printed-gives us news from Shanghai, and a discussion as to whether the Matilda of 316 N'APLES AND GARIBALDI (1860). Dante was an Italian Princess or a German Saint, but contains not a word of news respecting the invading army. It was so with the Government organ at Naples in the last days of Francesco. Meanwhile, every one believes that the days of the Pope's reign, as aitemporal sovereign, are numbered. The denouement is certain, in whatever way it may be brought about. We who look on are like the reader of a novel who has peeped at the last page and seen that it ends happily, so that he goes through the book with diminished interest, but with some curiosity nevertheless to see by what ingenious process the author will extricate his characters from their embarrassment. The conduct of the plot is no doubt all settled between the great collaborateurs at Turin and Paris. The Romans, in the meantime, are not at all sorry to let other people play their game, and give effect to their wishes, without being involved in the risk and worry of an insurrection: " If fate will have me king, why fate may crown me Without my stir." When a man can lie at his ease while other people climb the tree to shake the ripe fruit down to the ground, within his reach, who can wonder at his acquiescence in so comfortable an arrangement ? The Holy Father, it is said, remains at the Vatican, freed from most of the cares of government ; eating heartily and sleeping soundly, cheerfully preparing himself for the scaffold or the stake, thus enjoying by antici- pation all the glories of martyrdom, together with a comfortable assurance that he will not be called upon to endure the pain thereof. An ardent Protestant asked the English clergyman the other day, "What arrangements he had made in the event of the fall of the Papacy ? " expecting, I suppose, that he would put on his surplice and bands, and, followed by his clerk, proceed to read himself in at St. Peter's according to the form prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer. There is a very general idea prevalent, both among the foes and the friends of the Pope, that the destruction of his temporal will entail the ruin of his spiritual power. Among Protestants the wish is father to the thought, and the impatient interpreters of prophecy find no warrant in their texts for breaking the fall of Antichrist halfway down. Among devout Romanists the notion arises from their attachment to the tradition of their Church, which holds the two powers to be inseparable, and which clutches at the substantial patrimony of St. 317 NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (i86o). Tetcr with as much tenacity as his metaphorical keys. In reality, I doubt whether ardent anti-Romanists are wise in advocating the abolition of the temperal power. The notorious scandals of the Papal administration tend to throw a slur upon his spiritual pretensions. If a man know not how to rule his own household, how shall he rule the Church of Christ ? How can the worst of temporal sovereigns be the best of spiritual fathers? I believe that his position as spiritual sovereign would be strengthened by the aboliti6n of the temporal power. It is a reform as urgently needed as the reforms which were brought about within the Roman Church after Luther's secession. From those reforms the Church derived new strength and a fresh lease of existence. That lease is now run out, and can only be renewed on condition of parting with the temporal power. The world is not yet ripe for the destruction of the spiritual domination, and till then the powers of Napoleon, and Victor Emmanuel, and Garibaldi all united will not prevail against it. Not martyr flames nor trenchant swords shall do away that ancient institution. Sept. 23.-The gardens of the French Academy on the Pincian, open to the public this (Sunday) afternoon, are planted in a manner rather unusual nowadays. Narrow walks intersect each other at right angles, bordered on each side by tall hedges of box overtopped by ilex and bay (here meriting its name of Taurus nobilis), with generally at each angle a cypress or pine. Such a garden, delightfully cool and pleasant beneath this Italian sun, would be damp, and chill, and mouldy in England. Nevertheless the lieges of Elizabeth used to love "pleached alleys," and I could fancy that Shakespeare planted for himself some such "trim pleasaunce" at New Place. I wonder if there was more sunshine in England in those days. In Spenser and Shake- speare it is almost always sunshine-a notable storm now and then, but sunshine as a rule. Is there any truth in the fancy of all old people that the weather used to be warmer and finer when they were young ? Or is it that Nature has kindly provided for men, whether poets or not, that only the sunny hours of life shall make a lasting impression on the memory, like the dial that says, " Horas non numero nisi serenas ? " In sight of the stone bench where I am sitting are a group of children, from twelve to fifteen years old, playing with a heartiness which we are accustomed to think a special characteristic of English children. It is a sunny hour for them. Their game is called Ladri e Sbirri. The 318 NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (I860). first thing they do is to stand round in a ring. Each holds out three fingers. The biggest boy counts, beginning from his left hand, three, six, nine, etc., up to twenty-one, after which he goes on counting each boy as one till he gets to thirty-one, and number thirty-one is the Capo Sbirro. This elaborate device is to prevent cheating in the choice of a leader. The Capo Ladro is chosen in the same way. The head spy and the head robber then choose their men alternately. The Sbirri tie a handkerchief for distinction round the left arm, and start in chase of the robbers. Some of the stone seats are supposed, "by making believe very much," to be caves, where they are secure. If the robbers succeed in escaping all to the same cave, they win the game. It was curious to observe how, even in the ardour of the game, the slow, trainant, distinct enunciation of the Romans was preserved. A strange contrast to the confused gibberish of the Neapolitans. Sept. 25.-The Pope had ordered solemn prayers for three days-a trzduo is the name still in use, adopted like so many others from Pagan Rome-to be offered for the success of his arms. These were repeated for three successive evenings at vesper time, in one of the chapels of St. Peter's. Swiss guards lined each side of the chapel, and the Holy Father himself, in scarlet cope, knelt in front of the altar, and once during the ceremony offered incense. The persons present--five or six hundred in number--joined in the chanting with great apparent fervour, but before the service was over a large part had scurried off, and taken their place in a double line leading to the door, by which his Holiness was to pass on the way to the Vatican. The Pope looked placid and benignant as ever, and showed no trace of care or trouble in face or figure., People dropped on their knees to receive his benediction. An Englishman, whose Protestantism has been intensified by residence in Rome, to whom I spoke of the effective performance I had just witnessed, said, "Yes, they are consummate actors, but I have long felt that the play has lost its attractiveness by too much repetition, and now it is more dreary to me than ever, for I know that there is no money to renew the dresses and decorations, or to pay the wages of the scene-shifters and candle-snuffers." Early in October I returned by way of Marseilles and Paris. All the Frenchmen I talked with on the steamer and in the railway carriage showed great irritation against Italians in general, and Garibaldi in particular. They were very sore about Castelfidardo, and the fate of 319 NAPLES AND GARIBALDI (1860). Pope's French volunteers, who had fought like lions "z n contre cent," arfd befbre succumbing to numbers had annihilated a whole regiment of Piedmontese. If their opinion could be taken as an index of the general feeling of Francethe Emperor would be taking a popular course if he were to restore the status quo in Italy by force of arms, leaving only Lombardy to Piedmont, as a compensation for Savoy and Nice. It was agreed that the position of Austria in Venice was intolerable." " Que faire ? " My suggestion that Austria should sell it was ridiculed as " une idee vraiment Anglaise," * they not seeming to remember that the great Napoleon netted a good round sum by a similar transaction with regard to Louisiana. These same Frenchmen showed, I am sorry to say, no good will towards England. They spoke out their sentiments with that complete disregard of a stranger's feelings which distinguishes them from all other nations, and makes them essentially the rudest nation in Europe. They told me that every one knew the great ultimate purpose of the Emperor's policy was the humiliation of England ; that in less than ten years he would take Gibraltar from us, and give it to Spain, he would take the Ionian Islands and give them to Greece, thus making allies for himself everywhere at our expense; that he would seize Egypt, and cut us off from India, etc., etc. A countryman whom I met at Paris had been the object of similar polite attentions in crossing France. One of his fellow-travellers, rejoicing in the prospect of a speedy war, rubbed his hands and said with a cheerful smile, " Oui, Monsieur, nous vous mangerons les entrailles." The French say, and by constantly affirming it have half persuaded themselves that they are stronger than we, and would, in the event of a was, be certainly victorious, but beneath their boasting lurks a feeling of distrustful fear, which will give them pause, and make them reflect that thejr may find a cheaper and safer way of gratifying their national vanity by continuing to brag of what they will do than by trying to do it. * Now (December 1860), this very plan is recommended by several journals in France, as the only solutipn of the difficulty. 320o This book is a preservation facsimile produced for the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. It is made in compliance with copyright law and produced on acid-free archival 60# book weight paper which meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (permanence of paper). Preservation facsimile printing and binding by Northern Micrographics Brookhaven Bindery La Crosse, Wisconsin 2013