Personnel.—Commissariat.—Daily Allowances.—Start on the
Expedition.—Damara Obtuseness.—Inability to count.—Information
withheld.—Kahikenè sends to us.—Arrive on the high
Tableland.—Superstitions on Food.—Meet Kahikenè.—His
Difficulties.—Gives me Advice.—Information about the
Road.—Four Oxen stolen.—The Culprits are punished.—Recognising
lost Oxen.—Hear of another Road.—Reach Omatako.—African
Puma.—Eshuameno.—Chipping the front Teeth.—View from the
Hill.—Ja Kabaca.—Climb Omuvereoom.—A Snake.—Seriously
obstructed by the Thorns.—Reach Otjironjuba.—How to make
Soap.—We catch some Bushmen.—Learn a little and travel
on.—Doubts about our route.—Arrive at a Werft.—Are guided
onwards.—Omanbondè.—Hippopotami.
The morning of March the 3rd found us packed up, and starting for our
exploring journey. We tugged along the heavy Swakop sand, and outspanned
after three hours at a fountain, passing at length into a country which,
I believe, no European eye had ever before witnessed.
I may now review our caravan: it consisted of two waggons, both filled
with things; the large one had a solid deck over all, and was curtained
into two compartments; Andersson slept in the front one and I in the
back if the ground was wet. Spare guns were lashed inside this waggon,
and canvass bags for books and for other etceteras, but we could never
make the waggon a place to read in with any comfort, for it was far
too full of articles of exchange. The small waggon was the receptacle
for the men’s sleeping clothes, besides its regular freight. Nobody
slept in it except during heavy rains. John St. Helena drove the large
waggon and led the way; Phlebus the small one. John Williams, Onesimus,
and John Allen were all engaged as leaders, but in practice Onesimus
always led the large waggon and any odd Damara led the other. Hans, John
Morta and Timboo were the remaining servants. My natives were constantly
changing. I am quite unable to give the names of the Ghou Damups, for two
reasons: the first, perhaps a sufficient one, is that they are totally
unpronounceable to any European mouth, and altogether beyond the powers
of our alphabet to represent;—the second, that they were invariably
christened afresh by my men as soon as they entered my service. The sort
of names these negroes answered to will perhaps convey a better notion of
their character and style than a longer description—there was a “Grub,”
a “Scrub,” a “Nicodemus,” a “Moonshine,” and a “Toby.” The Damaras
generally retained their own names; they were much the more stylish of
the two. My Damara party at starting was something as follows:—
Name. | Use. | Where from.
Kambanya | Generally useful | “Given” me by Mr. Hahn.
“Rhinoster” | A Guide | Hired from Otjimbinguè.
“Bill” | Andersson’s henchman. | Picked up by chance.
Kernerootie | { Excellent runner, } | Sent me by Mr. Rath.
| { used on every } |
| { emergency } |
Kahoni | Anything | Picked up by chance.
Old Kahoni | Nothing | ” ” ”
His Son | Cattle Watcher | ” ” ”
Piet from Mozambique | Conversational | { Timboo’s friend, a
| | { runaway slave.
The grown-up ladies were the wives of Kambanya, “Rhinoster,” and old
Kahoni. There were numbers of occasions on which I should have turned
old Kahoni away, if he had not been possessed of a little daughter, the
nicest, merriest, and slimmest of Damara girls, about eight or nine years
old. She won my heart, and I was obliged to tolerate the rest of the
family that I might retain her. Besides these twelve I have mentioned,
there were two or three others, hangers-on, whom I have forgotten, and
perhaps never knew, and the women had three babies, so my party may be
considered as about ten Europeans and eighteen natives, or twenty-eight
in all.
As regards commissariat, my biscuit and every kind of vegetable food was
eaten up. I had much too great a weight to carry to be enabled to lade
the waggons with provisions also. I had plenty of tea, coffee, and a very
little sugar; there were some few trifles besides. The oxen and sheep we
drove with us were to be our sustenance, and they alone, excepting now
and then a chance head of game. If these oxen strayed by night, and were
lost, we should be little better than the crew of a ship in the broad
Pacific, who had broached their last cask. The charge of these quadrupeds
was now to be my anxiety and care, day and night, for a loose ox in
Damara-land is as quickly appropriated as a dropped sovereign in the
streets of London.
In estimating cattle as so many days’ provision, the calculation I
acted on was as follows. A sheep gives twenty meals, no bread or other
vegetables being allowed, and a man cannot work _well_ with less than
two meals a day. A sheep therefore feeds ten people for one day. An
average ox is equivalent to seven sheep, and it therefore feeds seventy
people for one day, or thirty-five for two, or twenty-four for three. I
cannot accurately say what the quantity of food is that different kinds
of game afford, as waste always goes on when one is slaughtered, but, as
a rough allowance, I considered—
1 Springbok, or roebuck equal to 1 sheep.
1 Hartebeest ” 2 ”
1 Zebra, or gnu, or gemsbok ” 4 ”
1 Giraffe ” 2 oxen.
1 Black or Keitloa rhinoceros ” 3 ”
1 White ” 4 ”
I possessed seventy-five oxen and one calf; of these fifty-seven had
been inspanned, including the ride and pack-oxen. My ride-oxen were
Frieschland, Ceylon, Timmerman, Buchau and Fairland. Andersson had
Spring. All these would also carry packs as a matter of course, but
there were others simply pack-oxen. Hans had three ride-oxen, six cows,
and five calves; John Allen had two ride-oxen. There were also two
heifers that belonged to some of the other men. Gross total of oxen,
and cows and calves, ninety-four; but my own flock of sheep was reduced
to twenty-four. I had therefore (allowing twenty slaughter oxen) full
provisions for two and a half months for all my party, independently of
game. This was not nearly as much as I should have liked, but I trusted
to buy more on my journey, and also to get some shooting.
_March 4th._—This was our most difficult day: the Swakop ran through
a gorge so broken and narrow, as not to admit a waggon, and the only
road we could find out of it lay for some considerable distance along a
narrow ridge of jagged rock with a precipitous fall on our left. Hakis
thorns and ravines made the country quite impenetrable everywhere else;
our road was horrible; the waggon crashed and thundered and thumped, but
somehow or other got safe over. If I had to undergo two or three more
such days of journeyings, the waggons would have to be left behind. The
oxen were dreadfully wild; there was no guiding or restraining them down
hill, but they tossed themselves about and charged like wild buffaloes;
it still took us an hour and a half to inspan the two waggons, and every
man was actively employed. We went only three hours, and slept at the
furthest watering-place that Hans and I had explored. Now we had to trust
to the guides, whose ideas of time and distance were most provokingly
indistinct; besides this, they have no comparative in their language,
so that you cannot say to them, “which is the _longer_ of the two, the
next stage or the last one?” but you must say, “the last stage is little;
the next, is it great?” The reply is not, it is a “little longer,” “much
longer,” or “very much longer;” but simply, “it is so,” or “it is not
so.” They have a very poor notion of time. If you say, “Suppose we start
at sunrise, where will the sun be when we arrive?” they make the wildest
points in the sky, though they are something of astronomers, and give
names to several stars. They have no way of distinguishing days, but
reckon by the rainy season, the dry season, or the pig-nut season. When
inquiries are made about how many days’ journey off a place may be, their
ignorance of all numerical ideas is very annoying. In practice, whatever
they may possess in their language, they certainly use no numeral
greater than three. When they wish to express four, they take to their
fingers, which are to them as formidable instruments of calculation as
a sliding-rule is to an English school-boy. They puzzle very much after
five, because no spare hand remains to grasp and secure the fingers that
are required for “units.” Yet they seldom lose oxen: the way in which
they discover the loss of one, is not by the number of the herd being
diminished, but by the absence of a face they know. When bartering is
going on, each sheep must be paid for separately. Thus, suppose two
sticks of tobacco to be the rate of exchange for one sheep, it would
sorely puzzle a Damara to take two sheep and give him four sticks. I
have done so, and seen a man first put two of the sticks apart and take
a sight over them at one of the sheep he was about to sell. Having
satisfied himself that that one was honestly paid for, and finding to his
surprise that exactly two sticks remained in hand to settle the account
for the other sheep, he would be afflicted with doubts; the transaction
seemed to come out too “pat” to be correct, and he would refer back to
the first couple of sticks, and then his mind got hazy and confused, and
wandered from one sheep to the other, and he broke off the transaction
until two sticks were put into his hand and one sheep driven away, and
then the other two sticks given him and the second sheep driven away.
When a Damara’s mind is bent upon number, it is too much occupied to
dwell upon quantity; thus a heifer is bought from a man for ten sticks
of tobacco; his large hands being both spread out upon the ground, and
a stick placed on each finger, he gathers up the tobacco; the size of
the mass pleases him, and the bargain is struck. You then want to buy a
second heifer: the same process is gone through, but half sticks instead
of whole ones are put upon his fingers; the man is equally satisfied
at the time, but occasionally finds it out and complains the next day.
Once, while I watched a Damara floundering hopelessly in a calculation
on one side of me, I observed Dinah, my spaniel, equally embarrassed on
the other. She was overlooking half a dozen of her new-born puppies,
which had been removed two or three times from her, and her anxiety was
excessive, as she tried to find out if they were all present, or if any
were still missing. She kept puzzling and running her eyes over them
backwards and forwards, but could not satisfy herself. She evidently had
a vague notion of counting, but the figure was too large for her brain.
Taking the two as they stood, dog and Damara, the comparison reflected no
great honour on the man. Hence, as the Damaras had the vaguest notions
of time and distance, and as their language was a poor vehicle for
expressing what ideas they had, and, lastly, as truth-telling was the
exception and not the rule, I found their information to be of very
little practical use.
I had spent more hours than an untravelled European would easily give
me credit for, in questioning and cross-questioning Damaras about the
distances we had to go over. Mr. Hahn and Mr. Rath severally, at Barmen
and Otjimbinguè, had helped me to the utmost of their ability, and yet,
on starting, I could not tell whether Omanbondè lay five days off or six
weeks. As a proof of the extreme difficulty of worming out facts from the
Damaras, I may mention that Okandu Fountain, which lay only five miles
from Schmelen’s Hope, and where we slept the first day, was unknown by
the missionaries. At Schmelen’s Hope itself there is only vley (pool)
water and wells, which a dry season might exhaust, and though abounding
in grass, trees, and garden land, the place was reluctantly abandoned,
and the head-quarters of the Mission were established at Barmen, which
has much fewer natural advantages. When Mr. Kolbe, at a subsequent
period, went to Schmelen’s Hope, he merely occupied it as a branch
station. Now, constant inquiries have been made for years as to whether
there were any fountains near Schmelen’s Hope, but without success,
and yet this one, lying in full sight and right in the middle of the
river-bed, had never been spoken of to the Missionaries or discovered by
them. This is not at all an isolated case of the difficulty of getting
the information you want from the savages; they are intensely stupid, and
lie for lying’s sake. One man at Otjimbinguè told me, that if I started
now to Omanbondè, and travelled as fast as I could, it would take me so
long that I should be an old man when I came back.
My plan of journeying was this; to move steadily on, and whenever I came
across water, after three hours’ travel, to stop; in this way my oxen
would keep fresh for any severe exertion they might be called upon to
make, and I should also have more time to learn particulars about the
country, which would be of essential use if I returned in the dry season.
The necks of the oxen had also to become hardened to the yoke; if a raw
was established the beast would be useless.
On the third day’s travel, the long slope, which is the water-shed of the
Swakop, was surmounted, and quite new scenery lay before us. In front
rose the two magnificent cones of Omatako, each appealing as perfect as
that of Teneriffe; to the far left were many broken mountains, some of
which must look down upon Erongo; more northerly lay the long escarpment
of another Ghou Damup mountain, Koniati; and to the westward of north,
a very distant blue hill was seen, which had to be passed on our way to
Omanbondè. The sandy soil was covered with thin dry grass, and a scanty
thorn-coppice, without under-wood, overspread the land.
As we travelled on, some messengers met us. They were sent from the Chief
Kahikenè, who begged me to visit him. He lay at a large vley in front,
whither he had moved to meet me. The messenger brought a magnificent
black ox as a present from him; it was larger than any in my drove,
though I had some fine ones amongst them.
We had now finally lost sight of Jonker’s hills and all the broken
ground of the Swakop, the summits of whose highest mountains were below
us. We had mounted steadily up, and were journeying on a high plateau
6000 feet above the level of the sea, as measured by a boiling-point
thermometer. On this plateau Omatako, Koniati, and other hills stood.
Almost immediately after leaving a large tributary of the Swakop, we
came upon a river-bed, running in exactly the opposite direction, and
this we followed; it is called Okaroschekè, or “naked” river—the story
being, that one rainy season, when the water was flowing waist-high,
some Damara women tried to cross it to get at the berry-trees which
grew on the opposite bank, and stripped to do so, leaving their skin
aprons on the ground; when they were on the other side a torrent of
water came down which swept their aprons away, and left them without
clothing. The Damaras are very particular about wearing something,
however little it may be, and look upon complete nakedness as a great
disgrace. Another somewhat refined practice that they have is, that no
hunger will drive them to eat raw or even underdone meat. They have
numberless superstitions about meat, which are very troublesome: in the
first place, each tribe, or rather family, is prohibited from eating
cattle of certain colours, savages “who come from the sun” eschewing
sheep spotted in a particular way, which those “who come from the rain”
have no objection to. As there are five or six different “eandas” or
descents, and I had men from most of them with me, I could hardly ever
kill a sheep that everybody would eat; many were martyrs for a long
time to their consciences, but hunger converted them all at last. Goats
are an abomination to every Damara, whatever his eanda may be. Another
superstition is that meat is common property. Every slaughter is looked
upon as a kind of sacrifice or festal occasion. Damaras cannot conceive
that people should eat meat as their daily food. Their chiefs kill an ox
when a stranger comes, or half a dozen oxen on a birth or circumcision
feast, or any great event, and then everybody present shares the meat.
When I stayed near werfts I could not at first ensure my men getting food
enough to eat, for the strange Damaras came about them and begged their
share, “cursing” them if they refused. The curse is supposed to have a
withering and blighting effect. For this reason meat is never an article
of exchange at anything like its real value in Damara-land. A freshly
killed ox would not buy a live sheep. Damaras have a great respect,
almost reverence, for oxen. They keep them to look at, as we keep fallow
deer; and though a nine-shilling gun will buy five fine oxen, yet that is
no proof of the cheapness of cattle with the Damaras, but rather of the
dearness of guns amongst them. Any man, not himself possessed of cattle,
may be murdered without fear of the consequences, if payment of two oxen
be made to his relations, as that by the custom of the country is amply
sufficient blood-money. Milk, the great article of diet among the richer
Damaras, though used in such profusion, can rarely be bought, for there
are some superstitions about it also. Each Damara, who lives entirely or
chiefly on milk, the rest of his food being pig-nuts, drinks from one to
two gallons daily. Now it is reasonable to suppose that a day’s provision
of meat would be exchangeable for one of milk, especially as meat is
more prized, and the greater dainty of the two; but it is not so, nor
indeed anything like it. If a head of game be shot and bartered with the
natives, it will be found a difficult matter to obtain a single gallon of
milk for a whole gnu or zebra. Sweet milk can hardly be ever obtained,
because Damaras, like all other milk-drinking nations, use it only when
sour, and the cow is milked into the tainted vessels. They firmly believe
that a cow’s milk will fail her if they milk her into anything freshly
washed and clean. The milk of these cows actually does fail them if the
calf be taken away. It is the same with those in parts of South America.
_March 12th._—We had arrived at the place where Kahikenè waited for
us. He and about forty magnificently made and well-armed Damaras were
standing under the trees. As the waggons came near, the men all fell
into a single file, according to their usual custom, which Kahikenè
headed, and they walked up to me. He had quite the manners of a chief,
and received me very well. I gave him some gilt ornaments as presents,
which, although he was in mourning, he put on in compliment to me: the
Damaras strip off their ornaments when in mourning. He had been in great
distresses of late. After Jonker had attacked him, and scattered his
people at Schmelen’s Hope, Omagundè’s son, who was encamped two days in
front of us, followed up the attack, and killed some of his children, and
took others prisoners, leaving only one lad with him. The greater number
of his oxen were also taken, and he was left almost destitute, with but
the remnant of a tribe, and was now about to make a last desperate attack
upon his enemy. A few years ago, Kahikenè was the most powerful chief
in Damara-land, and, like Katjimasha, had once allied himself with, and
afterwards had separated from, Jonker. Subsequent to this separation,
Jonker attacked him, and he made a bold retaliation the next night. Ever
since that he had been a marked man with the Hottentots, and werft after
werft of his had been swept away, until he was reduced to the condition
in which I found him.
He was the only friend among the Damaras that the missionaries ever had,
and his friendliness and frankness to me and my men interested all of us
without exception most thoroughly in his favour.
He had brought his men together to make one quick and last attack upon
the werft of Omagundè’s son, and the usual superstitious ceremony was
gone through of dragging a berry bush after him wherever he went. I
offered to go to Omagundè’s son and see if I could not get his children
and some oxen back for him; for it is a very common custom among the
Damaras that when one tribe has utterly ruined another they should then
give them back a part of what they had taken, as an act of clemency,
which should secure them against retaliation; and it was but natural that
Damara chiefs should pay some little deference to my mediation, since I
had just checked the Hottentots from laying hands on their cattle. But
Kahikenè was too proud to receive back part and compromise the matter,
though he said that he knew his expedition was but a forlorn hope, and
that he would be killed. He said that his best soldiers were gone, and
that those with him were but arrant cowards, who would leave him at the
first danger. He made these complimentary speeches quite loud, while all
his men were sitting around us. He showed us all the scars and cuts with
which he was covered, and gave the history of them in an easy chatty way.
He criticised my arrangements, and said that I was much too careless in
the way I travelled and encamped—that I ought never to allow many Damaras
to mix in with my men, because if they made one of their sudden attacks
I should be overpowered directly. He recommended the greatest caution in
trusting the Damaras. I knew too well the truth of much that he said,
but my waggon-men were far too negligent for me to keep up anything like
the discipline I should have wished amongst them. At very little trifles
they were ready to show discontent, and if I had pushed them too much
they would have turned back and left me. Kahikenè assured me, and I had
heard from other quarters also, that Omagundè’s son would not let us pass
through his country. I wished to send messengers to him, but no Damara
dared to go. His feelings were anything but favourable towards whites;
not long before he had sent men who stole Mr. Hahn’s cattle. After a
great deal of expostulation had passed he condescended to return them,
but cut their tails off before doing so, and kept them as trophies.
I asked Kahikenè about the country ahead, and he gave me much information
very concisely and well; his intellect and manner contrasted most
strongly with those of the other Damaras. Indeed a chief over many men,
whether savages or not, must have something in him, or he could never
keep them together. He said that he used to send trading excursions
to the Ovampo, but not by Omanbondè, and to quite a different part of
their country to that which I proposed visiting. His trading parties
kept alongside but far from the sea. There were different points on the
route from which it could be seen. The journey to the Ovampo occupied two
months (moons). The men stayed one month there and then returned. The
Damaras were friendly along that route, and so were they at Omanbondè,
but between where we then were and Omanbondè, Omagundè’s tribe cut off
all communication. He said that the road was very broken, and that I
should never get my waggons along it.
An incident occurred in which Kahikenè behaved very well to me. One
morning three of my best front oxen and another slaughter ox were gone.
They were instantly spoored, and the tracks of Damaras driving them found
by their sides. I called Kahikenè up and told him that I did not for a
moment believe that he was privy to the theft, but that they were taken
from me when under his protection, and that he must get them back. I am
sure that he was very much touched by my giving him credit for sincerity,
for of late he had been hearing of nothing else but distrust and
desertion on every side. He sent instantly after the cattle, and half a
dozen of my own Damaras went also. My men returned after a day’s absence,
as they were afraid of going further, but Kahikenè’s men had kept to
the spoor. Intelligence at length came that three of the four oxen were
recovered, and one front ox had been killed; six thieves were taken
and were detained a little distance off till further orders. Kahikenè
regretted extremely the loss of the front ox; he said he knew that it was
as disastrous an accident to our team as cutting off a leg is to a man,
but that any oxen of his that I chose to take were quite at my service.
Then as to what should be done with the thieves; he looked about him till
a stout horizontal bough of one of the large camelthorn trees caught
his eye, and he proposed to hang them in a row upon it. Against this
scheme I used all my eloquence, as I did not like such strong measures;
at length Kahikenè stated the case fairly enough; he said the thieves
had been guilty both to me and to him—to me for the theft, to him for
their audacity in taking oxen when I was under his protection; that the
punishment due to them for the first part of the matter was my affair,
and that I could remit it or not as I pleased, but that for his part he
must vindicate his own rights. I could of course make no answer to this,
so he sent men who clubbed or assegaied four of the culprits, but two
escaped. I never could learn the full particulars of the matter. Of the
two that escaped one was brought to me a few days after, when I was on
the road; he was brought in the evening, and I did not like punishing
and letting him go then, as he might revenge himself in the night. It
is not easy to secure a powerful supple-limbed negro, so that he cannot
slip loose, but in this case I hand-cuffed his wrists, one on each side
of the stem of a tree, and made my fire near him that he might not be
too much chilled during the night, and in the morning I gave him a most
severe flogging and let him go. One of the four culprits who had been
left for dead we also found. He was fearfully bruised with the clubs,
and perfectly stripped, but had crawled to the same watering-place—a
vley—that I was encamped at. His punishment had been, I thought, amply
sufficient, and I gave him a meal, and let him go, but I sadly fear, from
what I heard long subsequently, that some of my Damaras followed and
assegaied him.
Kahikenè’s men had in the meantime frightened mine about Omagundè’s
people, and they were quite panic-struck and mutinous, and fairly refused
to go any further. Andersson here was of the greatest assistance to me.
He would have accompanied me alone, and Timboo I think would not have
failed us. The waggon-men knew I was in their power. If the cattle had
been moderately tame, and the country at all open, Andersson and I could
ourselves have taken the waggons back to Barmen, and, leaving them there,
ridden on; but the character of the expedition and of the country made us
as dependent on a large body of men as a frigate is upon a large crew.
Hans had not been long enough with me to become thoroughly attached to
my cause, and he had a very disagreeable time of service, owing to the
laziness and jealousies of the waggon-men, and would then have been very
glad to have discontinued it. I earnestly longed to place a broad tract
of country between me and the Mission stations, and then I knew that the
waggon-men would hesitate before they ran away and crossed it alone. I
persuaded the men, instead of going north through the hostile country,
to turn to the left and travel westwards to Kahikenè’s head-quarters. We
passed by a great many kraals, in few of which were there more than ten
houses, generally only five or six—probably 100 head of cattle and not
more, belonged to each kraal. Of these, twenty or thirty were the chief’s
own property, taken care of by the people who occupied the huts, together
with the other oxen which were their own. The perquisites for taking care
of the chief’s cattle consisted of the milk of the cows, and occasionally
a calf or lamb.
The Damaras have a wonderful faculty of recollecting any ox that they
have once seen, and whenever I came to a new werft the natives always
went up and down among my oxen to see if any that had been stolen from
them were among the number. I found a great advantage in having bought
the majority of mine from Hans, for they had been in his hands for four
years, and no Damara could lay a claim to any of them, but in those I
bought myself I had to be very careful, as they were pretty sure to have
been stolen at some time or another, and might, according to the custom
of the land, be reclaimed at any moment by their former possessors.
Hans and John Allen were very quick at recollecting oxen: I never could
succeed in doing so myself: but it is perfectly essential to a traveller
here that some trustworthy persons of his party should be able to pick
out his own oxen from any drove in which they have become mixed; for,
depend upon it, the strange Damaras will give no help on those occasions.
When fresh oxen are bought, the old ones butt and fight them for a few
days before admitting them into their society, and during the time of
probation the new oxen are always trying to run off and get home again.
Now the tribe from whom they were bought may be lying at eight or ten
scattered kraals, to any one of which the ox that had been bought but
a few hours before and seen for a few minutes only, may have made his
escape. He has to be picked out from among 500 or 600 head of cattle, and
this the Damaras can do with perfect certainty. They do not seem to know
the sheep or to care much about them, but their thoughts and conversation
run upon oxen for the greater part of the day.
By dint of excessive badgering and cross-questioning I found out that
it might be possible after all to turn Omagundè’s flank. I had now two
or three Damaras who had once been that way, and my men were willing to
go on. We bought a few oxen here. Some zebras were shot and given to
Kahikenè’s people. He made a last endeavour to persuade me not to go up
the country, but in vain; and we separated with some regret, I going on
my journey and he to his hopeless attempt against Omagundè’s people. I
took a few men from his werft, and by dint of constant bartering, started
with 100 oxen, twenty-seven goats and thirty sheep. Poor Kahikenè! of all
the Damaras I saw in my year and a half journey, none had so thoroughly
ingratiated himself with my party as he had. We tolerated a few others,
but became really attached to him.
_March 18th._—The high cones of Omatako were full in front of us, and the
next wells were a long distance on the other side; however we met with
pools of rain-water and trekked on in three or four hour stages. At one
place John Morta was beginning to make his fire under a bush, when he
retreated in great alarm, as he found the place occupied by a puff-adder.
The next day we saw our first herd of wild animals; I counted about 100
hartebeests in one place, and Andersson 400 gnus in another. We shot some
game, and Andersson started what he thought was a puma. The natives talk
a great deal about such an animal existing; they describe it as a very
shy creature, and hardly ever moving about in the day-time, of the same
colour and general shape as a lion, but smaller, and with no mane. The
animal Andersson caught a glimpse of answered the description perfectly.
It might have been a young lion, but its movements were not those of a
cub. It jumped up close by him, but was among the thick bushes and out of
sight before there was time to fire.
We had a very fatiguing day in going round Omatako. The ground was open,
but heavy, and the oxen sadly exhausted. We came to a small river-bed on
the other side of it, which Andersson had reached in his long ride from
Schmelen’s Hope, and encamped by a pool of water that remained in that
part of its course. The stream was running breast high with water when
Andersson saw it, but it was now utterly dry.
The next day, after crossing the river-bed with difficulty, as its banks
were so high, we arrived at the wells that we had heard of, and to
which the Damaras guided us straight enough. Now was the question how
to proceed; we had been travelling due north from Kahikenè’s werft, but
the next certain water-place was by a hill (Ja Kabaca) that looked very
distant indeed to the north-east, and the sun was so powerful and the
ground so sandy, that vley water could in no way be depended on. In front
of us, to the north, was the hill Eshuameno, so called from a grand feast
the Damaras once held there, on occasion of “chipping” the front teeth of
a number of children. Most negroes, as is well known, chip their teeth,
and in different ways, according to their tribe. The Damaras knock out a
wedge-shaped gap between their two front teeth; the ladies say, it makes
them lisp charmingly.
I left the waggons at the wells and rode on with a couple of men for
five hours, till I got to Eshuameno. We found no water there, but
off-packed among some thick thorns, where the most pitch dark of nights
brought us to a stand-still. In the morning I went up the hill, both
to view the country and to get bearings of Ja Kabaca, by which I could
determine its distance from the waggons, and whether or no it would
be practicable to reach it in a single stage, should water fail us. I
was very anxious about the matter, so I took a protractor up the hill
with me, and protracted all my bearings on the spot, by which I had
a better idea of the country than I could obtain before for want of
well-selected observing stations. I had a very wide prospect indeed from
the top of Eshuameno. Southwards I could clearly see Diambotodthu, which
is only some twenty-five miles from Schmelen’s Hope. Northward extended
a wide flat of the most barren country. There seemed to be no grass
whatever upon it, but it was studded over with low scrubby bushes; while
eastwards, in which direction we had to travel, the ground was covered
with trees and grass. The results of the survey were satisfactory to
me, and I determined to risk going across the plain to Ja Kabaca. I was
assured of plenty of water being found there. As we returned the rain
fell in torrents, in a perfect sheet of water. This was delightful, as it
would fill the vleys for us; but we felt rather cold and hungry when we
arrived, after our five hours’ ride through it. The little waggon was too
full of things for the men to use it for shelter, but they had contrived
some tenting, which was sufficient for the occasion.
_March 22nd._—We were again _en route_. In four hours a fine vley was
discovered, and there of course I stopped. I cannot take liberties with
my oxen; they are disheartened as easily as my men, and I am always
afraid of their sticking in the bushes. As for the men, they drink like
fishes. I can only carry four meals of water for them.
The next day we arrived at some large wells, in which again there was
a sufficiency of water. The cattle were very restless at night, and
constantly straying; Hans preferred their lying loose and picking up
grass during the night to making a kraal, but I was sadly afraid that
some morning they might be missing, and have fallen into the hands of
Omagundè’s people. Except my cattle, I had not one day’s provision;
no biscuit, no flour, nor anything of the sort; I felt that I had now
committed myself in earnest. There was no certain water between these
wells and where I first met Kahikenè. A month of drought would exhaust
every vley on the road, and then unless I rode right through Omagundè’s
country, the journey would be quite impossible even for ride-oxen. I told
a great many stories, I am afraid, to my men. I impressed upon them the
certainty of soon arriving at a better country, and talked a great deal
about some large fountains near Omatako, as a baiting place on our way
home, but which I had not really much faith in.
The next day, by starting early and keeping a steady even pace, we
arrived at Ja Kabaca, and passing along its rugged base and between it
and Omuvereoom, arrived late in the afternoon at a wretched vley, which
we discovered after an anxious search. It would be a waste of time to
enlarge on the horrible stuff one often had to drink at these small
vleys, as it can so easily be conceived. Fancy a shallow pool from ten
to twenty yards across, and from six to twelve inches deep, in which a
herd of wild animals, say fifty zebras, have been splashing and rolling
themselves all night, and which they have left in every respect like the
water pumped out of a farm-yard; and where wild animals are wanting, the
oxen, in spite of every precaution, will do the same.
The two mountains between which we were now encamped, Omuvereoom and Ja
Kabaca, were said to be great strongholds of Bushmen and Ghou Damup, so
Hans, Andersson, and I, made an expedition up the first of these, to see
if we could catch any, and persuade or compel them to guide us. The first
name means “a door,” or “a pass;” the second is derived from a proper
name.
Since leaving Kahikenè we had not seen a single person beyond our own
party. We rode our oxen to the foot of Omuvereoom, which was about an
hour and a half off, and leaving them with our Damaras, went up a hill,
in some parts the most rugged that I ever climbed. We first steered for
a green patch, in which the telescopes had shown us water: there we
found deserted huts, but nothing else, neither could we see any recent
tracks; but at one place, hearing what we thought was a halloo, Hans and
I scampered up hill after it. I was utterly blown, and had just mounted
up on a kind of natural step, when, while I was balancing myself, I found
that I had put my foot on the tail of a great dark-green snake, who was
up in an instant, with his head as high as my chest, and confronting me.
I had, though used up with my run, just sense and quickness enough left
to leap over the side of the rock, and came with a great tumble among
some bushes; the snake, too, came over after me, I can hardly suppose in
chase, because he did not follow me when we were at the bottom together;
but I ran after him a long way, for I was not hurt, throwing stones at
the reptile. A Damara, who was some way behind, was carrying my gun, and
I had not even a stick.
Resuming our search, we came to where the hill was so broken that I
could not get on. Huge jagged rough stones, many as big as a small
house, were piled up, and thrown about in all directions, with deep
fissures between them; just the place for a man to fall and break his
legs. We found altogether two or three small fountains, but no people.
There were some giraffe-spoors high on the hills. Giraffes are wonderful
climbers: koodoos are the best; but I think that giraffes come next to
them, even before the zebras. From the hill we swept the country with our
telescopes, and caught the glimmer of distant water between the trees:
there was to be our next halt. The Damaras pointed north-east, as the
direction of Omanbondè, but said that it still lay a great way off. We
“marked” the vley as well as we could, and took the waggon there,—three
hours’ travel before breakfast. The water-shed was now obviously to the
eastward, the distant country dropping down most perceptibly. I had
been hoping to see fewer thorn-trees, but here they were worse than
ever. My oxen would not face them: a single bush threw the whole team
into confusion: the oxen plunged and tossed, and got their heads out of
the yokes; and often the waggon-men could not get up to the fighting
creatures on account of the thorns. Flogging is of little or no use;
the animal is essentially perverse and vicious, and calls for almost
superhuman patience. From eleven A.M., till night-fall, we were labouring
through the thorns, that threatened soon to become impervious. Our
clothes and hands were sadly torn; but still we pushed on steadily. Not
a blade of grass was to be seen; and when we outspanned, a pitch dark
night had set in; the oxen were roaming about,—we could hardly see them
in the thick cover. When the morning broke, a few oxen remained, and the
rest were gone. Away went half the men, without any breakfast, running
a steady pace, for we feared the oxen might get back even to Kahikenè’s
werft. They were overtaken beyond the vley, as they were walking steadily
back. In the meantime I had gone on to see how far we were from the
stream Otjironjuba, our next watering-place. To my delight, I found it
close by, only an hour and a half off, full of running water, and like a
trout-stream, with meadows of grass about it. It came out from a cliff of
Omuvereoom.
In the evening we brought the waggons up, and encamped beside it, about
two miles from the hill. Here we staid two days, in happy idleness,
climbing the hill, bathing, shooting francolines, and having a good
clothes-washing.
I must here make a digression on the subject of soap, an article that
we had to make for ourselves, as I found that I had not brought nearly
enough from Cape Town. This is one instance out of a vast number in
which the missionary or the traveller is thrown upon his own resources.
Our process of making it took a week or ten days to complete. It was as
follows: the cook having saved as much fat as he could from the meat,
until his store accumulated to half a bucket-full, or more, and a great
quantity of wood, or shrub-ashes, having been collected, those plants
alone being used whose ashes taste acrid, a savage was set to work at
making two very large clay pots, which is an easy thing to do when proper
clay can be obtained; in one of these we put the ashes, and let water
stand upon them; in the other, under which a fire-place was built, we
placed the fat. A Damara of sedentary disposition was then employed to
superintend the process to the end, he or she having simply to keep up
the fire under the grease-pot, and from time to time to ladle into it a
spoonfull of the ash-water, or ley. This ash-water is sucked up by the
grease; and in ten days the stuff is transformed into good white soap.
The difficulty lies in selecting proper ashes. Those of most plants make
the soap too hard; those of others too soft; but when the _juste milieu_
is hit, all goes on excellently. The missionaries have now brought their
soap-making to perfection; they only use the ashes of two plants, both of
which grow in abundance near Otjimbinguè; and practice has taught them
the exact proportion in which they should be mixed to make “a superior
article.”
From the top of Omuvereoom, about Otjironjuba, nothing but a wide bushy
extent could be seen. The brook sprang from several boggy spots, and fell
in pretty cascades down the hill.
_March 29th._—We started very early from our agreeable resting-place, and
followed the Otjironjuba: it soon disappeared in its sandy bed; and after
three hours the country had become so arid, that I outspanned, to let the
oxen take a good drink at the last pool of water we could see. The rain
now came down in such deluges that the harness, of undressed leather,
became too soppy to handle, and the men could not hold the oxen in the
reins when they had caught them; so we stopped there all night.
_March 30th._—We again started early, and strayed a great deal; for we
had no certain point to aim for, and our chief object was endeavouring
to avoid the thorns. The guides were sulky, and could not, or would not,
tell us anything. We pulled on for many hours with thick thorn-bushes
about us, and not a drop of water to be seen, as the sandy soil had
sucked up the rain: however, the oxen went well. Towards evening we
turned down a long vista, and the waggon was moving noiselessly over the
soft ground, when we saw five or six Bushmen and women squatted in a row
on the ground, with their backs towards us, crowing pig-nuts. They did
not see us till we were close upon them. We caught a man and woman, and
made them show us the water. A little man, who got away from us, was very
funny, and stuck to his wife manfully. He danced about her with a bow and
arrow, making offers to shoot at us, and was in a wonderfully excited
state of mind. We did not approve of the arrow, and let him and his wife
go their ways. These people were thorough Namaquas in feature, but darker
in colour, exactly like the Walfisch Bay people. The man we caught was
tall, certainly above six feet. One sees now and then very tall, bony
men among the Hottentots; though, as a race, they are diminutive. He had
his wallet full of young birds, just taken out of the nest, linnets and
such-like, to eat. He gave us much better information than the Damaras.
Phlebus said that the man talked backwards and forwards, and that he
could hardly make out what he said. Anyhow, when he did, the answers
were very direct. The Bushman name for Omanbondè is Sareesab: as to its
size, I heard exactly the same variety of accounts that I did among the
Damaras. The man said that the water of it was as broad as the heavens;
the woman, that it was perfectly dry; but both agreed that there were
hippopotami in it. There could be no doubt about the animal meant; they
used the ordinary Hottentot word for them, and mimicked their actions so
completely, that it was evident they had seen them; and where hippopotami
are there water must be. They gave us a very true account of its
distance, calling it four long days for a man on foot.
Phlebus and Hans shot a brace of gemsboks. The water we slept by lay
among reeds, and seemed to be the head of an ill-defined water-course,
down which we went.
_March 31st._—We picked up the gemsboks by the way, and passed a large
and deep vley, in which there were some red and white geese. There are
geese and ducks on every large pool of rain-water. They must be taking
advantage of the rainy season, and travelling hither in search of food.
We saw a very large heron, or crane, an immense creature, and Andersson
shot him. The guides sauntered about two miles behind the waggons, and
the Damaras were become very slack and careless: one of them, Kahoni,
was impertinent, and refused to answer me, or to do what he was told, so
I had him down on the ground very quickly; but this time I did not whip
him, because he became penitent and communicative.
We came to a halt at a vley, where the water-course led northerly, and
the thickest of thorn-bushes penned us in elsewhere. The guides wanted us
to go due south, and strike upon the Omaramba river-bed. It was on the
upper part of this river-bed that Omagundè’s son lay; but the point where
we now should strike it would be far out of his reach. This Omoramba ran
into or out of Omanbondè,—I had never been able to make out which—and
there never was a want of well-water along it. We held a council on our
plans; but the thorns were so thick to the southward, and the distance
we had to go so uncertain,—it might be one day, it might be five,—that
I abandoned the idea of attempting it. I thought the water-course we
were on must be a tributary of the Omoramba, and determined to follow
it, especially as its direction was straight towards our point. We
were losing sight of all landmarks; nothing was to be seen but a wide
undulating plain, black with dense thorn-bushes; to the west was Ja
Kabaca, and by its side commenced the long range of Omuvereoom, high and
escarped at first, but fining down by slow degrees towards the level
of the plain. As we continued _en route_ next day, the water-course
still befriended us: its bed was never sand, but hard ground, covered
with sward, and here and there holding a pool of rain-water; and the
thick bushes were crowded on either side. It seemed as though we were
travelling along “a ride,” cut through a thick cover. We now, for the
first time, came upon elephant spoors,—huge things, indeed. There were
about twenty tracks made where the ground was soft; but it now was
hardened, and the waggon jolted heavily over them.
_April 2nd._—We came upon ox-tracks, and other indications of a Damara
werft, and following a path, came upon it. The men dispersed in great
consternation, but we caught some women, who were too heavily laden
with anklets to run fast, and pacified them with tobacco. In a short
time the men came back, and we were soon excellent friends. A fine tall
Damara, about six feet seven inches in height, offered, in the course of
conversation, to guide us to Omanbondè. He said that we should arrive
there in three days. We still were perfectly unable to understand how
large the water was, as no two people said the same thing.
_April 3rd._—Six hours took us to another werft. After the first two
hours we left our old friend, the Vley River, as we called it; and the
bushes being more open, and fewer thorn-trees among them, we followed
our guide across country. The captain of this werft was a very shrewd
fellow, and a jolly, humorous sort of man. He was convinced that we were
Hottentot spies; but for all that, we became great friends. At about
the point where we now were Omuvereoom was identified with the plain.
There were no thorns at all about here, but the country was covered with
high green-leaved bushes; the wood was very brittle, so that the waggon
crashed through trees whose stem was as thick as a man’s thigh, and we
had not to use the axes. Indeed, we have very seldom had occasion to
employ them, considering the country that we have pushed through. The
captain told us all sorts of tales about the Ovampo and their king,
Nangoro. He had visited them two or three times. Nangoro, he said, was
the fattest man in the world, and larger than either of my waggons. His
size has made a great impression upon the sparely-built Damaras, for
whenever I talk about him they allude to it. Every man I have talked to
about the Ovampo speaks well of them.
_April 4th._—We started in company with our tall guide, travelling three
and a half hours—slept without water. The next day we were to reach
our goal. Infinite were the conjectures on the size and appearance of
Omanbondè. We had looked over my mackintosh boat to see that it was in
good order, and agreed to settle on its banks and have a fortnight or
three weeks pleasant shooting in return for all the trouble and annoyance
that we had undergone. We tried not to expect very much of a lake for
fear of disappointment, but agreed that it could not be less than fifteen
miles by eight. Five hours’ travelling over undulating ground brought
us on the brow of a hill, below which lay a broad grassy river-bed 500
yards across—this was the Omoramba; up it was a projecting rock, and
round that Omanbondè. On a hill-top in front was a cluster of camelthorn
trees, (Omanbondè means camelthorn trees,) and below that the lake was
said to lie. Forwards we went with our nerves strung to the highest pitch
of excitement; we rattled the waggon on as fast as we could walk, turned
the corner, but another provoking reach of the river-bed was before us.
Then we plunged through a field of dry reeds, and were walking on, when
the guide loitered behind and seemed to be looking about for something.
The truth slowly dawned upon our minds that we were _then_ in Omanbondè,
and that the guide was actually looking for the water. It was really too
ridiculous that our magnificent lake should be reduced to this. However
there proved to be perfect truth in the story of the hippopotami. The
fact is, that a country like Damara-land is as different after a heavy
rainy season to what it is after a dry one, as the sea-beach is at
different times of the tide. Our ill-luck was that we travelled in one
of the driest years known; and Omanbondè, which is a reach of the broad
Omoramba, of some nine miles long, bears every mark of having been full
of water. The course of the Omoramba, as I found out long afterwards,
is towards the great river of the Mationa country, and up it during the
rainy season hippopotami travel; many have been killed at Omanbondè;
one a few years back actually travelled up to Okaroschekè, and thence
his spoor led into the Swakop, that is not more than a couple of miles
apart from it. He died in the Swakop, and his carcase was washed down and
eaten by the Ghou Damup at Tsobis. Many Hottentots who were familiar
with hippopotami, from having been born on the Orange River, which used
to abound with them, saw fragments of the animal; Jonker told me the
story and I have no reason to disbelieve it, but from the appearance
of Damara-land during the dry season, one would as soon expect a
hippopotamus to have travelled across the great Sahara as from Omanbondè
to Tsobis. There is not a drop of water, except in wells, (which the
beast could not get at,) between Omanbondè and the little fountain two
hours from Schmelen’s Hope. We encamped by the side of Omanbondè near
some wells of excellent water, to which hundreds of desert partridges
flew every night. My men had had enough of travelling, and wanted to
return; however I had my own way with them. I made them what presents I
could. Their shirts were torn to rags, and I served out all the calico
which I had taken as an article of exchange to make them new ones. I gave
an assegai to each of my Damaras, and did my best to put the men into
good humour, and then made ready to go on to the Ovampo.