SOUTH-WEST AFRICA 127 



keeping the newly discovered lands about Lake 

 Ngami to themselves and of refusing passage through 

 their territory to every Englishman. Sir Harry 

 Smith said it would be useless for me to attempt to 

 go as I had proposed. After a tedious journey of 

 more than two months by ox wagon, I should meet 

 with Boers who would politely but firmly tell me 

 that I must go no farther. If I attempted to force 

 a way, they would shoot me, and he would be 

 powerless to prevent them. 



I had made many friends in Cape Town, and 

 numerous suggestions were offered as to other ways 

 of reaching the district of Lake Ngami. The one 

 I adopted had many arguments in its favour. A 

 cattle-dealer then in Cape Town had made occasional 

 ventures to Walfish Bay. The coast around it was 

 desert, but the Namaqua Hottentots drove cattle 

 there for sale, which would otherwise have been 

 sent overland to the Cape by what is practically a 

 four months' journey. The country between Walfish 

 Bay and the Namaquas could be traversed by wagons. 

 There were mission stations in Namaqualand, whose 

 headquarters were in Cape Town. Nay more, a 

 new missionary was waiting for an opportunity to 

 go there, and if I took him with the other things 

 now waiting to be sent, I should be helpful to the 

 missionaries, and they would doubtless be all the 

 more inclined to help me. Again, to the north of 

 the yellow Namaquas were the black Damaras, the 

 interior of whose land was as yet quite unknown, 

 though two or three mission stations had been 

 established along its southern border. 



Here, then, was a land ready to be explored, by 



