128 MEMORIES OF MY LIFE 



which a new way through grassy country might be 

 found leading through Walfish Bay to the interior, 

 and at the same time south of the territory claimed 

 and practically barred by the Portuguese. Sir Harry 

 Smith desired to use every opportunity of disavowing 

 the complicity of the Cape Government with the 

 attacks of the Boers on the natives, and he requested 

 me to use such occasions as I might have, of doing- 

 so. He caused a document to be drawn up to express 

 this and to serve as my credentials. It was written 

 in English, Dutch, and Portuguese, with a huge seal 

 appended to it, protected by a tin case. 



The story of my journey has been so fully told * 

 in print that I shall go but little into the details of it 

 here. Moreover, the country has of late been so 

 traded through and fought over, and in large part 

 occupied by the Germans, that it has, I presume, 

 become mapped with considerable exactness. 



It will be seen by my sketch map that the country 

 I travelled over proved to be inhabited by three 

 principal and widely different races, occupying three 

 roughly parallel belts of country running from west 

 to east. The southernmost were the Namaquas. 

 They were yellow Hottentots, with hair growing in 

 tufts on their heads, and speaking a language full of 

 clicks. They had a strain of Dutch blood, and most 

 of them spoke a little of the Dutch language. Their 

 race reaches down through more and more civilised 

 tribes to the Cape Colony. Captain, afterwards Sir 

 James Alexander (i 803-1 885), had travelled right 



1 Narrative of an Explorer in Tropical South-West Africa. By F. Galton 

 (Murray), 2nd edition, Ward, Locke, & Co., Minerva Press, 1889. Lake N 'garni ; 

 Explorations in South-West Africa. By Ch. Andersson (Longman), 1856. Also 

 papers by both in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society. 



