DAMARAS, OVAMPO, AND NAMAQUAS 143 



Nangoro was supreme. I could not enter the country, 

 trade in it, or leave it, except with his permission. 



The border-land between the Damaras and the 

 Ovampo seemed to be a natural frontier unsuitable 

 for occupation. We passed bleak plains and then 

 a wide belt of thorn-bushes, which after a day's 

 journey ceased suddenly and disclosed a broad stretch 

 of fields of maize, a strange and welcome sight. 

 After a day's march through these, we reached the 

 place where Nangoro lived. 



I did much to make myself agreeable, investing 

 Nanoforo with a big theatrical crown that I had bought 

 in Drury Lane for some such purpose. But I have 

 reason to believe that I deeply wounded his pride 

 by the non-acceptance of his niece as, I presume, 

 a temporary wife. I found her installed in my tent 

 in negress finery, raddled with red ochre and butter, 

 and as capable of leaving a mark on anything 

 she touched as a well-inked printer's roller. I was 

 dressed in my one well-preserved suit of white linen, 

 so I had her ejected with scant ceremony. The 

 Damaras are very hospitable in this way, and con- 

 sider the missionaries to be actuated by pride in 

 not reciprocating. 



We were treated with strict courtesy, but, except 

 at the very first, without friendliness ; a sense of 

 growing constraint was everywhere, and there were 

 ugly signs of an intention to allow our oxen to die 

 of hunger, and then to make an easy end of us after- 

 wards. The Ovampo carry on a trade with the 

 Portuguese half-castes to the north, and knew and 

 despised the guns used by them ; but ours were shown, 

 by their bullet marks after firing at a distant tree, to 



