SOUTIl-WKST I'KOTl'XTOKATE NATINIC roi'ULATiON. 45/ 



Ills discourageniciit. that luiglaiul had agreed to abandon them 

 to Germany: his people were massacred in 1893 at Hoornkrantz, 

 when he retired to the moimtains. Leiitwein arrived next year, 

 and contrived eie"ht agreements for surrender of land to German 

 ])rotection. The rinder])est broke the native i)owers in i8g6, as 

 elsewhere, and the following year the last Afrikaners of W]arm- 

 baths were shot, the Cape Government having given them up. 

 We did not, however, thus treat our Herero refugees mto Walvis 

 and elsewhere in 1904. 



In the century year VVitbooi helped against the Bastards of 

 Kietfonteiii. In 1903 the credit ordinances, ostensibly in the 

 native interest, by refusing to recognise native debt, brought 

 about sudden demands for payment by the European creditors 

 and seizure of cattle, which were the Cattle-Damara's life, and 

 one might say almost their gods. Indeed, it was the seizure of 

 the sacred cattle, which were the finest, being kept for the 

 a.'icestral spirits, which chiefly embittered the feeling and caused 

 the rebellion which was so terribly quelled. It is true that four 

 European women and one child stand among those commemo- 

 rated on the fine monument of the slain upon Windhuk Hill, but 

 von Trotlia, fresh from his quelling of the Boxer rising, planned 

 and largelv effected the extermination of a people. It has been 

 remarked that the missionaries seemed quite in the dark about 

 what was brewing, though they had, of course, to suffer the 

 reproach. " So much for your work amongst natives." Herr 

 Olpp certainly writes very strongly of von Trotha in his Kultur 

 Bedeutuiiy dcr Reinischcr Mission some years later, but none 

 of us, I fear, made much protest at the time, missions or govern- 

 ments. It was. of course, difficult for those on the spot to 

 protest, and for those away from the spot to discover the truth, 

 till later. 



The rebellion had become general, spreading to the Hotten- 

 tots, the Hereros' old enemies. Hendrik Witbooi was killed in 

 battle near Tses, and earned a reallv touching encomium from 

 Governor Leutwein. His men rallied round his cor|)se and 

 fought till it could be hastily buried. Jacob Marengo, his 

 successor, was shot by the Cape police at Rietfontein ; others fled 

 to the Kalahari. The Bastards of Rehoboth claimed not to be 

 used against Union troops in the present war. but in 1915 were 

 required to s^uard prisoners, which they considered a breach of 

 agreement. They were fired upon by the Germans, and suffered 

 severelv ; but at last welcomed their deliverers. As the Herero 

 are the tribe chiefly interesting to us, I conclude with a descrip- 

 tion of them I had from the pioneer settler mentioned above. 

 They lived on sour milk ( from September the weather was dry, 

 and so cattle were slaughtered), also on mealies brought in bv 

 the missionaries, and on pumpkins, formerly on calabash and 

 v.-ild roots, for example, onions. Guns were traded in for 

 feathers and ivory ; the Herero sat in a hut to shoot the ostriches, 

 A^•hich came for bitter melons ; the Kalahari sort is tasteless. 



