342 



the shore. Now the arrival of a wagon is an event. Apart from 



the internal resources of the small white community composing 



the settlement there is little to lessen, the severity of their 



separation from the rest of the world. While the positions of 



the higher government officers entail a considerable degree of 



responsibility, their official occupations are only occasionally 



sufficiently engrossing and continuous to compensate for the 



monotony and isolation of their situation. One feels very 



strongly that if the degree of isolation of this rarely visited 



settlement were generally realised the practice of keeping men 



there for indefinite, and often prolonged periods would, as far 



as possible, be discontinued. A system of short-period services 



would as surely promote the efficiency of the administration as it 



would be conducive, in the great majority of cases, to the comfort 



of those officers and their families who are called upon to reside 

 there. 



The wagon-track from Walfish Bay to the interior lies, for the 

 first 3 or 4 miles, in the bed of the Khuiseb river which, like all 

 the South- West African rivers lying between the Cunene and the 

 Orange rivers, is, in normal seasons, dry in the lower part of its 

 course. The surface of the river-bed is indicated by a thin crust 

 of desiccated mud left by the last flow of water which occurred 

 in 1904. Above a point at present situated about 3 miles from the 

 coast the bed is blocked by sand-dunes between which are seen 

 here and there patches of dried mud from a square foot to one or 

 more square miles in area, still uncovered by the moving sand. 

 1 he sand-dunes within 3 or 4 miles of the sea, like the mud-flats, 

 are tor the most part without vegetation. Their average height is 

 probably about GO or 70 feet, but in some localities they can hardly 

 be ess than 200 feet high. In general they present a long gently 



nit. ? ' "PP 18 ,- 1 ?^** ^ope to the south-west, and a precipitous, 

 crescent-shaped front to the north-east. When the south-west 

 jmd is blowing-which usually occurs in the after part of the 



thl 7, J° nS T + , " tream 0f sand is blown »P the slope and over 

 hnr,vT S i r S ™J the dune steadiI y Progresses, and the 

 ,rH InoZ ? 7 if and ^agon-tracks are unmistakable signs of its 



SSTSfrt he J oal of the sand is the sea and da ^ after da ?' 



comZnl {, e t f Uth - west 7 ind S P rin ^ U P' streams of dry sand 

 th ?Z nlv Urtlm i[ ° Ver the wet beach "the quantity entering 

 SK n! *Ti 1T t the co ™ of th8 year must be enormous 



movements 



of thl IT • * made SOme Nervations on the movement* 

 toward, tia 68 in J orn " me ' that while in general they travel 

 directfon n0rth - east lhere a ™ local variations from this 



and 1 < ST^ er S! an « 7 e ^ etati0 » occurs on both the mud-flats 

 growth o f SS e . flatS h6re and there su PP° rfc a ^^unant 

 ^Sine v£^ • m08t 7 BUCCe8 f ful South AMc ™ colonist the 

 areata vZT 1 f^™' R * Grah " and the » a «^ Tamarix 

 dunes tlZt l the / atter 0CCU ™S :**> to some extent on the 

 into the SwlCf g \T Ca > ac ?P rdi ^ to Baines, was introduced 

 direct Tine W ? + I aUey at Haika ^chab, some 25 miles in a 



commonest 1 ° n^ ? b ° ut 1854 ' U is n ™ one of the 



theTas e anS W U^Tf ° CCU ™ g C ° n9tantly betWeeQ 



inanuk. i n the river-beds towards the coast in 



