236 Life and Letters of Francis Gallon 



Blacks, from the Portuguese country, were at Mondonga, when I was there, but I could 

 not send letters by them. The people are very superstitious and would have nothing to 

 do with written things. I have of course heard nothing from home since I left England. 

 I need not say with what anxiety I look forward to the arrival of the missionary ship 

 which will bring my post from Cape Town. I have of course picked up much about the 

 country, which will be of great interest to the people, wlio care about tiiese things. 

 A posse of missionaries are going to follow my road. The Ovampo are a charming set 

 of niggers, but almost all the other nations I have heard of, are brutal and barbarous to 

 an almost incredible degree. The Ovahei'eros, a very extended nation, attacked a village 

 tlie other day for fun, and after killing all the men and women, they tied the children's 

 legs together by the ankles, and strung them head downwards on a long pole, which they 

 set horizontally between two trees; then they got plenty of reeds together and put them 

 underneath and lighted them ; and as the ciiildren were dying, poor wretches, half 

 burnt, half suffocated, they danced and sung round them, and made a fine joke of it. 

 Andersson desires to be particularly remembered to all. With my best love to all the 

 family, relations and friends collectively and individually. Ever affectly. yours, 



Frank Galton. 



Ondonga is Lat. 17° 57', Long. 16° 44' (my farthest point). 



The waggons broke down Lat. 19° 30', Long. 18° 20' — the furthest part seen by 

 Europeans before is Lat. 22°, Long. 15° 50'. Ondonga is the corn country of Ovampo 

 land ; the lat. and long, given above, are of Nangoro's place, the capital. 



P.S. On further consideration I shall be almost sure to sail for St Helena in 

 December or January. 



Walfisch Bay. 9,th Deer., 1851. Reed. 2.1th March, 1852. 

 Dearest Mother, 1 have just returned from my travels to the Sea Coast, and have 

 now to wait there until the vessel comes to fetch me and bring ray letters, ifec. This 

 note I send by a ship now in the Bay and I wish mucli that I could go with her but 

 I have to look after my men and I had ordered all my money to be transferred from the 

 Cape to St Helena, but whether the letter has been received or not I cannot tell — so 

 I must wait here a little longer, it may be a day, or it may be two months. I have 

 made a pleasant journey this time and pushed on very far and to my satisfaction reached 

 the tracks of people who had gone on to the great Lake. This year has been unusually 

 dry, the driest that is known and so all along we have had great difficulty with water. 

 Now as I went this time it was six months since any rain whatever had fallen, the 

 cattle were dying of thirst, even at the regular watering places, so that you can fancy 

 it was not easy to get on in travelling. However I came very well to the furthest point 

 that the Hottentots hereabouts had ever reached to the Eastward, and there I heard 

 a great many stories about the great waters a little further on (some ten days) from the 

 Bushmen. There was a broad plain 63 miles across, with no water now, which made 

 the next stage ; so I got Bushmen guides and started. These distances which are 

 nothing to a camel take a great deal out of an already tired ox ; I had only 7 ride and 

 pack oxen witli me, two of them died on the road and a third was crippled he is since 

 dead. However we got there all right and magnificent shooting there was. All the 

 Bushmen and beasts of the country were collected there and any number almost of the 



