8 ROUTE BY WALFISCH BAY. [chap. i. 



interior, and there were Missionary establishments 

 ah-eady formed from near the coast to many days' 

 journey inwards. I was referred to a person who had 

 carried on for some years a cattle trade between 

 Walfisch Bay and the countries near it and the Cape. 

 He had built a store at the Bay, and had had a vessel 

 of his own there ; sometimes he sent the cattle by her 

 to St. Helena, sometimes he sold them to the whalers 

 and guano shij)s which then were numerous, and often 

 put in to him for provisions, and lastly he had driven 

 large herds of them overland to the Cape — by a road to 

 the west of that Kanikarri desert, of which I spoke a 

 few lines back, and to the east of which the Boers and 

 Bechuanas reside. All about this line of country the 

 Namaqua Hottentots live, and up it some fifteen or 

 twenty years ago Sir James Alexander was the first to 

 explore a waggon road. My informant, the cattle 

 trader, had himself seen nothing but arid worthless 

 country, but he strongly stated his behef in the fertility 

 of Damara land, into which no white man had ever 

 penetrated, but on the borders of which the Missionary 

 stations are placed. 



I then went to the agents and friends of the Mis- 

 sionary Societies to which those stations belonged, and 

 the trader's accoxmt was very fully confii-med by them. 

 I was informed that the Damaras were considered by 

 the Missionaries as a most interesting nation, and one 

 well worthy of exploring, and that an expedition had 

 long been contemplated by them to go through Damara 

 land, to see what field might lie open for their labours 

 beyond it. I was very kindly assui'ed of every 



