PREFACE. 



The following pages contain the description of a 

 part of Africa hitherto unknown to Europeans, but 

 which has recently been travelled over and exploited 

 by the Author. His journey was a tedious and a 

 very anxious one, but happily brought to a close 

 without loss of life or serious accident to any 

 member of his large party, which altogether amounted 

 to nearly forty men. 



The result of this excursion has been to fill up 

 that blank in our maps which, lying between the 

 Cape Colony and the western Portuguese settlements, 

 extends to the interior as far as the newly discovered 

 Lake 'Ngami. 



The country of the Damaras — warlike, pastoral 

 Blacks — was in the first instance explored ; beyond 

 them he found a broad tract, inhabited by aboriginal 

 Hottentots ; and, again, to the north of these, the 

 Ovampo, a race of intelligent and kindly negroes, who 



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