230 A FIELD FOR MISSIONAEIES. [chap. vm. 



to Portuguese authorities) from Benguela, that there 

 must be excellent shooting somewhere in the country. 

 I will guarantee the healthiness of the lands to the 

 south of the river ; and the Portuguese declare the same 

 of those to the north.* I also earnestly recommend this 

 land to the notice of all who are interested in mis- 

 sionary enterprise. The Ovampo have infinitely more 

 claims on a white man's sympathy than savages like 

 the Damaras, for they have a high notion of morality 

 in many points, and seem to be a very inquiring race. 

 It would be an easy country to secure a footing in, as 

 the king's good-will has alone to be gained, and not 

 that of numbers of independent captains, who never 

 settle by the missionaries, but come suddenly with 



* Translation from Jos^ Joaquim Lopez de Lima's work on the 

 Portuguese Settlements in Western Africa. 1846. (Page 196.) 



" To the southward of the river Longa is the fertile province of 

 Benguela, where, instead of sandy plains, rich meadows watered by 

 mountain-streams display themselves before the eye, covered with 

 cattle and sheep, the principal riches of its pastoral inhabitants. The 

 soil produces all the grains and fruits of Africa, America, and Europe, 

 while from amid these favoured plains arise the magnificent mountains 

 Of the Naunos, whose lofty heads are lost in the clouds. From these 

 mountains rush down fertilising streams ; in their bowels are found 

 iron, copper, sulphur, and other valuable productions, and the forests 

 afford protection to herds of elephants, to rhinoceroses, stags, and a 

 thousand different descriptions of vrild animals, whose spoils constitute 

 a principal portion of the gains of the merchants of Benguela and 

 Mosammedes. This fertility extends over the cultivated plains of 

 Bihe, Quilengues, Bumbo, Huila, Eojau, Caconda, Galengue, and 

 Sambos, being bounded by the country of the Mocoands, which 

 separates the Portuguese possessions from the illimitable deserts of 

 sand which form the ne plus ultra of our dominion." 



N.B. I protest not only against the " ilUmitable deserts of sand," but 

 also against the southern portion of the map which accompanies the 

 book, in which a magnificent but apocryphal river is made to meander 

 through them, and over the veiy ground which I have crossed and 

 recrossed. — F. G. 



