354 KLOOF AND KARROO. 



In a very short time, the outlook became blacker 

 than ever ; the Damaras after all could not be 

 appeased, the Ovampos were dangerously excited 

 and gathering force for an attack, and the Bushmen, 

 formerly half friends, were now bitter and exasperated 

 enemies. Upingtonia, the intended stronghold and 

 palladium of Dutch Afrikander freedom in South 

 Africa, was now represented by a handful of Boer 

 families — survivors of the long trek of 1876 — of 

 whom but eighteen were men capable of bearing 

 rifles. Gathering their possessions and flocks and 

 herds once more about them, this poor remnant 

 inspanned their oxen, and again taking to their 

 waggons, turned their faces for the Transvaal. 

 Some of them passed through Damaraland and 

 Namaqualand, and thence by the Orange River, 

 after long months of incessant hardship, found their 

 way back to their own land. Others took a different 

 course, and, after great sufferings, won their way 

 north of Lake N'Gami through the thirst-land, . 

 and thence across Bechuanaland back to Transvaal 

 territory. A small band of the original trek remained 

 behind at Humpata, near Mossamedes, in Portuguese 

 territory, where they yet linger. Such was the 

 miserable end of Upingtonia, a state founded too 

 much upon the usual model of Boer filibusters. The 

 Ovampo chief seems unquestionably to have been 

 tricked into a huge concession, for nothing at all 

 approaching an adequate consideration. A transac- 

 tion thus inaugurated in duplicity, as it seems to have 

 been, and terminated in bloodshed, could have only 

 one certain result. The Ovampos, always suspicious 

 of strangers, and disgusted with the dealings of the 

 white men, will in future only yield their territory to 

 force of arms, and will have no further intercourse if 



