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First Edition of 1853
London, John Murray
PDF Facsimile (~25 Mb)
by
http://galton.org
With all the colour plates and maps. This is the definitive
first edition, and the best to read.
Also available in the full-text German
translation as Bericht Eine
Forschers in Tropischen Sudafrika. This version did not have
the colour plates.
Second edition of 1889
Minerva Library of Famous Books
For the second edition the type was reset, with some errors creeping
in, and the colour plates and map were discarded for inferior versions.
Some material was discarded and new material was also appended by Galton
to cover some subsequent events in the region.
PDF
Facsimile (~11Mb) by
http://galton.org
[Browse
page images]
This is Galton's account of his expedition in the early
1850s to then relatively uncharted South-West Africa, which won him a Gold
Medal from the Royal Geographical Society and launched his scientific
career. It remains extremely interesting today, written in a fresh and
engaging style, with keen observation of the peoples he encountered, and
some
fine humour.
Galton financed the expedition himself, and no members of his
party came to any harm in its course of two years. Originally he had
intended to reach Lake Ngami (recently discovered in Bechuanaland by
Livingstone) from the Cape, but reports of hostile Boer settlers forced him to
change his plans; instead he landed at Walfisch (Walvis) Bay and journeyed through
the interior of what later became South-West Africa, and then Namibia, to Ovamboland
and back.
This was Galton's first major work, aside from his pamphlet on the
Telotype, and was widely-read and respected for its accuracy. It went
through several printings and two editions. The second edition was
issued in 1889 as part of the Minerva Library of
Famous Books, with a new appendix covering more recent knowledge of the
territory. This is the edition provided here. (This refers to itself
as the "Fourth Edition" but it is taking the liberty of referring to
reprints as editions).
Preface
THE following pages contain the description of a part of
Africa hitherto unknown to Europeans, but which has recently been
travelled over and explored 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 are careful
agriculturists, and live in a land of great fertility. On his return
southwards a quick journey was made into the interior, near the line of the
southern tropic, until a road, which had recently been travelled from the
borders of the Cape Colony to Lake 'Ngami, was reached, and in this way a
practicable route between the Lake and the Atlantic was proved to exist. Few
new objects of natural history were either collected or heard of, as the
tract in question was for the most part a high barren plateau, that
supported but little variety of either animal or vegetable life. The journey
may perhaps produce a useful result, by indicating a very favourable opening
to rnissionary enterprise, namely, among the Ovampo. The writer has no wish
to commit himself to extreme views either on this or on kindred subjects,
but, if philanthropists continue anxious to promote African civilisation,
the remarkable
advantages of Ovampoland, as a leverage ground in these matters, should not
be lost sight of. The healthiness of the climate, the position of the
country, the intelligence and orderly habits of the natives, their
travelling and trading propensities, and, lastly, the ready access which it
admits of from a healthy sea coast, form most cogent recommendation. In
addition to these, though bordering on slave producing countries, Ovampoland
is itself exempt from the scourge, and there would be one prejudice the less
for Christian teachings to encounter.
A traveller
who, starting with the same views that the Author did, chose to start from
Little Fish Bay, or elsewhere, in Benguela, and explore to the eastwards and
southwards, would be likely to make a very successful journey. He would find
shooting in abundance, and have opportunities of learning everything about
as highly interesting a race of negroes as is probably to be found in the
whole of Africa. The Author's fate certainly led him over a great deal of
barren country, and many monotonous days were passed ; still lie cannot
regret that he undertook the journey, for, besides the enjoyment of robust
health in Africa, habits of self reliance in rude emergencies were acquired,
which are well worth possessing, though an English education hardly tends to
promote them.
A question is
commonly put to explorers, "Why could you not go further when you had
already succeeded in going so far?" and the answer to this is, that several
independent circumstances concur in stopping a man after he has been
travelling for a certain time and distance. He must refit, for his cattle
become worn out; his articles of exchange, which are his money, expended;
and, indeed, the medium of currency among the people he at last reaches
being unknown to him, has of course been unprovided for. His clothes,
necessaries, luxuries, all become exhausted, and the capital out of which he
has to support himself fast disappears. On the other hand, infinite
difficulty is found in acquiring the confidence of a strange nation ; a new
language has to be learnt; native servants refuse, and are unfitted to
accompany their master in countries strange and probably hostile to them,
and whom months of joint labours had educated into a kind of sympathy with
his cause; and so, when an explorer intends to cross the frontier of a
neighbouring tribe, he finds that all his old travelling arrangements are
more or less broken up, and that the further progress of the expedition will
require nearly as many preparations and as much delay as if it were then
about quitting the borders of civilisation.
But his energies
are reduced, and his means become inadequate to the task, and therefore no
alternative is left him but to return while it is still possible for him to
do so. It is therefore not to be expected that any large part of the vast
unexplored region before us will yield its secrets to a single traveller,
but, rather, that they will become known step by step through various
successive discoveries; and as the experience of nearly a century
corroborates these views, it is probable that for years to come there will
still remain ample room in Africa for men inclined for adventure to carry
out in them, if nowhere else, the metier of explorers.
8, St James's Place
April 27th, 1853
FRANCIS GALTON.

News of the World, London,
Feb. 2, 1851
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Camp in Ovamboland

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A rock in South-West Africa where Galton marked his name.
Taken in the early 1900s.
 Galton's name is clearly visible.

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