128   MEMORIES OF MY LIFE

which a new way through grassy country might be

found leading through Walfish Bay to the interior, and at the same time south of the territory claimed and practically barred by the Portuguese. Sir Harry Smith desired to use every opportunity of disavowing the complicity of the Cape Government with the attacks of the Boers on the natives, and he requested me to use such occasions as I might have, of doing so. He caused a document to be drawn up to express this and to serve as my credentials. It was written in English, Dutch, and Portuguese, with a huge seal appended to it, protected by a tin case.

The story of my journey has been so fully told in print that I shall go but little into the details of it here. Moreover, the country has of late been so traded through and fought over, and in large part occupied by the Germans, that it has, I presume, become mapped with considerable exactness.

It will be seen by my sketch map that the country I travelled over proved to be inhabited by three principal and widely different races, occupying three roughly parallel belts of country running from west to east. The southernmost were the Namaquas. They were yellow Hottentots, with hair growing in tufts on their heads, and speaking a language full of clicks. They had a strain of Dutch blood, and most of them spoke a little of the Dutch language. Their race reaches down through more and more civilised tribes to the Cape Colony. Captain, afterwards Sir

James Alexander (1803-1885), had travelled right

I Narrative of an Explorer in Tropical South- 11,est Africa. By F. Galton (hurray), 2nd edition, Ward, Locke, & Co., Minerva Press, 1889. Lake N'ganii; Explorations in South-Guest Africa. By Ch. Andersson (Longman), 1856. Also papers by both in the journal of the Royal Geographical Society.