DAMARAS, OVAMPO, AND NAMAQUAS 143

Nangoro was supreme. I could not enter the country, trade in it, or leave it, except with his permission.

The border-land between the Damaras and the Ovampo seemed to be a natural frontier unsuitable for occupation. We passed bleak plains andd then

a wide Wit 4 dumi hiislic,,, which after a day's jounley cuwwd slldllcldy '111d IIk(-I()!;cd I broad streth

of fields of maize, a strange and, welcome sigbt. After a day's march through these, we reached the place where Nangoro lived.

I did much to, make myself agreeable, investing Nangoro with a big theatrical crown that I had bought in Drury Lane for some such purpose. But I have reason to believe that I deeply wounded his pride by the non-acceptance of his niece as, I presume, a temporary wife. I found her installed in my tent in negress finery, raddled with red ochre and butter, and as capable of leaving a mark on anything she touched as a well-inked printer's roller. I was dressed in my one well-preserved suit of white linen, so I had her ejected with scant ceremony. The Damaras are very hospitable in this way, and consider the missionaries to be actuated by pride in not reciprocating.

We were treated with strict courtesy, but, except at the very first, without friendliness; a sense of growing constraint was everywhere, and there were ugly signs of an intention to allow our oxen to die of hunger, and then to make an easy end of us afterwards. The Ovampo carry on a trade with the Portuguese half-castes to the north, and knew and despised the guns used by them ; but ours were shown, by their bullet marks after firing at a distant tree, to