CHAP. VIr.]

YEARLY TRAFFIC.   121

by passing through so many hands, had acquired several circumstantial details, quite enough to make it worth inquiring into; so I, not knowing the origin of the tale, had Chik up in judgment before me, and taxed him with what I had heard. He protested his innocence; and then I said that to clear himself he must investigate the report, which he did in a most masterly manner; and traced the whole affair down to the unhappy Kambanya, who had fabricated the story to dissuade me from going, and from taking him to Ovampoland, so Kambanya was whipped, and my friendship with Chik cemented all the stronger.

May 23rd.-We rode on six hours, to the second place of rendezvous, Ootui, and there found all the Ovampo at their encampment, and parties of Damaras under every bush; and as we travelled on next day, I counted in our caravan eighty-six Damara women, nearly half of whom had yelling babies on their backs, and ten Damara men. Our party consisted of fourteen, and the Ovampo of twenty-four ; making about one hundred and seventy souls in all; two hundred and six head of horned cattle were driven along, independently of my own, and were the result of Ovampo barter; and of these three-fourths were cows or heifers.

The eighty-six women went on various speculations,-some to get work in Ovampoland, some to try and get husbands, others merely to sell their ostrich-shell corsets. Chik thought the caravan a little above the average; therefore, as there are altogether four caravans, we may consider eight hundred oxen as the annual export of Damaraland to the north ; in exchange for which at least half of the Damaras are kept supplied with weapons and ornaments, the other half deriving theirs from the Namaquas and the Missionaries to the south. The Damaras have no communication whatever with any other country, a broad land dividing them from the natives to the east, and the sandy tract by the sea-shore bounding them to the west.

.li ay 24th.-Arrived at Otchikango, the baboon fountain, passing a very curious circular hole in the middle of a chalky patch of ground ; it was exactly like a bucket, ninety feet across, and thirty feet deep: its name was Orujo: the sides were perpendicular, the bottom flat; and in the middle was a small well, down to which a person could easily scramble. All the ground about is limestone ; and wherever there is a bare patch of it, numbers of circular holes, like miniature Orujos, are to be seen : generally they are about the size that would just admit a round lucifer-box; some a few sizes larger; several about