200 APPENDIX.
either from the west or east,-and I have been within a couple of days' journey of it,-is situated in about lat. 2z°, and long. r9°. The travellers did not go round it, they merely saw it at its eastern extremity ; but water appeared as far as the eye could reach all round, and they estimated its circumference at from twenty-five to thirty English miles. Mr. Galton and myself, in the year 1850, actually passed within one day's march of this superb inland sea without-such is the difficulty of obtaining information from the natives-having the slightest suspicion of its existence.
Again, 15. 113." It was now close upon eight years and a half since I first visited Omanbonde. On my first visit to this place, in company with Mr. Galton, Omanbonde was, as I have already mentioned, nothing more than a large dried-up vley; and this being again a year of severe drought,-at least to judge from the state of the Omuramba,-I had expected to see it in a similar condition. Most agreeably was I then surprised to find a sheet of water four and a half miles in extent, abounding with water-fowl, and largely resorted to by a great variety of game and wild animals, such as elephants, rhinoceroses, elands, koodoos, gemsbucks, zebras, pallahs, lions, etc. There were no hippopotami, however, though plenty of 'sea-room ' for a dozen or two. Besides this vley, I discovered another in the immediate neighbourhood, almost rivalling Omanbonde in size ; several Bushmen villages besprinkled its borders or banks, which were very high, but sloping, not steep, and richly covered with a luxuriant vegetation, consisting chiefly of very fine groves of acacias, and the giraffe thorn-tree, just bursting forth into spring life. In the background, and to the northward, were the broken and picturesque limestone ranges of Otjirokaku, Otjomokojo, etc. Altogether the scene, very pleasing, was rendered perhaps more so by the contrast it afforded to the dry and parched state of the country immediately surrounding it. To me it was a real oasis in the desert."
Again, ~. 139.-" The Damara caravan, alluded to in the last chapter, returned suddenly and unexpectedly to Omanbonde. To my surprise, I learnt that they had not succeeded in getting further than to the neighbourhood of Etosha. Here they had encountered one of the Ovampo outposts, the occupants of which had peremptorily forbidden them to proceed further. To remove this unforeseen hindrance, messages were despatched to the paramount
