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ec6   APPENDIX.

amount, when we consider the immense extent of country placed under contribution.

Those actively engaged in this trade, believe that it is not capable of any material extension, and I am inclined to this opinion ; for although a mote settled government will afford increased protection, and enable the trader, with less risk, to carry his wares to remoter tribes, this will but balance the falling off of the trade nearer home, caused by the destruction of the animals on the existence of which it mainly depends. But it is not on any increase in the supply of ivory and ostrich feathers that the future welfare of the country depends so much as on the peaceful occupation of its almost uninhabited parts, by an industrious population content to look to their flocks and herds for a livelihood, and the effect of the example of such a population on the neighbouring natives.

" The Damaras will, some day, make most excellent flock masters, for although their position and circumstances have not been favourable to their earning a reputation for industry, as herders of sheep and cattle they are unrivalled, and I have often been an astonished witness to the great care and trouble taken by them in the rearing of these.

Their long intercourse with white people has developed singularly few wants amongst them, so that the export trade of the country is but little affected by the majority. A universal desire to possess fire-arms and ammunition, which once existed, has been sc fully gratified, that this trade may be said to have ceased, and the dealers, with large stocks on hand, now loo'_ for markets with the Ovambo, and the people about Lake 'NTgami. At page 22 of this report I have already called attention to the extent to which the Damaras are armed, and the enormous number of fire-arms in the country awaiting sale. Two or three years must elapse before purchasers are likely to be found for them all.

"The demand for clothing increases with each year, and at least one fourth of the Damara males may be said to have adopted civilized dress. Of the women only those, as a rule, who are members of the Mission congregations are as far advanced in this respect as the men, but with both sexes the missionaries make the ,,'option of European clothing a condition of church membership.'

" Bullock waggons and horses, are freely bartered for cattle,

yhich change hands again for ostrich fPstbers and ivory.