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236 .   Life and Letters of Francis Galton


Blacks, from the Portuguese country, were at Mondonga, when I was there, but I could not send letters by them. The people are very superstitious and would have nothing to do with written things. I have of course heard nothing from home since I left England. I need not say with what anxiety I look forward to the arrival of the missionary ship which will bring my post from Cape Town. I have of course picked up much about the country, which will be of great interest to the people, who care about these things. A posse of missionaries are going to follow my road. The Ovampo are a charming set of niggers, but almost all the other nations I have heard of, are brutal and barbarous to an almost incredible degree. The Ovahereros, a very extended nation, attacked a village the other day for fun, and after killing all the men and women, they tied the children's legs together by the ankles, and strung them head downwards on a long pole, which they set horizontally between two trees; then they got plenty of reeds together and put them underneath and lighted them ; and as the children were dying, poor wretches, half burnt, half suffocated, they danced and sung round them, and made a fine joke of it. Andersson desires to be particularly remembered to all. With my best love to all the family, relations and friends collectively and individually. Ever affectly. yours,

FRANK GALTON.

Ondonga is fat. 17° 57', Long. 16° 44' (my farthest point).

The waggons broke down Lat. 19' 30', Long. 18° 20'-the furthest part seen by Europeans before is Lat. 22°, Long. 15° 50'. Ondonga is the corn country of Ovampo land ; the lat. and long. given above, are of Nangoro's place, the capital.

P.S. On further consideration I shall be almost sure to sail for St Helena in December or January.

WALFiscn BAY. 8th Decr., 1851. Reed. 27th March, 1852.

DEAREST MOTHER, I have just returned from my travels to the Sea Coast, and have now to wait there until the vessel comes to fetch me and bring my letters, &c. This note I send by a ship now in the Bay and I wish much that I could go with her but I have to look after my men and I had ordered all my money to be transferred from the Cape to St Helena, but whether the letter has been received or not I cannot tell-so I must wait here a little longer, it may be a day, or it may be two months. I have made a pleasant journey this time and pushed on very far and to my satisfaction reached the tracks of people who had gone on to the great Lake. This year has been unusually dry, the driest that is known and so all along we have had great difficulty with water. Now as I went this time it was six months since any rain whatever had fallen, the cattle were dying of thirst, even at the regular watering places, so that you can fancy it was not easy to get on in travelling. However I came very well to the furthest point that the Hottentots hereabouts had ever reached to the Eastward, and there I heard a great many stories about the great waters a little further on (some ten days) from the Bushmen. There was a broad plain 63 miles across, with no water now, which made the next stage; so I got Bushmen guides and started. These distances which" are nothing to a camel take a great deal out of an already tired ox; I had only 7 ride and pack oxen with me, two of them died on the road and a third was crippled he is since dead. However we got there all right and magnificent shooting there was. All the Bushmen and beasts of the country were collected there and any number almost of the


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