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192   LEAVE AFRICA.   [CHAP. X.

back, and even mutinied, and over whom I had none other than a moral control. I had to break in the very cattle that were to carry me, and to drill into my service a worthless set of natives, speaking an unknown tongue. The country was suffering from all the atrocities of savage war when I arrived, and this state of things I had to put an end to before I could proceed. All this being accomplished, I found myself without any food to depend upon, except the oxen that I drove with me, which might, on any evening, decamp or be swept off in a night attack by the thieving and murderous Damaras. That all this was gone through successfully, I am in the highest degree indebted both to Andersson and to Hans, for single-handed, I hardly know what I should have done.

On the 16th of January I said my last adieu, and in company with Timboo, John Williams, and John Morta, sailed away to St. Helena. The rest remained in the country. Hans intended to make a venture in cattle and ivory, and Andersson to investigate the natural history of the lake district. Of the natural history of Damaraland he had made a complete collection, but the barrenness of the country admitted of no great scope to the naturalist. The flowers were very few and wretchedlooking. I really only know one that would look presentable in an English garden. What few seeds I brought from Ovampoland, are now planted in the gardens at Kew. My Ovampo fowls survived a stormy passage homewards, and laid eggs constantly, until they came to English latitudes, and then they all died ; and my faithful cur, Dinah, is the only living animal of the expedition, besides myself, that fate has as yet allowed to revisit Europe.