°ALTON'S EXPLORATION IN SOUTH AFRICA..

HERE we have a real book of travels, carrying the reader through a country hitherto unexplored by White men ; introducing him to new scenes, new incidents, and new people ; and opening up the prospect or at least the probability of being able to penetrate that hitherto mysterious and baffling region the interior of Africa. Besides these broader sources of novelty and interest, the narra- tive contains much of freshness from the originality of its action. Everything was tentative in Mr. Galton's exploration from the time he fairly began. His people, his cattle, his routes, had all in a measure to be extemporized on the spot; which imparts a Crusoelike interest to the account. The narrative, without being literal or devoid of liveliness, is very real. Even in the midst of scenes where novelty, imagination, and field-sports unite in tempting to colour, Mr. Galton seems exact and matter-of-fact. The Parisian contemporaries of Le Valliant ridiculed him for the • The Narrative of an Explorer in Tropical South Africa. By Francis Calton, Esq. With Coloured Maps, Plates, and Wood-cuts. Published by Murray.

mingled dignity and sentiment he threw into his interviews with savages or the king of beasts: my " first giraffe," or troops of lions and hippopotamuses have been recorded with empressement by English travellers in the same region. Mr. Galton's narrative of similar encounters is of a more sober and real-looking cast. If it were embodied in an affidavit the most cautious solicitor would hardly raise a doubt.

A love of sporting and adventure took Mr. Galton to the Cape in 1850 ; his intention being to sail for Algoa Bay, and proceed Northward from the Indian Ocean to the newly-discovered Lake Ngami. The disordered state of the country rendered this scheme impracticable. He then determined to sail for Waltiseh Bay, on the Atlantic, about three degrees of latitude North of the Orange River. A storehouse had been established in the Bay, though now abandoned; a few missionary stations were scattered along the interior, in a line from the Bay or South of it ; but nothing was known of the people or the country within the 22d degree of South latitude or the 17th degree of East longitude. Into this unknown wilderness Mr. Gallen threw himself ; travelling first towards the North through the Damara country, a barren table- land with scanty vegetation and little water after the rainy sea- son, till he reached Ondonga, a fertile and well-cultivated district, extending Northward from about 19 degrees of South latitude and lying between 15° and 17° or 18° of East longitude. The state of his oxen, the falling short of his supplies both in food and articles of barter, the polite and not unreasonable opposition of the natives, compelled his return to the missionary station at Barmen. Thence, by the assistance of some Hottentot chiefs, he made a journey Eastward with the view of reaching Lake Ngami in that direction ; but was stopped at the 21st degree of East longitude, (the lake beginning about the 23d,) by want of time and the character of the intervening country, which was then im- passable, owing to an unprecedented drought and to its being the end of the dry season.

From the Fish or indeed from the Orange River, till the Portu- guese settlement of Benguela is reached, the country, judged from the character of the coast, has been supposed a sandy desert. And such, in spite of Mr. Galton's disclaimer, seems pretty much the case. After the high land is attained the country is certainly neither utterly barren nor entirely without water ; but, although Mr. Galton generally travelled along the course of streams, he found them partially or wholly dry in the dry season. When, to avoid the territory of a dangerous chief, be forsook the route by the Omoramba river, and passed more directly Northwards to the Omanbonde lake, he suffered somewhat ; found the lake dry, and was told that his return by the same road was impossible, as all the water would be gone. It is in fact a continuation of South Africa ; a sandy soil, which would be fertile if it were watered, but which during the part of the year when the rains do not fall gets from bad to worse, except in a few favoured places where water is always met with. In point of vegetation, indeed, the Damara country seems worse off than the Cape, the bush being thinner and more stunted : the Damaras are savage and often half-starved. When, therefore, Mr. Galton came suddenly upon the land of Ondonga, teeming with corn and milk, and a population that seem- ed to know the meaning of " a bellyful," no wonder he was de- lighted with the contrast. And the scene he describes is a wonder for the interior of Africa.

"We slept without water. In the morning we had some delays with the oxen, but travelled from early daybreak, passing an empty well at eleven, and another a little later. We pushed through thick thorns the whole time, and had begun to disbelieve in Ondonga, when quite of a sudden the bushes ceased : we emerged out of them, and the charming corn-country of the Ovampo lay yellow and broad as a sea before us. Fine dense timber-trees, and innumerable palms of all sizes, were scattered over it: part was bare for pasturage, part was thickly covered with high corn-stubble ; palisadings, each of which enclosed a -homestead, were scattered everywhere over the country. The general appearance was that of most abundant fertility. It was a land of Goshen to us; and even my phlegmatic waggon-driver burst out into exclamations of delight. Old Netjo 's house was the nearest, and he therefore claimed the right of entertaining me the first, and to it we went. He had two or three wives, and a most wonderfully large family, to every member of which he presented us. Then he took Andersson and myself over the establishment, and showed us his neat granaries and threshing-floors, and his cocks and hens—the pigs, he regretted, had been sent out of the way; and lastly, Mrs. Netjo, No. 1, produced a dish of hot dough and a basin of sour milk, on which we set to work, burning our fingers as we pulled off large bits, which we dipped into the milk and swallowed. Then we went on to Chick's house; who encamped us under a magnificent tree, and took our cattle under his charge. He told use that we were still a long day's journey from Nangoro, and that the whole of our way there would lie through a corn-country like this. "The harvest was now over ; but the high stubble was still standing, and in it the oxen were allowed to feed. There was at this time hardly any other pasturage for them. The Ovampo have two kinds of corn ; one is the Egyptian doura, (or exactly like it,) a sort of hominy ; and the other is a corn that was new to me, but kindred, as I am told, to the Indian badjem' : its head is cylindrical, and full of small grey seeds, which, though not larger than those of millet, are so numerous that each head contains a vast deal of nutriment. Both kinds of corn grow to much the same height, about eight feet ; and in harvesting the reapers bend down the stalks and only cut off the heads. As we journeyed on the next day our surprise at the agri- cultural opulence of the country was in no way decreased. Chick told us a great deal about the tenure of the farms, and the way they dig them. Each farmer has to pay a certain proportion of the tobacco that he grows to Nan- gore (tobacco is the chief circulating medium in Ovampo Land) ; but the corn can be planted without any drawback upon it. The fields are hoed over before each sowing-season, and the corn planted. The manure from the cattle kraal is spread over the ground. They plant beans and peas, but adopt no systematic rotation of crops. The palms that grew here were of the same sort as those that I saw near Omanbonde ; but the fruit of these was excellent, exactly like those of the Egyptian doom, while that of the others was bitter."

Even this land, however, has the drawback of insufficiency of water ; and from the flat though undulating nature of the country, we should think it might be inconvenienced in the rainy season from too much, and possibly be found unwholesome. So far as Mr. Gal- ton's experience went, the region was healthy in a high degree. In spite of coming to privation and hard work from a life of ease and full feeding on shipboard,—although the thermometer soon after landing rose to 143 in the sun, and the ground was so heated that it was with pain and difficulty he walked upon it when he was once left with boots but not stockings, while on his return from Ondonga there was ice in the morning pretty constantly,—although condiments, stimulants, and bread, were dispensed with, and short commons often encountered, yet the expedition preserved its health. If a missionary station could be established in Ondonga, it might be an advantageous starting-point for further exploration, if the means and disposition existed. We are not so clear about an attempt from the Atlantic through Benguela, which Mr. Gal- ton suggests.

There are numerous pictures of savage life and character, in which a closer test is often applied than mere descriptions of ex- ternal features. The following conveys a good idea of Damara intelligence.

"We had to trust to the guides, whose ideas of time and distance were most provokingly indistinct : besides this, they have no comparative in their language, so that you cannot say to them, which is the longer of the two, the next stage or the last one ? ' but you must say, 'the last stage is little ; the

next, is it great ? ' The reply is not, it is a little longer,' much longer,' or 'very much longer' ; but simply, it is so,' or it is not so.' They have a very poor notion of time. If you say, Suppose we start at sunrise, where will the sun be when we arrive ? ' they make the wildest points in the sky, though they are something of astronomers, and give names to several stars. They have no way of distinguishing days, but reckon by the rainy season, the dry season, or the pig-nut season. When inquiries are made about how many days' journey off a place may be, their ignorance of all numerical ideas is very annoying. In practice, whatever they may possess in their language, they certainly use no numeral greater than three. When they wish to express four, they take to their fingers, which are to them as formid- able instruments of calculation as a sliding-rule is to an English schoolboy. They puzzle very much after five, because no spare hand remains to grasp and secure the fingers that are required for units.' Yet they seldom lose oxen : the way in which they discover the loss of one is not by the number of the herd being diminished, but by the absence of a face they know. When bartering is going on, each sheep must be paid for separately. Thus, suppose two sticks of tobacco [a stick is about an ounce] to be the rate of exchange for one sheep, it would sorely puzzle a Damara to take two sheep and give him four sticks. I have done so, and seen a man first put two of the sticks apart and take a sight over them at one of the sheep he was about to sell. Having satisfied himself that that one was honestly paid for, and finding to his surprise that exactly two sticks remained iu hand to settle the account for the other sheep, he would be afflicted with doubts : the transaction seemed to come out too 'pat' to be correct; and he would refer back to the first couple of sticks, and then his mind got hazy and confused, and wandered from one sheep to the other, and he broke off the transaction until two sticks were put into his hand and one sheep driven away, and then the other two sticks given him and the second sheep driven away. When a Damara's mind is bent upon number, it is too much occupied to dwell upon quantity : thus, a heifer is bought from a man for ten sticks of tobacco ; his large hands being both spread out upon the ground, and a stick placed on each finger ; he gathers up the tobacco ; the size of the mass pleases him, and the bargain is struck. You then want to buy a second heifer ; the same process is gone through, but half sticks instead of whole ones are put. upon his fingers ; the man is equally satisfied at the time, but occasionally finds it out and com- plains the next day. Once while I watched a Damara floundering hope- lessly in a calculation on one side of me, I observed Dinah, my spaniel, equally embarrassed on the other. She was overlooking half-a-dozen of her new- born puppies, which had been removed two or three times from her ; and her anxiety was excessive, as she tried to find out if they were all present, or if any were still missing. She kept puzzling and running her eyes over them backwards and forwards, but could not satisfy herself. She evidently had a vague notion of counting, but the figure was too large for her brain. Taking the two as they stood, dog and Damara, the comparison reflected no great honour on the man."

There are many sporting stories, but not so many as in some books on Southern Africa, because game was comparatively rare, either in the country, or for that season, or Mr. Galton had other objects to think about. The book, however, is not deficient in sketches of this kind, and they are given without extravagance either of manner or matter.

Hans, our traveller's servant, had a narrow escape from a lion ; though, probably, not more than African sportsmen, who cannot write books, go through daily, and think nothing of.

" My servant, Hans, had a very narrow escape some time since. He was riding old Frieschland, (the most useful ox I had, but now worn out by the Ondonga journey,) along the Swakop, when he saw something dusky by the side of a camelthorn-tree, two hundred yards off. This was a lion, that rose and walked towards him. Hans had his gun in his gun-bag by the side of his saddle, and rode on ; for there is no use in provoking hostilities single- handed with a lion, unless some object has to be gained by it, as every sports- man at last acknowledges. The coolest hand and the beat shot are never safe ; for a bullet, however well-aimed, isnot certain to put the animal hors de combat. After the lion had walked some twenty or thirty yards, Friesch- land, the ox, either saw or smelt him, and became furious. Hans had enough to do to keep his feat; for a powerful long-horned ox tossing his head about and plunging wildly is a most awkward hack for the beat of jockeys. The lion galloped up. He and Hans were side by side. The lion made his spring, and one heavy paw came on the nape of the ox's neck, and rolled him over ; the other clutched at Hans's arm, and tore the sleeve of his shirt to ribbons, but did not wound him ; and there they all three lay. Hans, though he was thrown upon his gun, contrived to wriggle it out, the lion snarling and clutching at him all the time : but for all that, he put both bullets into the beast's body, who dropped, then turned round, and limped bleeding away into the recesses of a broad thick cover; and of course Hans, shaken as he was, let him go. There were no dogs to follow him, so he was allowed to die in peace; and subsequently his spoor was taken up, and his remains found."

Many more stories on this subject might be quoted, but we pre- fer a passage on disputed creatures. What if the left-hand sup-

porter of the royal arms of England should tarn out a reality after all, and the cockatrice not metaphorical ?

"As the Bushmen learnt to understand our Hottentot a little better, we had some long talks about the animals on the river that joins the Western end of. the lake : that there are many there quite new to the Hottentots is beyond doubt, as several carosses were stolen by the Kubabees and brought back South, and the skins that many of these were made from were quite unknown to them. The Bushmen, without any leading question or previous talk upon the subject, mentioned the unicorn. I cross-questioned them thoroughly ; but they persisted in describing a one-horned animal, something like a gemsbok in shape and size, whose horn was in the middle of its fore- head, and pointed forwards. The spoor of the animal was, they said, like that of a zebra. The horn was in shape like a gemsbok's, but shorter. They spoke of the animal as though they knew of it, but were not at all familiar with it. It will indeed be strange if, after all, the creature has a real existence. There are recent travellers in the North of Tropical Africa who have heard of it there, and believe in it ; and there is surely plenty of room to find something new in the vast belt of terra incognita that lies in this continent.

"Of another fabulous monster, the cockatrice, a most widely-spread belief exists. The Ovampo, the Bushmen of this place, and Timboo, all protested that there is such a creature, and that they had often seen it. They de- scribed it as a snake, sometimes twelve feet long, and as thick as the arm; slender for its length, with a brilliantly variegated skin ; it has a comb on the head exactly like a guinea-fowl, but red, and has also wattles ; its cry is very like the noise that fowls make when roosting—I do not mean crowing, but a subdued chucking ; its bite is highly venomous, and it is a tree snake. I heard an instance of ten cows having been bitten one after the other ; they said that sometimes people when on their way home at night hear a chucking in the tree, and think that their fowls have strayed, and as they are peering about under the branches to see where they are, the snake darts down upon them and bites them. It appears to be a particularly vicious snake. I have generally heard it called hangars.' I never heard of its possessing wings."