South-West Africa - free ebook by William Eveleigh

SOUTH-WEST AFRICA

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FOREWORD

“Of making many books there is no end,” said the Preacher, but strange to say, there is not a single book in the English language that deals with South-West Africa of modern days. Many references to the country are found in the older books of South African travel and exploration, and some good works have been written in later times by German authors; but, unfortunately, the German publications are not available for the average reader. In the present volume an attempt has been made to set before

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SOUTH-WEST AFRICA

A glance at the map of Africa shows that the territory now known as British South-West Africa—formerly German South-West Africa—is a triangular mass with the abrupt apex resting on the Orange River. It comprises Ovamboland, in the north; Damaraland, the central portion of the country; Great Namaqualand, in the south, and a tongue of land running out from the north-east corner called the Caprivizipfel, and has a total area of 322,450 square miles. This vast territory, into which half a dozen Engl

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Physical Features

The physical structure of the country is extremely simple. The dominant physical facts are: a slowly rising sandy coast belt; a high interior plateau, broken by isolated mountain ranges; and a gently falling eastern strip of sandy country that merges in the level expanse of the Kalahari Desert....

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The Coast Strip or the Namib

The coast strip is a desert, varying from 15 to 100 miles in width, stretching from the Kunene to the Orange, in which at only a few places is fresh water obtainable. To this desert the designation “Namib” has been applied—a name originally restricted to the middle portion of the strip. Dr. Stapff divides it into three parts: the stony desert north of Walvis Bay, the valley of the Kuisip converging on Walvis Bay, and the long sand dunes that run south from Walvis Bay to the Orange. As a picture

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The Central Plateau

We will begin in the north with Ovamboland and follow southward the line of the main ridge that forms the inner plateau. Separated from the highlands of Angola by the gorges traversed by the Kunene, the rocky heights of Ovamboland rise but slowly at first above the general level, but south of the Otavi Hills in Damaraland they gradually ascend until a veritable highland system is developed with towering masses of table rocks and huge dome-shaped summits. Mount Omatako, which has an altitude of 8

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Great Namaqualand

Great Namaqualand, the country that stretches from the south of Damaraland to the Orange River, is a land of rugged hills, stony kopjes, and boundless plains. In the Karas Mountains, the main ridge rises again to a height of 6,600 feet above the sea, and the plateaux have a north to south direction. The boundless plains, really extended tablelands, are a principal feature of the country, and they are invariably sandy. “Sir,” said a person who knew the country to Dr. Moffat in 1818, “you will fin

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The Orange River Basin

Trekking south through Great Namaqualand, toiling over the blistering wastes, the traveller experiences a peculiar sensation of unexpectedness when on rounding a kopje he sees below him in the near distance a long, twisted line of vivid green. This is the line of the Orange River. As very little is known about the course of this, the largest river in South Africa, a brief description may not be without interest. The river enters South-West Africa along a deep channel and winds its sinuous way li

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The Rivers

The rivers of South-West Africa, like many others in South Africa, are found, mostly, on the maps. Though the country is trenched by the beds of many rivers, not a single perennial stream reaches the sea between the Kunene and the Orange. On account of the great depth of its channel below the adjacent land, the Orange is of no economic value to the country. The Swakop, which has a total length of 250 miles, rises to the east of the Damara highlands in the Waterberg and traverses the plateau thro

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Scenery

The lover of natural scenery will find little to attract him in such parts of the country as the Namib, Great Namaqualand, or the eastern steppes, for over large areas the aspects of nature are so consistently uniform as to become painfully monotonous, and this uniformity, combined with the absence of foliage and verdure and lakes and running streams, is very depressing to the traveller. But the country is not the wilderness many have been led to believe. When once the desert belt is crossed and

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The Rainfall

South-West Africa is really a continuation of the Bechuanaland plateau, a notoriously dry territory, and the rainfall is even less than in Bechuanaland, if we except the northern territories, since very little of the vapour from the distant Indian Ocean can reach the country. The Eastern slope, which faces the Indian Ocean, receives a fair supply of moisture. The Windhoek region has an average annual rainfall of 15 inches. Whirlwinds often herald the approach of the rain. In the warmer north and

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Health Conditions

The physical conditions already described determine the healthfulness of the country; the sun, the elevation, the dryness, being responsible for the good climate of the interior. The direct rays of the sun are very strong during the day, for clouds are infrequent; many weeks may pass without the smallest cloud being visible; but these rays are not dangerous, and sunstroke is unusual. In India, as Bryce has shown, one has always to be mounting guard against the sun. “He is a formidable and ever-p

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The Coast Regions

To begin with the Namib. The general aspect of the vegetation here is monotonous, since there are but few plants that rise to any appreciable height from the sandy surface to break the dull level. No tree grows within a dozen miles of the coast, except in an occasional watercourse where there is underground moisture. The Kokerboom, Aloe dichotoma , however, often occurs as a solitary tree, and occasionally forms little groves on the limestone hills of the eastern portion of the Namib. In the win

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The Central Plateau

Beginning with Ovamboland, we find considerable forest tracts of acacia, with giant baobabs, and palms and fig-trees in the more open park-like spaces. The palm zone is found some distance south of the Kunene. Grasses cover the extensive plains after rains. On the uplands of Damaraland the genus Acacia plays an important part in the composition of the flora; in many places it predominates among the bushes and also among the trees. [10] With the acacias are found other notable species, including

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The Birds

Game birds are fairly numerous. The largest bird is of course the ostrich, which runs wild in many parts of the country. A considerable trade was done in ostrich feathers from Damaraland for many years; shooting of the birds has been wisely prohibited under the German administration. Ostrich-farming has been attempted on a small scale. There are several species of bustard, notable among them being the big kori bustard, or Dutch pauuw, Otis kori , which sometimes stands as high as 5 feet and weig

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The Snakes

The reptile world is represented by a number of exceedingly venomous snakes, but fortunately they are not numerous, and deaths from snake-bite are of rare occurrence. There is the ferocious cobra, one of the most deadly snakes in South Africa, of which there are several species. Anchietas cobra, Naia Anchietæ , attains to an average length of 5 feet, and the well-known Cape cobra, Naia Flava , is about the same length. These reptiles are as active as they are venomous. With the characteristic ho

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Chapter VITHE LATER HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT

The red tide of war surged backward and forward over the land in the ’sixties, and deeds of appalling cruelty were perpetrated. The Hereros fought to secure their independence from the Hottentots, and they were at length victorious, but a guerilla war again broke out in the ’seventies, and the country was in a state of chronic unsettlement. In 1868 the harassed missionaries connected with the Rhenish Missionary Society, whose stations were either plundered or destroyed during these wars, sent an

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German Intrigue in Africa

The recent rebellion within the Union of South Africa may be viewed as the culminating point of forty years of intrigue in South Africa, for German emissaries have been at work in the country seeking to undermine British authority since the ’seventies of the last century. “Would to God,” exclaimed Karl Mauch, the traveller and explorer, on his return to Germany from the Transvaal in 1873, “that this fine country might soon become a German colony.” A year or two later Bismarck was urged by German

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The Native Races

The native races represented in South-West Africa are the Bushmen, Hottentots, and Bantu people, and they vary not only in physical appearance and language, but also in character and habits. The Bushmen, so-called because of their preference for places abounding in bushes, were probably the earliest inhabitants of the land, since members of this race roamed the entire country south of the Zambesi at a time of remote antiquity. These people were nomads of a most primitive type, and lived on wild

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The White People

In the year 1880 the white population of South-West Africa consisted of 300 trek-Boers and 150 Europeans in Damaraland, and a dozen whites at Walvis Bay: in 1900, that is, six years after the German annexation, there was a total white population of 3,388, made up of 2,146 men, 452 women, and 790 children. The last census, taken on January 1st, 1913, showed a total population of 14,830. Including the 1,819 members of the military forces, the males numbered 10,147, the females 4,683, and the child

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Minerals

One of the immediate results of the German occupation was an influx into the country of mining prospectors who were eager to secure concessions. Mineral rights over large areas were bought from native chiefs, and prospecting was actively carried on. The concessions were in many instances transferred to third and sometimes fourth parties, until at length the mining rights of the whole country were held by the following: The Deutsche Kolonial Gesellschaft, the Kaoko Land und Minen Gesellschaft, th

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Tin

Large deposits of tin ores have been found, mostly in alluvial deposits, situated in the neighbourhood of outcrops of pegmatite and quartz, which occur in the hinterland of Swakopmund....

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Marble

There are immense layers of good quality marble in the Karibib district. The quarrying rights are held by the Afrika-Marmor-Kolonial Gesellschaft. Gold has been found at several places in the South-West Africa Company’s territory, and occasional nuggets have been unearthed in the Neineis tinfields, but as yet there are no discoveries of the precious ore in payable quantities. Coal has not been found....

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Agriculture and Live Stock

There is a surprisingly small proportion of the land of the country under cultivation, since only 13,000 acres have been treated. Four-tenths of this total is in the well-watered Grootfontein district, while the Windhoek region has another three-tenths. Mealies, potatoes, lucerne, vegetables and melons are the principal articles grown, but a good beginning has been made with fruit and tobacco. There are 1,330 farms, and they cover an area of over 32,000,000 acres; they vary in size from 6,000 to

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

History and General Description Philology Botany, &amp;c....

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Annex D.—Exports during the Years 1911-13.

Chief Articles of Export during the Years 1911-13. Result of Census taken January 1, 1913, as Compared with Census taken January 1, 1912. Imports and Exports. Minerals Exported in 1913. Cultivated Land in 1913. The Water Supplies. [21] January 1 to June 30. [22] January 1 to June 30. [23] Estimated....

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