Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/77

 HUM1>ATA. 58 facing the perils of forced marcht's across the waterless wilderness. Many perished of exhaustion, and the rejwrt even spread that all had succumbed. Hut towards the close of the year 18H0 some four or five hundred survivors at last reached the promised land, distant more than 1,200 miles from the mother country. But even here under this favoured climate of Mossamedes the fates still pursued them ; small-pox broke out amongst the new arrivals and decimated iheir ranks; nearly all the horses, which they had brought with them to the great terror of the natives, died of fatigue; all the flocks of sheep disappeared together with two-thirds of the horned cattle. Despair seized many of the settlers, who em- barked for the Cape ; others retracing their steps endeavoured to return overland to Transvaal, while others resuming the trek penetrated from stage to stage farther into the Cunene basin and the region of the inland plateaux. But some few held out against fate itself. At present the plains of Hunipata, being carefully cultivated and irrigated by well-constructed canals, yield an ample supply of provisions for the inhabitants. The Boers are also endeavouring to increase their live-stock from the few animals that survived the trek across the desert. As hunters they pursue the elephant and hippopotamus, utilising the fat in the preparatioli of soap, and they have als(i turned to mining in order to smelt the iron ores of the neighbouring rocks and wash the streams for gold dust. Others again have become traders, journeying as far as Walvisch Bay in the Damara country to purchase European wares, and acting as conveyors between Huilla and the port of Mossamedes. Their indus- trious habits have thus enabled them to acquire a certain degree of comfort, while also ensuring the pennanency of their settlement. Since their arrival the trade between both slopes of the coast-range has been more than doubled. Although very suspicious of their Portuguese neighbours, who speak another language and profess a different belief, they have nevertheless reconciled them- selves to the contact of these "aliens," even protecting them against the incur- sions of various marauding tribes, to whom is applied the collective designation of " Hottentots." Some marriages have even already been contracted between the Portuguese and the daughters of the Uyaras, as the immigrants from Transvaal are locally called. Hitherto nothing has been required of them beyond a purely theoretical recognition of the Portuguese suzerainty, which is represented at Humpata by a single official. Fcr all communal matters they have been per- mitted to retain complete self-government. From these first groups various branches have already been detached, which have proceeded to found fresh settlements in various other piirts of the country. But the tide of German immigration has not yet penetrated into the Upper Cunene basin, notwithstanding the efforts that had been made to divert it to that region. The peasantry have hitherto rejected the bait held out to them by the traveller Dewitz, who in 1884 acquired possession of a large piece of land for the purpose of founding colonies in the Luceque district about the confluence of the Catapi and Cunene rivers. East and south of Huilla the other military and missionary stations, such as