Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/95

 THK HEBEROS. 60 A few scattered p^roups of Rushmcn, the Ma-Cuancalliw of the Portugoete settlers, live in a state of bondage uraongst the surrounding Bantu populations. They are em])loyed by the Ovanibos as carriers of ivory and iron ores, and are also frequently enlisted as soldiers. The whole region of the plains inhabited by the Ovambos is intersected by excellent roads, which are accessible to the waggons both of the Europeans and natives, for these also highly appreciate the advantages of wheeled traffif. 'hon carts were first introduced they fell prostrate on the ground, rubbing their foreheads in the dust raised by the passing wheels. At the beginning of the year 1884 some fifteen families of Dutch trekkers settled in the Ondongo district near a copious spring, the " Groot-Fontain," which has it« source to the east of the Etosha lagoon, founded a petty ** republic," named Upingtonia, in honour of a prominent {xditician in Capo ('t)lony. The new state comprised, at least on the map, a superficial area of no less than 20,000 square miles, divided into allotments of 60,000 acres, and immigrants were invited from all quarters to come and occupy the land. But the violent death of their leader and the troubles with the natives have obliged this group of Boers to place them- selves under the protectorate of Germany. The Hereros (Oba-Herero, the "cheerful" or "merry people"), who were formerly called the " Lowland" or "Cattle Dumaras," are also a Bantu nation, who reach southwards far into the Hottentot domain. According to their own traditions, they exclusively inhabited the highland region of Kaoko down to the middle of the eighteenth century; but towards the year 1775, ut a time when water was more abundant in the country than at present, most of thtir tril)es migrated southwards. But a few remained behind in the Kaoko uplands, where they intermingled with the Bushmen, and like them became impoverished. The Ilerero language, now well known, thanks to the works of the English and German missionaries, who are settled amongst them and have j)ublishod grammars and religious treatises, is a pure Bantu idiom. At least this is the case in the districts where the Hereros keep aloof from other races, for in the neighbourhood of the Hottentots hybrid dialects have sprung up in many places, in which the words of both tongues are intermingled, and inflected either with Bantu prefixed or Hotten- tot suffixed particles. Since their exodus from the Kaoko country the Hereros have been frequently in conflict with other peoples. They had first of all to fight the " true Damaras," the so-called " Highland Damaras," nearly all of whom they reduced to servitude Then, after the middle of the present century, they were exposwl to the incursions of the Numaqua Hottentots and of the Bastaards, by whom thousands were destroyed or reduced to slavery. Possessing no firearms with which to resist their assailants, who were perfectly equipped and in constant commercial inter- course with the Cape, the Hereros seemed doomed to destruction. Galton, who visited this region in the year 1850, foresaw the day when the Namaquas, with their scornful hatred of the blacks and the characteristic obstinacy of their race, must at last succeed in extirpating their hereditary foes. But the foreboding has not b^«K4y9i^'d. More numerous and more agile than their adversaries, the