Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/96

 Hereros had, moreover, the good fortune to find a friend in the Swedish traveller Andersson, who in consequence of a sanguinary collision found himself involved in the fray. By his aid they at last gained the upper hand, and although a war of reprisals was protracted over many years, and has even broken out again in quite

recent times, the respective domains of the two hostile races have teen scarcely modified since the middle of the present century.

At present the Herero territory stretches west of the Ovambos as far as the coast, and southwards as far as the great central highlands traversed by the Swakop. But the political frontiers are nowhere strictly defined. The land belongs to all alike; Damara and Namaqua may encamp wherever they like, and in the Herero language there is no word either for "frontier" or for "native