The Express.
London, England, 1853-08-24 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

77„ .sn err Sutith Aft;c4!
%NCI, (iALION. K.l
Mr. (i t,!..ii to one of tlte numerous class o! A ngi ,-
Baxon travellers who seem impelled to make incur-
sions into foreign territories by motives similar to
those which acted upon their ancestors—the exten-
sion of their hunting grounds, end the love of
adventure. In addition to this, he pleads being
"imbued or poisoned" with that fascination fur
African explorations " which has often enough proved.
its power, by urging the same traveller to risk his
comfort, his health, and his life, over and over again,
and to cling with pertinacity to a country which,
after all, seems to afford little else but hazard and
"
hardr
• ship, ivor
•y and feverenders it r." There
diffi n M "ninvifar those
wt. arc T.:Z.IBW by it to timi sympathy, except
amongst tneir own class. Most of the African tribes
seem so utterly debased, they exhibit so little of
what distinguishes man from the brute ; they appear
by the unanimous consent of modern travellers to be,
with few exceptions, so completely given over to the
dominion of the senses, that it might be imagined that
toy one who has partaken of the civilisation of the
West, or even of the East, would shrink from
a companionship with beings who only make use of
their human faculties to enable them to gratify those
which they possess in common with the brutes. It
is intelligible, indeed, that missionary enterprise
should make the southern coasts and the interior of
Africa a field of endeavour. Precisely because these
men are low in the scale of humanity, an honest mis-
sionary would feel attracted here to elevate them
something higher. Our sporting travellers, however,
do not as a rule interest themselves in missionary en-
terprise; and although Mr. Galton shows no desire
to depreciate the work of the missionaries in Africa,
it is quite clear that the missionary and himself have
not much in common in their selection of Africa as a
Rene of labour. _ _

Whatever, however, may be the nature of the
attraction which draws Mr. Calton, and gentlemen
like him, to explore the interior of Africa, we must
be grateful for it. as we must for some time, as it
seems to us, be wholly indebted to the sportsman and
the missionaries for the knowledge to be obtained of
this terra incognita. The mere scientific man can
never make any d•scovcries in territories where he is'
every moment in danger of becoming a meal either
to the wild man or the wild beast. The European
hunter, with his strong arm and the unerring rifle,
will do for us more than the great number of his
brethren who would in vain endeavour to penetrate
into this mysterious continent by the means of science,
or art, or commerce. . . _

The result of Mr. Oalton's expedition is better told
by himself:
The result of this excursion ham been to fill up that blank
In our maps which, lying between the Cape Colony and
the western Portuguese settlements, eztends to the interior
as far as the newly discovered Lake 'Ngami.
The country of the Dansaras—wariike, pastoral Blacks—
was in the first instance explored; beyond them he found
a bro.d tract, inhabited by aboriginal Hottentots; and,
again, to the Loth of these, the Ovampo, • race of intelli-
gent and kindly negroes, who are careful agriculturists,
and live in a land of great fertility.
On his return southwards, • quick journey was made
into the interior, near the line of the southern tropic, until
a road, which had recently been travelled from the borders
of the Cape Colony to Lake 'Ngami, wan reached, and in
this way • practicable route between the lake and the At-
lantic was proved to exist.
The great discovery made by the writer seems to
bs Ovampo laud, which certainly, as far as can be
judged of by his description, appears to offer firmer
ooting for the labour of civilisation than any terri-
tory which has as yet been discovered. The first
introduction to Ovampo is unquestiGnably very dif-
ferent from anything of the kind which we have yet
seen described in the works of any modern traveller.

We pushed through thick thorns the whole time, and
lad begun to disbelieve is Ondongs, when quite of a sud-
den the bushes ceased: we emerged out of them, and the
charming corn-conntrT of the °vamp° lay yellow and broad
as a sea before W. b ine dense timber trees, and now
minable paints of ell sizes, were scattered over it; part was
bare for pasturage, part was thickly covered with high corn
stubble ; palindings, each of which enclosed a homestead,
were scattered everywhere over the country. The general
'powwows 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'a
house was the nearest, and he therefore claimed the right
of eatertainior me the first, and to it we went. He had
two or three wine, 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
se his neat granaries and thrashing-fioors, and his cocks
and hens . the pigs, he regretted, had been sent out of the
way; and body, Mrs. Neu°, No. 1, produced a dish of hot
dough sad a basin of sour milk, on which we let to work,
busing our Angels a we pulled off large bits, which we
dipped into the milk and swallowed. The. we went on to
Cluk's house, who encamped us under a magnificent tree,
and took our nettle ander his charge. He told see 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 oars wee, 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 • corn that was new to me, but kindred, as I am told, to
the Indian " badjera:" its head is cylindrical, and full of
small grey wads, which, though not larger than those of
millet, ars so "tumorous that each bead 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 nest day oar surprise at the agricultural
opulence of the country was in ne way decreased. Chick
told us a great deal about the tames of the farms, and the
way they dig them. Each farmer has to pay a certain pro-
portion of the tobacco that he grows to Neaps* (tobacco
is the chief circulating medium in Ovampo-laad); but the
corn can be planted without any drawback upon it. The
fields are hoed over before each sowing mow, and the
torn planted. The manure from the cattle kraal is spread
over the ground. They plant beans and peas, but adopt no'
eystematic rotation of crops. The palms that grew here
were of the same sort as those that I saw seer Omaalsondi ;
but the fruit of these was excellent, exactly like those of
the Egyptian (LAM, whilethat of the others was bitter.
The other tress that I observed were fruit trees : they were
sparingly scattered over the country ; but nearly all that I
saw were of 'magnificent size, as large as these in any Eng-
lish park ; their foliage was so dense and green that a real
shade Iron theses could be obtained, which n is the
saw in Damara-land, as the straggling stunted thorn, with
its few shrivelled leaves, offers little more of a screen to its
rays than an English tree in winter time.
_ .

Referring our readers to tho book itself, wo may
assure them that it will repay perusal. .Mr, Galion
writes well, is never garrulous, goes over ground
entirely new, and never misses an opportunity of in-
teresting or instructing his readers.