The Monmouth inquirer., 1925-10-01

Africa IS

merly German Southwest Africa,
the product of the first of Ger
many's efforts to obtain a CO.
aonial ''place in the sun" It was
on this huge territorial "bone" that
the empire, unused to overseas pos
sessions, cut the teeth of its colonial
policy, later used effectively in other
parts of the world. Since the World
war the region has been under man
date from the League Of Nations to the
Union of South Africa. The consti-
tuition recently granted to the man
dated territory was conferred by the
parliament of the union and is only
the %foTerunner. according to South
African political leaders, of a still
broader charter.
Germany became interested in col
onies in the eighties of the Nineteenth
century after most of the desirable
areas in Africa had been staked out
by other European powers. Along
the Atlantic coast, Southwest Africa
(then generally known as Damara-
iand) was practically the only unap-
p~ropriated region between the Cape of
Good Hope and Gibraltar; and Great
Britain looked upon this region even
as more or less hazily within her
sphere of influence. Undoubtedly it
had remained u~nappropriated largely
because of it's utterly desolate appear
ance from the sea. Seeing only it's sea
aspect n traveller described it as
without question, "the least attractive
part of Africa, except only the Sa-
hara."
Southwest Africa has an area of 322-
400 square miles, and so is fwo-thirds
as large as the foul states of the union
together. Beginning in the south at
the Orange river, it extends northward
past the Tropic of Capricorn and on
to the southern border of the Portu-
guese colony Of Angola, marked by the
Kunene river. The total frontage on
the Atlantic is approximately 800
miles, a distance equal to that from
the island of Jamaica to central Flori-
da, and in corresponding ATTITUDES. In
the north the territory is $40 miles
wide, extending inland to within little
more than 100 miles Of the middle line
of the continent. The territory be-
comes narrower to the south, and at
the southern boundary is only 220
miles wide. The most striking and pc
cutler feature of Southwest Africa as
it appears on a map is the long mar
row 'finger" Of territory that extends
eastward from the northeast corner.
This corridor, only about 80 miles wide,
extends for nearly 300 miles to the
Zambezi river. which it reaches only a
few miles above Victoria falls.
Coastal Desert Is DesoIate.
Southwest Africa's worst foot, which
she puts forward to the Atlantic-the
coastal Deserts known as the Ma
nib. Few coast regions of the earth
are more desolate. Shallow water,
Tow desert islands, absence of har-
bors. and a dry. sandy shore, devoid
of vegetation, combined to make the
region so inhospitable to seamen that
they always gave it a wide berth. The
sand, mostly blown into dunes, ex-
tends inland from ten to forty miles,
and the barren. desert character Of
this strip is marked from the southern
boundary for about 600 miles north.
The few stream beds that have been
worn into the Namib during the ages
have water in them only now and
then over a long series Of years, end
when moisture does flow down frcC1
the highlands it seldom reaches the
sea.
The northern 200 miles of the coast
region is only a little less desolate
than the Namib. 1t is more mountain
GUS, less dominated by loose sand. and
in a more tropical latitude. The
stream beds are better defined and
usually support a growth of bushes
and trees.
Perhaps once in ten years the Ma
nib receives a. drenching rain and
demonstrates the magic that nature
hides in her drops of water. Verdure
springs up all over the parched sands,
animals flock in almost overnight, and
for a while the former desert teens
with game. Soon, however, the sun
parches the soil again, the animals dis
appear, and once more the desert is
supreme.
From ten to forty miles inland the
desert gives place to a transition belt.
Sparse grass INT bushes appear on
rising ground and afford some pas
turage. Immediately beyond is the
escarpment of the inland plateau, its
edge marked in many places by fan
tastically piled powders.
1t is in the upland back of the sandy
coastal strip that the worthwhile part
of Southwest Africa exists. This re-
gion is least promising in the south
where the rainfall is scant. But even
there, the broad valley Of the Fish
river and the valleys of its tributaries
furnish regions in which thriving COM
munities have sprung up, while much
of the dryer land supports focks Of
sheep and goats.
The plateau region becomes more
and more promising as one journeys
northward. In the center of the cOun-