Exploration in South-West Africa

Abstract

PROF. H. H. W. PEARSON, of Cape Town, has just conducted an exploring expedition through part of the recently conquered “South-West.” The expedition, which is expected to yield important economic as well as scientific results, started with the express approval of General Botha, and, like Prof. Pearson's previous journeys through the less explored parts of South Africa, was promoted by the Percy-Sladen Memorial Trust, I have just received the following letter, and I am sure many readers of NATURE will be glad to learn from it that Prof. Pearson has returned safely from his interesting and successful trek. DEAR PROF. HERDMAN, Just a line to tell you that the journey is accomplished with results which I hope will prove to be quite successful. I learned just what I wanted to learn and a good deal more besides. The route was a particularly interesting one; it showed me more of the transition zone between the littoral desert and the plateau than I had expected, and it gave me a good insight into the relations between the Damaraland and Nama-qualand floras. It has connected up the results of my previous journeys, and I can now tackle my general summary much more satisfactorily than I could have done before. The journey itself was in some respects the most difficult I haye ever done. Along the edge of the desert the road disappeared entirely, and we got entangled in the ravines of a peculiarly awkward range of mountains. On December 31 we spent five hours in. advancing considerably less than a mile. Both the wagons broke down, one of them twice within half an hour and in a vital part. But for the extraordinary skill of the two Hottentot drivers we should never have got them both through. Darkness found us in a dangerous river-bed, in which, in defiance of all the laws of good trekking, we had to spend the night-and a sleepless one so far as I was concerned. However, the new year was kinder, and although we broke down again in later stages of the journey, I had the satisfaction of taking everything safely into Windhoek except two of my thirty donkeys. One of these died on the road; the other I left in a weak condition with one of our military outposts, and it eventually recovered. Our troubles were due primarily to a bad mistake in the German maps, and to the fact that for 120 miles the country was absolutely without inhabitants, white or black. . . . I passed through the semi-independent territory of the Bastard Hottentots. No German dare venture into it, but when these people found I was English they could not do enough for me. The chief sent his son with me for thirty miles to make sure that I regained the trunk road lost through the mistake mentioned above. They and all the natives through out the country are profoundly thankful that the German régime is over—and they have good reason to be.