We bivouacked at one of Tjopopa’s cattle-posts, only a few hours’ journey from Okamabuti, and had just finished dinner, when all at once our people rushed toward the fire with cries of “Ongeama! ongeama!”
And so it was. A lion had, it seems, been crouched in the bush within twenty paces of our camp, in readiness to spring on the cattle that were scattered about; but as one of the men who was in search of fuel had fortunately discovered him, the beast retreated. He was evidently much displeased at being thus foiled, and kept growling in the distance during the remainder of the night. The following morning, on meeting one of the Ovambo, I inquired whether they also had been troubled by the lion, to which he only replied by pointing to a piece of wood—a charm of some kind—hung round his neck, as much as to say, “Do you think that any thing can hurt us or our cattle, with this in our possession?”
The Damaras have also great faith in amulets, consisting generally of the teeth of lions and hyænas, entrails of animals, pieces of certain kinds of wood, and so forth. Our native servants, indeed, before leaving Okamabuti, had purchased, for a few iron beads, several charms from Tjopopa’s favorite wife, and, thus provided, conceived themselves proof against every danger and calamity.
On the 24th we again found ourselves at Otjikango (“Baboon Fountain”). By this time our caravan was completed, as straggling parties of natives had continued to join us; and we found to our astonishment that, including ourselves, we mustered one hundred and seventy souls. Of this number were no less than seventy or eighty Damara women, bent on various speculations—some in hope of obtaining employment, some to get husbands, and others with a view of disposing of their shell bodices, spoken of in chapter four. The latter, as we afterward found, are taken to pieces by the Ovambo women, and worn in strings round the waist. In exchange, the Damaras receive beads, tobacco, corn, &c.
The country between Okamabuti and Otjikango we found well watered with copious springs, and covered with a rank vegetation. Otjikango itself, being situated in a valley between high and steep hills, was not unpicturesque. It was well supplied with water, which in several places oozed out of a kind of vley or marsh—in the rainy season undoubtedly a little lake. We lost no time here, but were again on the move at an early hour on the succeeding morning.
After a day and a half travel we suddenly found ourselves on the brink of Otjikoto, the most extraordinary chasm it was ever my fortune to see. It is scooped, so to say, out of the solid limestone rock, and, though on a thousand times larger scale, not unlike the Elv-gryta one so commonly meets in Scandinavia. The form of Otjikoto is cylindrical; its diameter upward of four hundred feet, and its depth, as we ascertained by the lead-line, two hundred and fifteen—that is, at the sides, for we had no means of plumbing the middle, but had reason to believe the depth to be pretty uniform throughout. To about thirty feet of the brink it is filled with water.[25]
OTJIKOTO FOUNTAIN.