Ova-herero[155], came under European influence. Wars arising between the Damara and the Hottentot Namakwa, and the complaints of the German missionaries at work in these countries, brought about the despatch of a commissioner (Mr W. C. Palgrave) to Damaraland by the Cape Government. He reported in 1876 in favour of extending British protection over Damaraland; but all that Downing Street would concede was the annexation of Walfish Bay. (Twelve little islets off the S. W. coast had been annexed in 1867, because they were leased to a guano-collecting company.) A little later another commissioner was despatched from the Cape to settle the intertribal quarrels north of the Orange river, and a further recommendation was sent home by the Governor; but Lord Kimberley, the new Colonial Secretary, definitely forbade the extension of any British influence over Namakwaland or Damaraland. In 1883 Germany directly questioned England as to whether she laid claim to territory north of the Orange river. An evasive reply was sent, in which delay was asked for so that the Cape Government could be consulted. Eventually the Germans were told that England laid claim to Walfish Bay and the Guano Islands only, but that the intervention of another Power between the Portuguese frontier and the Orange river would infringe legitimate British rights. The inaction of the British Government on this occasion seems in the present day, and by our modern lights, inconceivable. Literally the only reason they had in not politely declaring that South-West Africa was under British protection was the remote dread that they would have to protect German missionaries and traders. Yet not only Downing Street in the greater degree but the Cape Government in the lesser was to blame for this inactivity. The Cape Government at that time was directed by ministers who were much under purely colonial influence, and who, discouraged by their failure to administer Basutoland, had no very strong desire to spend the money of the colony in annexing and administering a vast territory mainly desert. Besides, the idea of Germany becoming a colonial power was laughed at in those days in Government circles as an impossibility. At length all doubts were ended by the declaration of a German protectorate over South-West Africa in 1884.