Angra Pequena was but a starting point for large extensions of territory, and German eyes were soon turned in the direction of Damaraland. When rumours of designs on the country reached Cape Town, Mr. W. C. Palgrave was sent to Walvis Bay to make inquiries and to learn what measures, if any, should be taken in order to protect colonial interests and the rights of Her Majesty’s subjects north of the Orange River. On arriving at Walvis Bay Mr. Palgrave was requested by Kamaherero to visit him at Okahandja, and there, without inducement of any kind, the Herero Chief handed the Commissioner a Deed of Cession of Damaraland dated December 29th, 1884, giving “our whole country” over to Great Britain. Mr. Palgrave accepted the cession for transmission to England, but the British Government subsequently declined the offer and stated that it would have no objection to the extension of the German Protectorate “inland as far as the 20th degree of East longitude.” Was not Germany a “friendly Power”? Kamaherero then appealed to the Aborigines Protection Society, and stated that he had given his country to the British in 1876 and in 1884, yet the Germans threatened to seize it and bring war and destruction upon his people. But no help was forthcoming from Great Britain, and accordingly in the following year Germany seized the country. These developments were viewed with considerable pride in Germany, for the early period of colonisation was characterised by immense national enthusiasm. The perfervid Pan-Germanists and the sword-rattling Chauvinists fanned the flame, and for a time the whole nation was “Colony mad.” No consideration whatever was paid to the fact that the newly acquired possessions in South-West Africa had long been widely recognised as British commercial dependencies. Small wonder that the startled colonists in South Africa rubbed their eyes in amazement at the displays of German high politics. Among the events which call for brief notice during this period mention must be made of a characteristic Boer trek which took place from the Transvaal into Damaraland in 1873. A party of farmers journeyed with their families and stock across the waterless wastes of the Kalahari Desert to seek out a new home. They endured the most horrible sufferings and their line of march was a line of the graves of their dead. A relief expedition went up from Cape Town to their assistance in 1879, and some 300 of them were found in great straits in North Damaraland. They subsequently trekked into Portuguese territory. In 1885 W. W. Jordan, a trader, attempted to establish a Republic in South Ovamboland. He purchased land from a Chief, cut it up into farms, secured the co-operation of a few other Europeans, established a Council and named the area Upingtonia in honour of Sir Thomas Upington, the Cape politician; but in the following year Jordan was murdered by natives, and the “Republic” came to an end. CHAPTER VII THE GERMAN OCCUPATION