The Ovampo were twenty-four in number, with a tall enterprising-looking young man as captain. I admired greatly the neatness and order of their encampment, and their demeanour was really polished. We soon became good friends, and I killed a young ox for them and for ourselves; they added some corn, which was a most grateful change of diet to us. They paid us every attention, but refused most decidedly to let any of their party guide us, and insisted that we should return with them to Chapupa’s werft, promising at the same time that when they had finished their bartering and returned they would take us with them. The first question that Chikorongo-onkompè (their captain) asked us, was whether we were rain-makers. I regretted that we were not, else we could travel when we liked and where we liked, and be independent of guides. He told us a long and minutely circumstantial lie—at least he afterwards denied every word of it—to the effect that rain-makers were in great request in Ovampo-land, and that a tribe of them lived by the great river that bounded it to the north, and that Nangoro sent a woman with several presents to these people. If rain was scarce in any year they killed and eat the woman, and had a fresh one sent to them. He also said that the Bushmen on our road to Nangoro’s were very ferocious, and that he and his companions had been fighting with them as they came by, and that now they were more exasperated than ever. These were the only two lies that I have ever heard from an Ovampo. The second was natural enough; as to the first I cannot yet understand why he took such pains to invent and tell it. Chikorongo-onkompè, or “Chik,” as I will for brevity’s sake call him, spoke Damara language perfectly, but with an accent, and so did Katondoka and Netjo, the next in command, but the others could barely make themselves intelligible. Their own language is most musical and liquid, and they speak it in a slow singing manner. It seems nothing but L’s, which is curious, as the Damaras do not possess that letter and cannot pronounce it. It is odd enough that Damara children, who say L as all other children do when they try to pronounce R, should as they grow older reverse matters, and forgetting how to pronounce the L, always say R instead of it; thus Mr. Kolbe’s name was changed to Korube; my man, whom we nick-named Bill, was called by the Damaras “Biro.” They took infinite pains to master my name, which after various transformations settled into Bortonio—the “io” being an affectionately diminutive affix. Andersson’s name was too full of consonants for them; they gave it up in despair, and called him Kabandera, (the bird-killer). Many of the Ovampo and Damara words are much alike; thus if you say “bring fire,” it is “et omuriro” in Damara, “ella omuliloo” in Ovampo.