The natural colour of the Damaras is by no means easy to determine, except during the heavy rains which wash off the layers of grease and red pigment with which they so plentifully besmear themselves. In dry weather the Damara comes out ruddy and glossy, like an old well-polished mahogany table; he is then reeking with oil, his features are plump and smooth, his appearance genial and warm, but a few hours’ steady deluge quite alters the man. His skin becomes dead-looking and devoid of all lustre—there is not a tinge of ruddiness in it; it is not even black, but of a pale slate colour, or like old iron railings that want fresh painting, and the Damara, when cleaned, becomes a most seedy-looking object. Concerning their language I shall say little, as it can only interest philologists, and for their benefit a most copious manuscript grammar and dictionary has already been sent by the Rev. Messrs. Hahn and Rath, to Bonn. Its grammar is much the same as that of the Sichuana and Caffre languages; which are said to be kindred to that of nearly every known negro language in Africa. It is highly flexible, so that when a new word is once obtained they can express immediately and intelligibly every derivative from it. Thus if they learnt the word “bread” they would have no difficulty in forming the word a “baker.” The great clumsiness of the language is its want of comparatives and of adjectives. It has one great but not peculiar beauty in the prefix which every substantive possesses. These prefixes have all a special power which it is not easy to define, but which is soon caught up by the learner. To take a simple instance, Omu is the prefix that signifies manhood; Otji, a thing. Now Omundu is simply a man; but by saying Otjimundu, the idea of an inanimate thing is superadded to the idea of a man, and the word expresses an old crone. The prefix of the substantive which governs the sentence is continued or hinted at through all the declinable words in it, and gives a bond of union to the whole. The vocabulary is pretty extensive; it is wonderfully copious on the subject of cattle; every imaginable kind of colour—as brindled, dappled, piebald—is named. It is not strong in the cardinal virtues; the language possessing no word at all for gratitude; but on looking hastily over my dictionary I find fifteen that express different forms of villainous deceit. [Illustration: DAMARA WEAPONS, ETC.] CHAPTER VII.