File:Lake Ngami, or, Explorations and discoveries during four years' wanderings in the wilds of southwestern Africa (1861) (14576664848).jpg

Identifier: lakengamiorexplo01ande (find matches)
Title: Lake Ngami, or, Explorations and discoveries during four years' wanderings in the wilds of southwestern Africa
Year: 1861 (1860s)
Authors: Andersson, Charles John, 1827-1867
Subjects: Andersson, Charles John, 1827-1867 Ngami, Lake (Botswana) Natural history Hunting
Publisher: New York : Harper & Brothers
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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d of rushes, is not unlike that of a bee-hive. Theheight of the whole house, from the ground to the top of the hive, does not much exceed four feet, while in circumfer-ence it is about sixteen. They store the grain in gigantic baskets, generally manu-factured from palm-leaves, plastered with clay, and covered ANIMALS PICTURESQUE VIEW. 201 with nearly the same material and in the same manner as thedwelling-houses. They are, moreover, of every dimension,and by means of a frame-work of wood are raised about afoot from the ground. The domestic animals of the Ovambo are the ox, thesheep, the goat, the pig, the dog, and the barn-door fowl.The latter was of a small breed, a kind of bantam, very hand-some, and, if properly fed and housed, the hens would layeggs daily. The wet season in these latitudes commences about thesame period as in Damara-land, that is, in October and No-vember. When the first heavy rains are over, the Ovambobegin to sow grain, &c.; but they plant tobacco in the dry
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VIEW IN ONDONGA/ * The above wood-cut is a view of the country near Nangoros resi-dence. The huts in the distance are those of Bushmen. A greatnumber of these people dwell among the Ovambo, to whom they standin a kind of vassalage and relationship. I 2 202 HUSBANDRY ^IVORY BEADS. time of the year. Both sexes assist in tilling the ground,which, near the surface, consists of a flinty sand-soil. Ashort distance beneath blue clay appears. The land mustbe rich and fertile, as manure is seldom made use of. Theonly farm-implement we saw in use among the Ovambo wasa kind of hoe of very rude workmanship. Instead of culti-vating a whole piece of ground, as with us, they simply diga hole here and there, in which they deposit a handfuU of corn.When a little above ground, those seedlings which are toothick are transplanted. The process of reaping, cleaning,and grinding falls almost exclusively on the women. Thegrain is reduced to flour by means of a stout pole in a kindof mortar or hollow wooden t

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