WALVISCH BAY, SOUTH AFRICA.

Samoa Times and South Sea Gazette, Volume 2, Issue 54, 12 October 1878, Page 3

WALVISCH BAY, SOUTH AFRICA.

The Settlement at Walviseh Bay, on i the West Coast of Africa is the last addition to the British Empire. About ;ioo square miles wen formally ' annexed by 11.M.5. Industry, on tin- 12th of March, by order of Commodore Sulli- i van, Cl'.., at the request of Sir Bortle Frere, Her Majesty's Uovcruor at the j ('ape. This annexation has been in con- ! templatiou for ome tiuio, for, from the convenient situation of the Bay, it has been of great value to traders in enabling them to pas-, large quantities of lirearms into the interior at the book of the Kaffir tribes, thus eluding the heavy impost of £2 a barrel at the Cape. This could not be borne by a colony never very Nourishing in pecuniary matters. 1. n-1 i 'arnai .on was applied to, and ac-, nun-seed iii the policy of annexation, I which was uho sanctioned by a \ote of the ! Cape Parliament. At present only the teiritory immediately surrounding the Buy has been annexed, the limits being from a point on the coast fifteen miles south of Pelican Point to Scheppraansdorf, including the ' fertile oasis of Rdoibank, from Scueppmansdorf to ten miles inland from the mouth of the Swakop river, the last ten miles of the course of that river forming the northern boundary, so the new territory is, roughly speaking, about thirty miles long by ten miles broad. Tins is, however, only the stepping-stone to a gigantic annexation to the Cape Colony —no less than the whole of the coast up to Cap" Frio, the southern limit of the Portuguese possessions on the West Coast, and t fie whole of the interior lying east of that line, connecting the new territory with the Transvaal, or aboul 000,000 squui-e miles. This includes the huge desert of the Kalahari—which is now the favourite breeding ground of the wild ostrich—but the lands of tho Damaras Ovampos are reckoned to bo amongst the most fertile in the world, and contain magnificent pasturage. Their wealth in cattle is almost incredible. The paramount Chief of the Damaras is known to possess cattle to the value of a quarter of a million sterling. The climate is salubrious and dry. and very favourable to Europeans. The German Missionary Society has upwards of fifty stations in the country, and everyone speaks well of the climate ami soil, Inside the strip of desurt on the sea coast, only thirty-eight miles broad, stretches :i country of limitless extent, ferule and park-like, and abounding in every description of game, and containing also a practically unlimited supply of ivory and ostrich feathers for trade. There is a great future for South At',;,-., _<:,•,»,,i,i„

At ilea. —Graphic.