CHAPTER V

Summary

Great Namaqua-land, as it is usually called, lies north of the Orange River, on the western coast of Africa, betweeen the 23° and 28° of south latitude; bounded on the north by the Damaras, and on the east by an extensive sandy desert, called by Mr. Campbell the Southern Zara, or Zahara.

In the month of January, 1806, the Orange, or Gariep River, was crossed by missionaries of the London Missionary Society, for the purpose of planting the Gospel among the inhabitants of that wild and desolate region. Before entering into a detail of painful and pleasing events, which marked the whole course of the bold, self-denying, and dangerous enterprise of the two Albrechts and their associates, it will be proper briefly to sketch the character of the country, and the circumstances connected with the early efforts of these men of God, to sow the seeds of the everlasting Gospel in a most ungenial soil.

As an inhabited country, it is scarcely possible to conceive of one more destitute and miserable; and it is impossible to traverse its extensive plains, its rugged, undulating surface, and to descend to the beds of its waterless rivers, without viewing it as emphatically “a land of droughts,” bearing the heavy curse of

“Man's first disobedience, and the fruit

Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste

Brought death into the world, and all our woe.”