Chapter 469 Walvis Bay
March 1877.
On the west coast of Africa, four ships quietly broke away from the slave fleet from East Africa to North America and docked in a bay.
Walvis Bay is developed in a special way. A long and narrow channel extends into the Atlantic Ocean. The whole bay looks like a person stretching out his arm. The opening of the bay faces north, which makes Walvis Bay easy to identify. Basically, all ships passing through here can recognize it.
In fact, in 1487, Portuguese navigator Dias (one of the initiators of the Age of Discovery) discovered Walvis Bay. Before the 18th century, the Dutch also surveyed this place, but nothing came of it. Therefore, the location of Walvis Bay is very prominent, but it has not received much attention.
"This is Walvis Bay, the only deep-water port between Angola and South Africa. After our measurements, we found that most of the waters are less than 15 meters deep, and the bay exit is nearly 10 kilometers deep. There are indeed conditions for building a deep-water port!"
However, these data cannot reassure the East African sailors, because the land on the east side of the bay is an endless white desert with only a few green plants to be seen.
"No wonder Your Highness said that the conditions here are poor. The land is still a desert, which is somewhat similar to Mogadishu."
"It's far worse than Mogadishu. Mogadishu is an oasis. There is no big river like the Shabelle River to nourish both banks."
From a tourism perspective, the scenery of Walvis Bay is remarkable, with pure white sand beaches and azure blue waters connecting to each other, giving people a refreshing feeling. However, no matter how beautiful it is, it cannot change the fact that this is a desert.
Andre kicked the animal bones on the shore of Walvis Bay and said, "If we want to find water here, it may take a little more effort. I don't know when the people in Leitania Province will be able to open up a supply channel."
Thanks to the construction of the East African Central Railway, cargo transportation has become much more convenient, but this is only relative to the inland areas of East Africa. The Central Railway has a section extending westward, but it is closer to Angola. The vast desert in the southwest makes East Africa temporarily uninterested in building a similar railway in the south. Therefore, the materials in the rear cannot be sent here directly by rail and must be transferred through the Letania Province.
The province of Lethania is located in a plateau area. If supplies are to be transported from Lethania to Walvis Bay, it is necessary to cross hundreds of kilometers of desert. This is also the difficulty for East Africa to occupy Namibia.
In fact, the Lethania Province is in the northeast of Namibia, but it is the best land route to Namibia from East Africa. The desert area for thousands of kilometers to the east of Walvis Bay is almost connected to the Kalahari Desert.
"We are now divided into two groups of 20 teams to conduct surveys within a radius of 20 kilometers. The first group is responsible for searching for areas where groundwater may exist, and the second group will look for oases or rivers in the surrounding areas. The most important thing now is to find drinking water. The drinking water on the ship must be used sparingly." said Captain Chris.
East Africa is relatively experienced in finding water in arid areas. Africa itself has many arid areas, so this is an essential skill for some East Africans, and these skills are learned from indigenous Africans and Arabs.
Soon the crew identified more than a dozen places where water sources might exist based on the characteristics of vegetation distribution. However, after digging several meters deep, the results were not satisfactory.
However, it was not bright in the east but bright in the west. No results were achieved in Walvis Bay in the evening, but good news came from the explorers in the north.
"We found an oasis about 20 kilometers to the north. It was a relatively large river. The conditions on both sides of the river were very good, and it gave birth to a relatively wide belt of vegetation."
This river is the Swakop River, one of the important rivers in Namibia in the past. It originates from the inland mountains and flows through the Namib Desert in its lower reaches. However, the water volume is not very stable. Sometimes it may directly become a dry riverbed due to the decrease of water from upstream.
Swakopmund, the most important port in German Southwest Africa in the past, was located here. After all, Swakopmund was not as famous as Walvis Bay, so Ernst did not remember it for a while. However, Swakopmund was also a well-known tourist destination in Namibia in the past, especially famous for its German architecture.
Historically, the Germans established Swakopmund in 1892. It became the ruling center of the German Southwest African colony. During the German occupation, it was the main port in Southwest Africa. Later, Swakopmund was replaced by the Port of Walvis due to continuous silting.
Therefore, Swakopmund at this time obviously had better natural conditions for building a port than Walvis Bay, which made East Africans have difficulty making a choice.
"Captain, the oasis in the north is obviously better than Walvis Bay. At least the drinking water problem can be solved. And Walvis Bay is a place that His Highness personally instructed us to capture. What should we do?"
Chris thought for a moment and said, "Why choose? We have a lot of people, so why not just build bases in both places? The two places are not too far away. Even if we really can't find water here, we can transport it from the north."
However, Chris's mind soon changed because after digging more than ten meters down, water appeared!
"The water is coming out! The water is coming out!"
Chris rushed to the water outlet and looked at the clear well water seeping out from the ground and said, "Hurry up and find some materials from the boat to support the well mouth to prevent the sand from burying the well."
Because the surface was a desert, sand was flowing down the dug pit, so the sailors found some wooden boards and made a simple partition to separate the sand and the well, and also built a wooden manhole cover.
"Now that the water problem has been solved, the conditions for building a base in Walvis Bay have been met. Do we still need to set up a base in the north?"
"Of course, that place is not far from Walvis Bay, so we must control it. Otherwise, what if the enemy takes advantage of it in the future?"
In fact, Walvis Bay was a British colony in the past, so there must be groundwater. The British are not gods and do not need to drink water.
In the former German South-West Africa, Walvis Bay was an enclave of the British South African colony in German South-West Africa. It was not until the end of the 20th century that South Africa returned Walvis Bay to Namibia under pressure from international public opinion.
Walvis Bay is definitely a special place. Its sea conditions are much better than those of Swakopmund in the north. Although Swakopmund has relatively abundant freshwater resources, it has no natural geographical barriers facing the Atlantic Ocean to the east. At the same time, Walvis Bay is the only deep-water port on the 2,000-kilometer coastline of southwestern Africa, so these two places are relatively important for East Africa.
Two months later, the province of Leithania finally made contact with the sailors heading to Walvis Bay, and construction here in East Africa finally began.
Before this, the East African government had already known about the existence of the Swakop River north of Walvis Bay through news brought back by returning slave ships.
The East African government decided to develop the two places at the same time, and soon a fortress appeared in Walvis Bay. The name of the port of Walvis Bay was still called Walvis Bay, and Ernst thought the name was very appropriate.
The two outposts built by East Africa at Walvis Bay and the mouth of the Swakop River were soon discovered by the Cape Colony. Of course, the first thing the Cape Colony noticed was East Africa's expansion to the north bank of the Orange River.
This caused considerable dissatisfaction in the Cape Colony, because they also had their eyes on Walvis Bay and had originally planned to occupy it the next year, but East Africa got there first (Britain colonized Walvis Bay in 1878).
There was even an unpleasant scene when the Governor of East Africa sent people to Walvis Bay for investigation. It turned out that a military fortress stood in the uninhabited area in their memory. This put the British who came all the way from Cape Town in a dilemma, and finally they had no choice but to return to Cape Town to report to the Governor.
(End of this chapter)
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