Kasikili/Sedudu Island (Botswana/Namibia) - Cour international de ...

CHAPTER II
THE BACKGROUND OF THE 1890 TREATY:
CONTEMPORARY KNOWLEDGE OF THE AREA
67. It may be helpful to the Court if Namibia now examines the state of contemporary
knowledge of the region prevailing when the 1890 Treaty was under negotiation. As will be
appreciated, in light of the difficulties of movement in such an area as well as the limitations
on the technology of observation in 1890, descriptions of the region were not always fully
accurate or consistent with one another. In the late nineteenth century, the prevailing opinion
was that the region was unexplored by Europeans. The English explorers, Aurel Schulz and
August Hammar, wrote in 1897 of their trip of 1884, 'We were the first Whites to traverse this
partly unknown country . . .'20 However, beginning in the 1850s, several European explorers
and hunters began travelling to and offering descriptions of the Chobe River, thus filling in a
general picture of the character of the Chobe in the area of the dispute, particularly with
regard to the impact upon the river of the Zambezi's seasonal flooding and its consequential
effects upon the identification of the Chobe's southern bank and of the channels forming the
river.21
68. The most famous of the Victorian travellers in the region was Dr. David Livingstone, who
is reputed to have been the first non-African to see the Victoria Falls. His books on his
African travels were widely read by Victorians. His Missionary Travels and Researches in
South Africa was accompanied by a map showing the general length and direction of the
Chobe.22 Extracts from the book are provided as Annex 129 to this Memorial, but the
quotation of a few sentences will serve to show that the Chobe was seen even then as an
unusual river:
11th of November, 1853.23 -- Left the town of Linyanti . . . to embark on the Chobe . . .We
crossed five branches of the Chobe before reaching the main stream; this ramification must be
the reason why it appeared so small to Mr. Oswell and myself in 1851. When all the departing
branches re-enter, it is a large deep river. . . .24
. . .
The course of the river we found to be extremely tortuous, -- so much so, indeed, as to carry
us to all points of the compass every dozen miles. Some of us walked from a bend at the
village of Moremi to another nearly due east of that point, in six hours, while the canoes,
going at more than double our speed, took twelve to accomplish the voyage between the same
two places. And though the river is from thirteen to fifteen feet in depth at its lowest ebb, and
broad enough to allow a steamer to ply upon it, the suddenness of the bendings would prevent
navigation; but, should the country ever become civilised, the Chobe would be a convenient
natural canal. We spent forty-two and a half hours, paddling at the rate of five miles an hour,
in coming from Linyanti to the confluence. . . .25
69. A description of the Chobe is also to be found in F.C. Selous's work, A Hunter's
Wanderings in Africa, published in 1895:
The next day (Sunday), we continued our journey westwards along the southern bank of the
Chobe, which here runs nearly due east. As we had been informed, we found that a dense
continuous jungle, interspersed with large forest trees, came down in most parts almost to the