Hans Schinz; Fragments. Research Trips in German South West Africa

"My written material for a complete ethnography of the Mbantu peoples of southwest Africa is almost finished. Indeed, if I had instruments like compasses, etc., etc., I could also take body measurements and thus accomplish much more. I would very much like to have a collection of bird skins, but I lack the time... You can't imagine how incredibly difficult it is to get the plants dry at the moment. The high humidity makes paper and everything else wet, and the press often has to stand for three weeks. By then, the plants are usually black and ugly, and yet I change all the paper daily! Termites are also furious enemies of my collections, often building mounds a foot and a half in my bedroom in a single night. One night, the leather belt that holds my trousers fell to the floor, and in the morning I found it devoured. Woe to the paper or hat that touches the wall! Everything falls prey to the industrious little creatures." (Hans Schinz to his mother from Olukonda, Northern Namibia, January 1886)

From 1884 to 1886, the Zurich botanist Hans Schinz was the first scientist to travel through the then-existing colony of German South West Africa, from south to north and east to west. With keen observation, a sharp pen, and an imperial air, he described his impressions to his mother, brother, and colleagues in Zurich and Berlin.