the provisions were handed over to the trekkers several months later. Some trekkers, who were so impoverished that they no longer had any draught animals to pull their wagons, availed themselves of the opportunity to return by ship from Walvis Bay to Cape Town and from there, with the help of charity organisations, returned to the Transvaal. After negotiations, a Boer delegation and colonel Sebastião Nunes da Matta, the governor of Moçâmedes, concluded an agreement on 18 September 1880, in which the conditions were outlined under which the trekkers would be permitted to settle in Angola. Once the trekkers had set off on their trek from Kaokoland to Angola in November 1880, this was followed by a second agreement, signed on 28 December, in which the conditions of settlement were very similar to those in the earlier agreement. Even though by 1880 the coast of Angola had been colonised by the Portuguese for 300 years already, one could hardly regard this as an occupation of the interior of Angola by them. The arrival of the Boers in Angola took place against the background of the juridical abolition of slavery and attempts by the Portuguese authorities to promote white colonisation of the interior of Angola. In light of the reputation of the Boers as good combatants, the Portuguese authorities believed that the trekkers could support them in fending off the double threat they faced: the indigenous tribes and the possible intervention of the British. They also hoped that the Boers could assist in stimulating trade and developing the country, and therefore the Boers were welcomed with open arms. On 4 January 1881 Humpata was identified as the site of the proposed Boer settlement and later that same month the Boers began to build a dam and an irrigation canal. Once town plots had been laid out and apportioned to the residents, the construction of dwellings began. Years of difficult acclimatisation followed. A group of Boers who had not immediately trekked to Humpata but had instead continued with their hunting endeavours along the Okavango and then trekked deeper into Angola, only joined the Boers at Humpata in 1883. The number of Boers in the settlement increased with the further arrival of individuals and small groups who were no longer able to make a satisfactory living in Damaraland after the outbreak of the Second Nama-Herero War. By 1 July 1883 the Boer settlement