They travelled on good roads and visited Tsumeb, Swakopmund and
Walfish Bay before returning to wards Windhoek, when disaster struck at daybreak, shortly after they left Swakopmund on their way back to Cape Town via Windhoek.
They asked for the establishment of a Prussian Naval Station at Walfish Bay. The King assured the missionaries of his warmest interest; but the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war distracted further attention for the time being.
In the year 1876, a British commissioner, Mr W.C Palgrave, visited the country with a view to ascertaining the wishes of the native chiefs in regard to control by Great Britain, and also for the purpose of reporting to the Cape Government on the desirability or otherwise of "the extension of the limits of this Colony, on the West Coast of this continent, so as to include Walfish Bay and such tract of country inland as may be found expedient and approved of by Her Majesty" (vide Commission by Sir Henry Barkly, Governor of the Cape of Good Hope, to William Coates Palgrave, Esq., dated 16th March 1876).