ber of streams, the Brak
and Ongers, the Zak and Olifants Vlei (the two last uniting to form the
Hartebeest), flow north towards the Orange in its middle course. Dry for
a great part of the year, these streams rarely add anything to the
volume of the Orange.

South of the inner chain the drainage is direct to the Atlantic or
Indian Oceans. Rising at considerable elevations, the coast rivers fall
thousands of feet in comparatively short courses, and many are little
else than mountain torrents. They make their way down the mountain sides
through great gorges, and are noted in the eastern part of the country
for their extremely sinuous course. Impetuous and magnificent streams
after heavy rain, they become in the summer mere rivulets, or even dry
up altogether. In almost every instance the mouths of the rivers are
obstructed by sand bars. Thus, as is the case of the Orange river also,
they are, with rare exceptions, unnavigable.

Omitting small streams, the coast rivers running to the Atlantic are the
Buffalo, Olifants and Berg. It may be pointed out here that the same
name is repeatedly applied throughout South Africa to different streams,
Buffalo, Olifants (elephants') and Groote (great) being favourite
designations. They all occur more than once in Cape Colony. Of the west
coast rivers, the Buffalo, about 125 m. long, the most northern and
least important, flows through Little Namaqualand. The Olifants (150
m.), which generally contains a fair depth of water, rises in the
Winterhoek mountains and flows north between the Cedarberg and Olifants
ranges. The Doorn, a stream with a somewhat parallel but more easterly
course, joins the Olifants about 50 m. above its mouth, the Atlantic
being reached by a semicircular sweep to the south-west. The Berg river
(125 m.) rises in the district of French Hoek and flows through fertile
country, in a north-westerly direction, to the sea at St Helena Bay. It
is navigable for a few miles from its mouth.

On the south coast the most westerly stream of any size is the Breede
(about 165 m. long), so named from its low banks and broad channel.
Rising in the Warm Bokkeveld, it pierces the mountains by Mitchell's
Pass, flows by the picturesque towns of Ceres and Worcester, and
receives, beyond the last-named place, the waters which descend from
the famous Hex River Pass. The Breede thence follows the line of the
Langeberg mountains as far as Swellendam, where it turns south, and
traversing