and two young girls, who, having come as
nurses with our children to the Cape, were returning to their home at
Kolobeng. Wagon-traveling in Africa has been so often described that
I need say no more than that it is a prolonged system of picnicking,
excellent for the health, and agreeable to those who are not
over-fastidious about trifles, and who delight in being in the open air.

Our route to the north lay near the centre of the cone-shaped mass of
land which constitutes the promontory of the Cape. If we suppose this
cone to be divided into three zones or longitudinal bands, we find each
presenting distinct peculiarities of climate, physical appearance and
population. These are more marked beyond than within the colony. At
some points one district seems to be continued in and to merge into the
other, but the general dissimilarity warrants the division, as an aid to
memory. The eastern zone is often furnished with mountains, well wooded
with evergreen succulent trees, on which neither fire nor droughts can
have the smallest effect ('Strelitzia', 'Zamia horrida', 'Portulacaria
afra', 'Schotia speciosa', 'Euphorbias', and 'Aloes arborescens');
and its seaboard gorges are clad with gigantic timber. It is also
comparatively well watered with streams and flowing rivers. The annual
supply of rain is considerable, and the inhabitants (Caffres or Zulus)
are tall, muscular, and well made; they are shrewd, energetic, and
brave; altogether they merit the character given them by military
authorities, of being "magnificent savages". Their splendid physical
development and form of skull show that, but for the black skin and
woolly hair, they would take rank among the foremost Europeans.

The next division, that which embraces the centre of the continent,
can scarcely be called hilly, for what hills there are are very low.
It consists for the most part of extensive, slightly undulating plains.
There are no lofty mountains, but few springs, and still fewer flowing
streams. Rain is far from abundant, and droughts may be expected every
few years. Without artificial irrigation no European grain can be
raised, and the inhabitants (Bechuanas), though evidently of the same
stock, originally, with those already mentioned, and closely resembling
them in being an agricultural as well as a pastoral people, are a
comparatively timid race, and inferior to the Caffres in physical
development.

The western division is still more level than the mi