ty, has
lately succeeded in passing the Tropic of Capricorn, informs me
that, taking into consideration the whole of the southern part of
Africa, there can be no doubt of its being a sterile country. On
the southern and south-eastern coasts there are some fine forests,
but with these exceptions, the traveller may pass for days together
through open plains, covered by a poor and scanty vegetation. It is
difficult to convey any accurate idea of degrees of comparative
fertility; but it may be safely said that the amount of vegetation
supported at any one time by Great Britain, exceeds, perhaps even
tenfold, the quantity on an equal area in the interior parts of
Southern Africa. (5/5. I mean by this to exclude the total amount
which may have been successively produced and consumed during a
given period.) The fact that bullock-waggons can travel in any
direction, excepting near the coast, without more than occasionally
half an hour's delay in cutting down bushes, gives, perhaps, a more
definite notion of the scantiness of the vegetation. Now, if we
look to the animals inhabiting these wide plains, we shall find
their numbers extraordinarily great, and their bulk immense. We
must enumerate the elephant, three species of rhinoceros, and
probably, according to Dr. Smith, two others, the hippopotamus, the
giraffe, the bos caffer--as large as a full-grown bull, and the
elan--but little less, two zebras, and the quaccha, two gnus, and
several antelopes even larger than these latter animals. It may be
supposed that although the species are numerous, the individuals of
each kind are few. By the kindness of Dr. Smith, I am enabled to
show that the case is very different. He informs me, that in
latitude 24 degrees, in one day's march with the bullock-waggons,
he saw, without wandering to any great distance on either side,
between one hundred and one hundred and fifty rhinoceroses, which
belonged to three species: the same day he saw several herds of
giraffes, amounting together to nearly a hundred; and that,
although no elephant was observed, yet they are found in this
district. At the distance of a little more than one hour's march
from their place of encampment on the previous night, his party
actually killed at one spot eight hippopotamuses, and saw many
more. In this same river there were likewise crocodiles. Of course
it was a case quite extraordinary, to see so many great animals
crowded together, but it evidently proves that