land and the
Transvaal, is to the traveller's eye monotonous--a fact due to the
general uniformity of the geological formations and the general dryness
of the surface. In Natal and in Mashonaland types different from those
of either the Cape or the Karroo appear, and I have never seen a more
beautiful and varied alpine flora than on a lofty summit of Basutoland
which I ascended in early summer. But even in Mashonaland, and in
Matabililand still more, the herbaceous plants make, at least in the
dry season, comparatively little show. I found the number of conspicuous
species less than I had expected, and the diversity of types from the
types that prevail in the southern part of the plateau (in Bechuanaland
and the Orange Free State) less marked. This is doubtless due to the
general similarity of the conditions that prevail over the plateau.
Everywhere the same hot days and cold nights, everywhere the same
dryness.

However, I must avoid details, especially details which would be
interesting only to a botanist, and be content with a few words on those
more conspicuous features of the vegetation which the traveller notes,
and which go to make up his general impression of the country.

Speaking broadly, South Africa is a bare country, and this is the more
remarkable because it is a new country, where man has not had time to
work much destruction. There are ancient forests along the south coast
of Cape Colony and Natal, the best of which are (in the former colony)
now carefully preserved and administered by a Forest Department of
Government. Such is the great Knysna forest, where elephants still roam
wild. But even in these forests few trees exceed fifty or sixty feet in
height, the tallest being the so-called yellow-wood, and the most useful
the sneeze-wood. On the slopes of the hills above Graham's Town and King
William's Town one finds (besides real forests here and there) immense
masses of dense scrub, or "bush," usually from four to eight feet in
height, sometimes with patches of the prickly-pear, an invader from
America, and a formidable one; for its spines hurt the cattle and make
passage by men a troublesome business. It was this dense, low scrub
which constituted the great difficulty of British troops in the fierce
and protracted Kafir wars of fifty years ago; for the ground which the
scrub covers was impassable except by narrow and tortuous paths known
only to the natives, and it afforded them admirable places for