bby bush in the sheltered hollows, nearly all the elements of beauty
are present; and the contrast between the craggy summits and the soft
rich pasture and cornlands which lie along their northern base, gives
rise to many admirable landscapes.

Two hundred miles north-north-east of Basutoland the great Quathlamba
Range rises in very bold slopes from the coast levels behind Delagoa
Bay, and the scenery of the valleys and passes is said to be extremely
grand. Knowing it, however, only by report, I will not venture to
describe it. Nearly five hundred miles still farther to the north, in
the district called Manicaland, already referred to, is a third mountain
region, less lofty than Basutoland, but deriving a singular charm from
the dignity and variety of its mountain forms. The whole country is so
elevated that summits of 7000 or even 8000 feet do not produce any
greater effect upon the eye than does Ben Lomond as seen from Loch
Lomond, or Mount Washington from the Glen House. But there is a boldness
of line about these granite peaks comparable to those of the west coast
of Norway or of the finest parts of the Swiss Alps. Some of them rise in
smooth shafts of apparently inaccessible rock; others form long ridges
of pinnacles of every kind of shape, specially striking when they stand
out against the brilliantly clear morning or evening sky. The valleys
are well wooded, the lower slopes covered with herbage, so the effect of
these wild peaks is heightened by the softness of the surroundings which
they dominate, while at the same time the whole landscape becomes more
complex and more noble by the mingling of such diverse elements. No
scenery better deserves the name of romantic. And even in the tamer
parts, where instead of mountains there are only low hills, or "kopjes"
(as they are called in South Africa), the slightly more friable rock
found in these hills decomposes under the influence of the weather into
curiously picturesque and fantastic forms, with crags riven to their
base, and detached pillars supporting loose blocks and tabular masses,
among or upon which the timid Mashonas have built their huts in the hope
of escaping the raids of their warlike enemies, the Matabili.

Though I must admit that South Africa, taken as a whole, offers far less
to attract the lover of natural beauty than does Southern or Western
Europe or the Pacific States of North America, there are two kinds of
charm which it possesses in a high deg