120 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 



which is very steep towards the summit, and our waggons 

 were loaded heavily. Arriving at the top, the country had an 

 undulated, but nearly level appearance ; as far as we could see 

 it was an open grass land, in some places thinly shaded by 

 the Acacia Capensis, which grows more slender here than on 

 the banks of rivers in a more fertile alluvial soil ; for which 

 reason some botanists consider them distinct species, on 

 account of the different habit when inhabiting a rich or 

 a poor soil. In the first case, the branches, and especially 

 the thorns, are larger, particularly on young and vigorous 

 trees grown in a habitat more exposed to wet or to regular 

 winter rains, where the soil is more exhausted of its fertile 

 property, through a constant process of vegetation. On the 

 other hand, if vegetation is slumbering sometimes for a long 

 period through want of rain, the fertility of the soil is longer 

 preserved. 



We now took a northerly direction, leaving at a conside- 

 rable distance to the right the Kakaberg, a promontory 

 of the high Winterberg chain j it forms the easterly border of 

 Smalldeel, a province belonging formerly to the Geika family? 

 chieftain of a Kaffir tribe, but ceded to the Colony about 

 twenty years ago, and over this we now travelled. The 

 slopes to the summit of the Kakaberg are covered chiefly 

 with forests of useful timber: in the rear may be seen 

 the higher naked tops of some peaks of the Winterberg 

 range. The vegetation of that elevated country is nearly the 

 same as on the other side, towards Graham's Town. A few 

 plants of Eriosema puberula, Lasiospermum radiatum, Trtto- 

 manthe Uvaria, and some Pelargoniums were in blossom. 

 We fell in with a river, called the Babians River, a tri- 

 butary of the Great Fish River. It rises in the Winterberg 

 range, and the banks towards that mountain are covered 

 with forests of fine timber trees. Pringle, in his poems, 

 gives some idea of the fine scenery in that lovely valley* 

 occupied chiefly by the relations of the poet. We crossed 

 that river, and soon arrived at the feet of a mountain 

 passage, called Daggaboersneik. It was several hours before 



