CORNELIUS VARLET 53 



in the design of the first Atlantic cable. Another son, Samuel Arthur 

 Varley (now in his eighty-eighth year), was, I understand, the dis- 

 coverer of the Dynamo, and the first person to construct a self- 

 exciting dynamic machine, independent discoveries of the same 

 principle being made very shortly afterwards by Sir Charles Wheat- 

 stone and Professor Siemens respectively. 



WAYFARma NOTES FROM GREAT NAMAQU ALAND. 



Br R. F. Rand, M.D., late Lt.-Colonel S.A.M.C. 

 (Continued from Journ. Bot. 1912,.60.) 



Namaqualand, Damaraland, Ovampoland, were familiar names 

 to the men of the earlier Victorian days. All are now comprised 

 within the South- West African Protectorate, for the government of 

 which the Union of S. Africa has now accepted the mandate. 



To-day, travelling by rail and crossing the Orange River at 

 Upington, one can in a day or two traverse country which took the 

 old explorers weeks, and even months, of effort to accomplish. Un- 

 certain rainfall and scarcity of water by the way were the great 

 deterrents. The writer's visit was in early October 1919, and only a few 

 days were available. Windhuk was the furthest point reached to the 

 north. Thereafter a visit was paid to Liidentzbucht (Angra Pequena). 

 Travellmg by rail from the Orange River, right up to Windhuk, one 

 rarely catches sight of running water ; sand-river beds there are in 

 plenty. Much of the country resembles the Cape Karroo. The 

 surface may be rocky, stony, or sandy ; sometimes it is bare, some- 

 times dotted over with isolated patches of bush, tufts of grass, and 

 here and there a tree. It is the home of the xerophyte. Succulent 

 forms are many. Patches of desolate country are occupied by the 

 "milk-bush," a leafless Eupliorhia which grows in isolated clumps 

 like a large rush, with stalks the thickness of a raspberry-cane. It is 

 a social plant of exclusive habits, thriving where little else can. 

 Upon the mountain sides and upon the level, sj^ecies of Aloe are to 

 be seen : A. clichotoma very conspicuously. At a wayside halt, 

 Kalkrand, species of the following were seen in flower — Lyciiim^ 

 Blepharis, Leptosinmm, Helichrysum, and others, with a woody 

 Asparagus of straggling habit. From the train window one. fre- 

 quently saw dwarfed and woody undershrubs, and cricoid t3q:)es were 

 common. 



In a ston}^ sandy desert, vegetation is hard put to it to live. The 

 desert-plant has to resist drought, to resist the hunger and thirst of 

 wandering buck or bird, and to resist the wind — usually a strong wind 

 greedy of moisture. Hence the herbaceous and shrubby plants run to 

 flesh, thorn, and wood, and indulge in leaves very sparingly. Vegetation 

 clings to the river-bed and its near neighbourhood : in the Protectorate 

 it is mostly a sand-river bed, where, at varying depths beneath the 

 surface of the sand, water may be trickling. Sand and grit are the 



