456 



ZONES AND REGIONS [Pt. Ill, Sect. II 



Whilst the western half of the interior of South Africa exhibits the 

 character of a desert, the eastern half (Orange River Colony and the 

 Transvaal) is covered with grassland, which, in correspondence with the 

 dry cold of winter that is hostile to trees, is not savannah but steppe 1 . 

 Here the winter is very poor in rain, and most precipitation occurs from 

 November to March, as the following percentages show. 



DISTRIBUTION OF RAINFALL THROUGHOUT THE MONTHS OF THE 

 YEAR IN PERCENTAGES IN ORANGE RIVER COLONY AND 



TRANSVAAL. 

 (After Hann, Handbuch, III, p. 365.) 



If we neglect the deserts, which will be described further on, and the 

 rain-forests, which in South Africa are insufficiently known and unimportant, 

 we obtain the following general propositions that hold good generally for 

 the warm temperate belts : — 



1. The western coast of temperate South Africa has a wet winter and a 

 dry summer ; the vegetation consists of xerophilons evergreen sclerophyllons 

 woodland. 



2. The southern and eastern coasts and the eastern interior have a 



1 Cf. pp. 171, 173. 



