1901.] Tlirough the Heart of Africa from South to North. 533 



is apparent to an ordinary observer unsupported by the special know- 

 ledge of tbe botanist or geologist. Later, I will trace part of my 

 journey through Marotseland to tbe Zambesi source, eastward along 

 tbe Congo-Zambesi watershed, thence by lakes Mweru, Tanganika, 

 Kivu, Albert Edward, and Victoria to the Nile and Egypt. 



From where the Hex Eiver Mountains, rising out of the rich 

 cultivated plain which extends for some 100 miles from Capetown, 

 culminate in the Great Karroo, to where tbe ground falls away within 

 the last day's march to tbe Murchison Falls on the Victoria Nile, 

 my journeys northwards have seldom taken me over ground of a lower 

 altitude than 3000 feet above the sea-level, while probably 90 per 

 cent, of my route has been through country ranging from 3500 feet 

 to 5000 feet. 



Can a dry land surface at such an altitude be unhealthy for 

 Europeans ? My impression is that, with regularity of living and 

 ordinary care, it cannot ; and I support my opinion by my own ex- 

 perience. Throughout my travels 1 have never been stopped a day 

 by fever, nor have I lost a single porter from death. I have twice 

 suffered from dysentery — once severely, and have only had one cold 

 in Africa between 1890 and 1900, whereas in England I consider 

 myself fortunate if I get off with four in a winter. With well-built 

 houses and good diet I am convinced that the earth offers few 

 healthier sites for European settlement than the higher parts of the 

 plateau of Africa. 



Immediately after the first rains the Karroo veldt becomes a 

 veritable carpet in colouring. The latent richness of the soil re- 

 sponds with incredible promptitude to its absorption of water — the 

 only factor necessary to invest it with first class wealth-producing 

 properties. Flowers of various tints spring into being, and the 

 arid monotony of what appeared only a few days earlier to be but 

 a parched desert, studded here and there with abrupt barren kopjes 

 rising like islands from the sea bed, has become a rich pasturage 

 for herds of cattle and flocks of goats and sheep. Here and there 

 at extended intervals a cluster of well-grown trees surrounds a home- 

 stead — a modest indication of undeveloped wealth and a prayer for 

 enterprise from the dry veldt surface. Wells and dams will one day 

 convert the Karroo and the grass plains beyond into one of the 

 richest and most habitable places of the earth. 



From the Orange liiver to Mafeking the Karroo gives place to 

 modified undulations, growing grass in one place and stunted scrub 

 in another, but trees larger than a well-grown gooseberry-bush are 

 seldom encountered in the open veldt. 



Two miles north of Mafeking a scattered savannah forest of 

 thorny acacia is encountered, and although trees henceforward vary 

 in character, forest land extends with one or two trifling exceptions 

 as far as the borders of the north African desert. Undulations — 

 sometimes of a light clay, sometimes of gravel — characterise the 

 route through the east of the Bechuanaland Protectorate. These are 



