258 Voyage of the Novara. 



its wild hollows, with its forests of the greyish green Pratea 

 Gargentea at his feet, amid its far extending rocky plateaux, 

 full of stagnant water-pools ; whoever has strayed thence 

 among the wine-producing terraced hills of Constantia, with 

 their rich vegetation j over the sandy table-lands backed by rocky 

 ridges, over streams of copper-coloured water, and the boggy 

 tracts that extend to the extreme south-west point, as far as the 

 Sandstone rocks, 800 feet high, which, descending sheer into 

 the tempest-tossed, fearsome, boiling ocean, constitutes the 

 actual Cape of Good Hope — obtains a tolerably just and correct 

 idea of the appearance of Southern Africa for one hundred 

 miles into the interior, and along the coast line, 400 English 

 miles in length, which stretches from St. Helena Bay as far 

 as the River Samtoos, west of Algoa Bay. All is sandstone 

 or clay-slate, with occasional granitic knobs cropping out ; no 

 trees, but such as are planted in clumps around the sparsely 

 scattered farms, conspicuous from an immense distance ; while, 

 on the other hand, in spring, an indescribable flush of blossoms 

 and flowers, and instead of trees, millions of ant-hills, with their 

 regularly- shaped cones from three to four feet high, impart a 

 peculiar character to the landscape of South Africa. But on 

 the so-called Lowlands of Algoa Bay, beyond the River Sam- 

 toos, Nature assumes an entirely different character in her 

 forest vegetation. Unfortunately, the original designs of the ^ 

 geologists of the Expedition, of Examining the petrified trea- 

 sures of this renowned district, fell through, which was all the 

 more to be regretted as this geological Eldorado promised a 

 great accession to our collection. 



