BUSHMANLAND 19 



pygmy human inhabitants; nevertheless it is a 

 region full of varied and distinctive interest. 

 The landscape consists either of vast plains, 

 mirage-haunted and as level as the sea, — arid 

 mountain ranges — usually mere piles of naked 

 rock, or immense sand-dunes, massed and con- 

 voluted. The latter often change their form 

 and occasionally their location under stress of 

 the violent winds which sweep down from the 

 torrid north. 



The tract is an extensive one, probably up- 

 wards of 50,000 square miles lie within its 

 limits. It is bounded on the north by the 

 Gariep or Orange River — but as that flows 

 and eddies at the bottom of a tremendous 

 gorge which is cut off from the plains by a 

 lofty, stark range of mountains, — coal-black 

 in colour for their greater extent and glowing 

 hot throughout the long, cloudless day, the 

 traveller seldom sees it. The western bound- 

 ary is the Atlantic Ocean ; the eastern an 

 imaginary line drawn approximately south 

 from the Great Aughrabies Falls to the Kat 

 Kop Range. If we bisect this line with 

 another drawn due east from the coast to the 

 Lange Berg, we shall get a sufficiently recognis- 

 able boundary on the south. From the tract 

 so defined must be deducted the small area 





