82 REGENERATION OF THE DARK CONTINENT. 



The Sahara is by no means the sea of sand it has sometimes 

 been represented ; it contains elevated plateaux and even mountains 

 radiating in all directions, with habitable valleys between. A con- 

 siderable nomadic population is scattered over the habitable parts, 

 and in the more favored regions there are settled communities. 



The Sudan, which lies to the south of the Sahara, and separates 

 it from the more elevated plateau of Southern Africa, forms a belt 

 of pastoral country across Africa, and includes the countries on the 

 Niger, around Lake Tchad (or Chad), and eastwards to the 

 elevated region of Abyssinia. 



FERTILITY OF SOIL OF SOUTHERN AFRICA. 



Southern Africa as a whole is much more fertile and better 

 watered than northern Africa, though it also has a desert tract of 

 considerable extent (the Kalahari Desert). This division of the 

 continent consists of a table-land, or series of table-lands, of con- 

 siderable elevation and great diversity of surface, exhibiting hollows 

 filled with great lakes, and terraces over which the rivers break in 

 falls and rapids, as they find their way to the low-lying coast tracts. 



The mountains which inclose Southern Africa are mostly much 

 higher on the east than on the west, the most northerly of the 

 former being those of Abyssinia, with heights of 10,000 to 14,000 

 or 16,000 feet, while the eastern edge of the Abyssinian plateau 

 presents a steep unbroken line of 7,000 feet in height for many 

 hundred miles. Farther south, and between the great lakes and 

 the Indian ocean, we find Mounts Kenia and Kilimanjaro (19,500 

 feet), the loftiest in Africa, covered with perpetual snow. 



Of the continuation of this mountain boundary we shall only 

 mention the Drakenburg Mountains, which stretch to the southern 

 extremity of the continent, reaching in Cathkin Peak, Natal, the 

 height of over 10,000 feet. Of the mountains that form the west- 

 ern border the highest are the Cameroon Mountains, which rise 

 to a height of 13,000 feet, at the inner angle of the Gulf of Guinea. 

 The average elevation of the southern plateau is probably from 

 3,000 to 4,000 feet. 



The Nile is the only great river in Africa which flows to the 



