29 



TORRENTIAL ACTION IN NATAL. During later geological times, torrential action 

 has been extremely powerful in Natal, and it is chiefly by the agency of water that 

 the mountains have been shaped and the river valleys formed. By degrees, the spread 

 of vegetation, at first doubtful, became more assured as the surface of the ground became 

 eroded into forms of greater stability, and the meteorological influences decreased in 

 intensity ; and eventually vegetation assumed and retained the upper hand. This 

 indicates one of the reasons why vegetation, dependent for its spread on its capacity to 

 resist denudation, is now so well fitted for the purpose. 



The physical conditions of Natal are in many respects similar to those of the South 

 of France, and equally favourable to the formation of torrents. We have the same 

 sudden heavy rains falling over a hilly country sloping rapidly from the mountains to the 

 sea ; and there are unmistakeable signs that in Natal an outbreak of torrentiality is at 

 present in an incipient stage. Floods are not unknown ; those of April, 1856, February, 

 1866, and recently that of January, 1886, are reported to have been very destructive. 

 And ravines, locally known as dongas, are already a conspicuous feature of many parts of 

 the country. Possibly dongas do not yet incommodate farming to any serious extent ; 

 but it should ba borne in mind that one of their attributes is to spread at a continually 

 increasing rate, and that, even now, this fate, though it is yet small, is by no means 

 insensible. Each one of the hundreds of dongas which I have seen in Natal appeared to 

 me of recent formation ; and whenever any definite information could be got from old 

 residents or Natives, I found this to be the case. Some of the ravines known to have 

 made their first appearance only a few years back have now attained a depth of ten or 

 twenty feet, and a greater width. The head of the Tugela Valley has been very much 

 cut up by the summer showers, and dongas there extend for miles ; the Tugela itself has 

 every characteristic of a torrential river. When following the coast, the rivers of the 

 Colony, crossed near their mouth, look as if they were streams of silt and ddbris as much 

 as streams of water. 



The diminution of the forests, and the practice of burning the grass in summer,, 

 which leaves the ground unprotected and liable to be loosened by rain and cattle precisely 

 when the violent thunderstorms occur, are sufficient causes to account for the increased 

 guttering of the land. Indeed, the experience of other countries makes it necessary to 

 explain why in Natal, with causes so potent, the effects are not already greater. The 

 destruction of forests and of herbage has been severe only within a comparatively recent 

 period. The Hottentot races which, a few centuries back, peopled South Africa were 

 neither pastoral nor agricultural, and their numbers remained small, so that the natural 

 conditions of the country were but slightly interfered with ; and it is only with the advent 

 of more destructive races and their great increase in late years, that vegetation began to 



