52 MODERN FOREST ECONOMY. 



ently a species of Bauhinia, in the Sliua valley, in the 

 district of Limpopo. By the deceased Mr James Chapman, 

 a man careful in his observations, I was informed : ' The 

 Mopane trees are small in the lower portion of the Shua 

 valley* which is the part which I presume would be 

 longest under water ' but they are larger and stronger 

 the higher that valley is ascended/ in proportion, that is, 

 according to my assumption, as the soil has been longer 

 free from the covering of water ' and very much larger 

 in the vicinity of the river Nate, which comes in a direction 

 from the town of Moselekatsi, where they have attained 

 a considerable magnitude' which I attribute to that part 

 having emerged from a waste of waters at a much earlier 

 period, while waters covered to a considerable depth the 

 lower-lying lands. 



In whatever way and at whatever time forests may have 

 been produced in South Africa, there are indications that 

 the land was at one time much more extensively covered 

 with forests than it is now ; and there is evidence that 

 forests once existed there which have in some cases been 

 cleared away and in others greatly reduced in extent. To 

 South Africa, in the region of Natal, was given by Vasco 

 de Gama, in 1495, the name of Terra de Fume, and the 

 extensive burning of bush, herbage, and grass, the smoke 

 arising from which procured for it that designation, has 

 been continued on to the present time, apparently, both 

 by native tribes and by European colonists, throughout a 

 period of well-nigh 400 years, and probably from times 

 long anterior to the time of that discoverer. Not only 

 have Dr. Moffat, Dr. Cassils, Dr. Livingstone, and others 

 conjectured, from what may be seen going on in the 

 present day, that this long-continued practice of burning 

 off the dry or hard products of vegetation must have had 

 the effect of destroying many trees, but some of them 

 have told of stumps and other remains of burnt trees seen 

 by them ; and to these I have referred as indications of 

 the laud having been at one time much more extensively 

 covered with rorests than it is now. Moffat tells of ' the 



