90 BAHIA BLANC A chap. 



informs me that, taking into consideration the whole of the 

 southern part of Africa, there can be no doubt of its being a 

 sterile country. On the southern and south-eastern coasts there 

 are some fine forests, but with these exceptions, the traveller 

 may pass for days together through open plains, covered by a 

 poor and scanty vegetation. It is difficult to convey any 

 accurate idea of degrees of comparative fertility ; but it may be 

 safely said that the amount of vegetation supported at any one 

 time ^ by Great Britain, exceeds, perhaps even tenfold, the 

 quantity on an equal area in the interior parts of Southern 

 Africa. The fact that bullock-waggons can travel in any 

 direction, excepting near the coast, without more than occasion- 

 ally half an hour's delay in cutting down bushes, gives, perhaps, a 

 more definite notion of the scantiness of the vegetation. Now, 

 if we look to the animals inhabiting these wide plains, we shall 

 find their numbers extraordinarily great, and their bulk immense. 

 We must enumerate the elephant, three species of rhinoceros, and 

 probably, according to Dr. Smith, two others, the hippopotamus, 

 the giraffe, the bos caffer — as large as a full-grown bull, and the 

 elan — but little less, two zebras, and the quaccha, two gnus, and 

 several antelopes even larger than these latter animals. It may 

 be supposed that although the species are numerous, the indivi- 

 duals of each kind are few. By the kindness of Dr. Smith, I 

 am enabled to show that the case is very different. He informs 

 me, that in lat. 24°, in one day's march with the bullock- 

 waggons, he saw, without wandering to any great distance on 

 either side, between one hundred and one hundred and fifty 

 rhinoceroses, which belonged to three species : the same day he 

 saw several herds of giraffes, amounting together to nearly a 

 hundred ; and that, although no elephant was observed, yet 

 they are found in this district. At the distance of a little more 

 than one hour's march from their place of encampment on the 

 previous night, his party actually killed at one spot eight 

 hippopotamuses, and saw many more. In this same river there 

 were likewise crocodiles. Of course it was a case quite 

 extraordinary, to see so many great animals crowded together, 

 but it evidently proves that they must exist in great numbers. Dr. 

 Smith describes the country passed through that day, as " being 



^ I mean by this to exclude tlie total amount which may have been successively 

 produced and consumed during a given period. 



