242 AFRICA 



scarps. The South African waste land is almost sym- 

 metrical with, and analogous to, the Algerian high 

 plateaus in point of forms of growth, though perhaps 

 not so destitute of trees. 



Damara Desert. A rainless strip along the coast from 

 the Cunene to the Orange River, but broadening some- 

 what in the middle towards the Namib region, reaches 

 purely desert conditions. The sandy strand extending 

 inland by means of dunes is plantless, over miles 

 and miles. In places may be seen that strangest of 

 plant-forms, the welwitschia, a solitary stumpy pigmy- 

 tree, buried in the sand, only showing its woody head, 

 whence emerges a crown of long tattered ribbons of leaves 

 coiling over the ground. Again, on sandy wastes may 

 occur here and there an open brush of bushy, leafless, 

 fleshy euphorbias. Stony troughs harbour a sprinkling 

 of thorn-bush and trees : giraffe acacias, thorny acacias, 

 tree euphorbias, &c. Plateaus, chiefly characterized by 

 a vegetation of bulbs and tubers, are found farther 

 inland. In comparatively wet years the ground is 

 covered with the crawling melon plant, acanthosicyos 

 horrida, which supplies a most welcome food. In the 

 interior, a few grassy depressions afford some temporary 

 pastures. 



Karroo Region. The Kalahari is carried across the 

 Orange River to a scarcely less monotonous plain, treeless 

 and dotted with stunted bushes, though in the moister 

 depressions grassy patches are found interspersed with 

 shrubs and the ever-present thorny acacia : these 

 alternate with heath-like wastes covered with short 

 brushes of dwarf shrubs of a dull-green hue. Beyond the 

 edge of the plateau, which is thrown into a mountain- 

 like range, one descends to a lower terrace called the 

 Karroo. 



