310 THROUGH ANGOLA 



current already mentioned. The rainfall of this 

 belt is less than an inch annually. The cool, dry 

 climate, and an absence of malarial mosquitoes, 

 makes this portion of Angola remarkably healthy 

 considering its latitude in Africa. 



Ten to thirty miles from the coast commences 

 a zone of gneiss, granite, black quartzite, and 

 mica schists ; while here and there are low hills of 

 these formations, or even monoliths, bare, smooth, 

 sombre ; in the desert, waste. This arid country 

 is as rainless as the coast, and lacks its cool sea 

 breezes. 



A few miles farther inland rises the steep 

 Chella range, a "massif" of gneiss, granite, and 

 crystalline schists with occasional basalt, and 

 with the high plateau (5000 feet) which sur- 

 mounts this mountain wall commences the 

 district of Huilla, and its chief towns, Lubango, 

 Huilla, and Chibia, have a rainfall of some 

 35 inches), and temperatures of 50 to 78 at 

 Lubango, and 54 to 82 at Huilla and Chibia ; 

 which render these climates suitable for a white 

 colony. 



The geological formation of the country is 

 largely sandstone, red schist with some talc, 

 dolomite limestones, clay-slates and mylaphry, all 

 overlying the older rocks. 



To the cast and south of the Huilla plateau 

 the land slopes steadily downwards, and the 

 climate, as at Quihita and Gambos, becomes 

 hotter. The geological formation consists of a 

 wide band of gabbro on both sides of the Cacoluvar 

 valley ; in this gabbro are veins of granulite, 



