FOOD OF LARGE aUADRUPEDS. 109 



If, however, we refer to any work of travels tliroiigli 

 the southern parts of Africa, we shall find allusions 

 in almost every page either to the desert character 

 of the country, or to the numbers of large animals 

 inhabiting it. The same thing is rendei'ed evident 

 by the many engravings which have been publish- 

 ed of various parts of the interior. When the 

 Beagle was at Cape Town, I made an excursion 

 of some days' length into the country, which at least 

 was sufficient to render that which I had read more 

 fully intelligible. 



Dr. Andrew Smith, who, at the head of his ad- 

 venturous party, has lately succeeded in passing 

 the Tropic of Capricorn, informs me that, taking 

 into consideration the whole of the southern j^art 

 of Africa, there can be no doubt of its being a ster- 

 ile country. On the southern and south-eastern 

 coasts there are some fine forests, but with these ex- 

 ceptions, 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 sup- 

 ported 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-wagons can ti-avel in any direction, 

 excepting near the coast, without more than occa- 

 sionally half an hour's delay in cutting down bush- 

 es, 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 



* I mean by this to exclude the total amount, which may have 

 been successively produced and consumed during a given period. 



K 



