94 VEGETATION IN AFRICA. [chap. v. 



been a general assumption which has passed from one 

 work to another ; but I do not hesitate to say that it is 

 completely false, and that it has vitiated the reasoning of 

 geologists on some points of great interest in the ancient 

 history of the world. The prejudice has probably been 

 derived from India and the Indian islands, where troops of 

 elephants, noble forests, and impenetrable jungles, are 

 associated together in every one's mind. If, however, we 

 refer to any work of travels through 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 rendered 

 evident by the many engravings which have been published 

 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 adventurous 

 party, has lately succeeded in passing the Tropic of Capri- 

 corn, 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 com- 

 parative 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, except- 

 ing near the coast, without more than occasionally 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 boss 

 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. 



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

 successively produced and consumed during a given period. 



