80 BAHIA BLANCA. [CHAP. v. 



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 siifficient 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 Capricorn, 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 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 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 sup- 

 posed that although the species are numerous, the individuals of 

 each kind are few. By the kindness of Dr. Smith, I am enabled to 



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

 successively produced and consumed during a given period. 



