SOUTH-WEST COAST OF AFRICA. 193 



this desert from north to south, and during its three or four days' 

 dui'ation it withers and dries up everything in its path. It is so 

 loaded with electricity that a bundle of ostrich feathers, which 

 remained exposed to it for a few seconds, was itself charged as if it 

 had been in contact with a powerful electrical machine, and produced 

 a lively disturbance, accompanied by cracking noises, when taken in 

 the hand. As often as this wind prevails, the electricity of the 

 atmosphere is so abundant that every movement of the natives causes 

 sparks to be given off their harasses, or cloaks made of the skin of 

 beasts. 



The contrast is striking between the well-watered east coast of 

 South Africa and the arid western coast. After the scarped moun- 

 tains of the Cape, which ascend northward to the ocean, come the 

 less lofty chains the hills of sand which separate the interior sandy 

 desert from the equally sandy district of the littoral. With the 

 exception of the Wa-lvish Bay, the coast for eight hundred miles 

 from the great Orange River to Cape Negro has not a stream of 

 water. 



At Cape Negro commences a series of terraces, separated from one 

 another by long bands of sunken ground. This ensemble describes a 

 curve towards the interior, and leaves on the coast a level plain of 

 about 110 miles in breadth. 



In Benguela the plains are healthy and cultivated. More to the 

 north, one encounters nothing but monotonous savannahs and forests 

 with gigantic trees. The soil, at a great number of points, is satu- 

 rated with water, and, so to speak, enveloped in a shroud of pestilen- 

 tial vapour, which the breeze never scatters. 



The low plains of Biafra and Benin, and especially the Delta of 

 the Niger, are unwholesome, rank, and foul-smelling marshes. In 

 their mangrove swamps lurks fever, and a legion of deadly diseases. 



" Macies et nova febrium 

 Terris incubuit cohors." (Horace.) 



Until the early years of the present century very little was 

 known of the interior of Southern Africa. At this epoch some 



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