FRIEDRICH WELWITSCH. 7 
time passed at Benguela, in Lat. 12 deg. 30 min. S., he proceed 
by sea to Mossamedes ( Little — Bay, Lat. 15 deg. 8° ), where 
the magnificent climate speedily recovered him, and he gradually ex- 
tended his journeys, first along the pone as far south as Ca: ape Negro, 
the port of Pinda, and the Bay of Tigers (Lat. 17 deg. 8S.), and 
inland he ele 
ards as the spring (October) approached, to the elevated 
plateau calle a, iles » Which 
th ght of from about 5800 to 6000 feet above the sea-level. A 
short sketch of the vegetation of the coast region is given in a pub- 
lished letter to Dr. Hooker (Journ. Society, vol.v., p. 182) wri 
D return to Loanda. The ble differences 
between its flora and that of the coast of An are vi 
however, the forms characteristic of the Cape flora are lost; the 
vegetation becomes with every step richer in purely tropical forms, 
— are especially developed on the banks of the Béro, in a variety 
e would never have imagined in so apparently dry a coast region.” 
Farther south this dryness becomes more more excessive and the 
poorer, chiefly consisting i@. As Cape 
* egro (Lat. 15 de is approached, es to form 
a a plateau, of about 3000 or 4000 feet in height, and ex- 
n es in e country, compos a ¢ 8 
stated > r with loose sandstone-shingle e vegetation on this arid 
botanist, and has formed the subject of a fine memoir ker, 
rans., vol. xxiv., 1863)—the Welwitschia murabilis,* since 
found in very similar country by Baines and Anderson in D 
Land, near Walfisch Bay, some 500 miles south of Cape Ne egro. Of 
this plant Dr. Hooker says in the memoir rypinal pean it is ‘fone 
that I do - hesitate to consider the most w in a botani 
point of vi w, that has been brought to light aes the present 
should prove it a figment of the mene 
t the vegetation of the highlands of Huilla, though bringing to 
light no such wonder as the “Wehvitechia, produced quite as strong an 
impression on the mind i of the traveller. He started from Mossamedes 
at the beginning of October, and fellating the banks of the 
Mayombo, reached Bumbo, on the slopes of the Serra de Chella, and 
crossing that chain at a height of about 4200 one a himself on 
the tableland at the end of the month. ‘‘ The apecenenns 
the landscape, the aspect of forest and Sc ARE HE whole 
character of the rane eg was at once and entirely changed as look 
* Reichenbach’s Polemoniaceous epee ee (1837) was reduced to 
Gilia by Bentham. (See DC. Prod. ix., 10,) 
