AFRICA SINCE 1S88 
163 
life of hardship, privation, and intense activit 3 ^ the other to a 
genial climate, where toil was unnecessary and where all the 
surroundings were favorable to life and a rapid increase of popu- 
lation. The one has steadily advanced, the other retrograded, a 
difference largely due to environment. 
The southern coast of Africa for nearly eight hundred miles, 
is entirely destitute of navigable rivers ; has neither harbors 
nor islands, has only one or two open roadsteads, and therefore 
offers no inducements to commerce. Nearly parallel with the 
coastline are three chains of mountains running from east to 
west, the first about fifty miles from the ocean and the others 
from fifty to one hundred miles apart, each succeeding range 
rising higher than the one in front of it. On the coast the soil is 
rich and fertile, producing excellent grapes, yielding more wine 
per acre than those of any other country, though of an inferior 
quality. There is an abundant rainfall and the crops are large, 
but the rain clouds passing over the mountains leave the. pla- 
teau between them dry and barren. North of the third range is 
the valley of the Orange, various branches of which, rising to the 
north and south among the mountains, flow across Africa to the 
Atlantic. Its eastern watershed is well watered and can be 
easily irrigated, but until irrigated it is only adapted to grazing. 
The railroad from the cape of Good Hope to Johannesburg 
runs almost through the middle of the country. The land west 
of the railroad is arid, and the Orange river grows shallower as 
it approaches the sea. Only a small portion of the country is 
suitable for agriculture, but a large part offers, wdth but little 
labor, good pasturage for cattle all the year round. The climate 
is delightful, the thermometer rarely rising to 90° Fah. or falling 
below the freezing point. 
This country was formerly inhabited by the Hottentots, among 
the lowest in the .scale of negro races. About the time the Boers 
landed in South Africa, the Bantus, the highest in the scale, were 
pushing their wa}" to the south, along the eastern coast, forcing 
the Hottentots into the interior and thence to the west. After 
the advent of the Boers the increase in j)opulation was very slow, 
the total number of inhabitants being only about twenty thou- 
sand when the English took possession of Cape Colony in ISOO. 
The English emigrants wen; better educated than the Boers, and 
the two races have rarely intermarried. 
After the Crimean war in 2, (MX) t<j 3,0()() Germans, volun- 
teers in that war, were given homesteads in southeastern .Africa 
