EFFECTS OF FORESTS ON SPRINGS. 173 



Table Bay -with the German Legion, the wood thus formed was con- 

 sumed by a fire, occasioned by one of his neighbours burning the 

 bush on his farm, and I understood him to say that the effects were 

 again the same : a somewhat copious flow of water, which had been 

 re-established during the growth of the trees, was suddenly stopped 

 by the denudation of the soil. 



In a preceding chapter I have stated that Dr Moffat follows up the 

 details given by him of the destruction of trees by Bechuanas, which 

 I have cited, with the remark, " To this system of extermination may 

 be attributed the long succession of dry seasons." " To the the same 

 cause," says he, " may be traced the diminution of fountains, and the 

 entire failure of some which formerly afforded a copious supply, such 

 as Griqua Town, Campbell, and a great number of others which might 

 be mentioned. It has been remarked that since the accidental 

 destruction of whole plains of the Olea similis (wild olive) by fire, near 

 Griqua Town, as well as the diminishing of large shrubs on the 

 neighbouring heights a gradual decrease of rain has succeeded in that 

 region." And Chapman accompanied information which he gave to me 

 in regard to the destruction of forests in the interior with a similar 

 observation. Moffat relates that on his settlement at Latakoo " the 

 natives were wont to tell of the floods of ancient times, the incessant 

 showers which clothed the very rocks with verdure, and the giant trees 

 and forests which once studded the brows of the Mamhana hills and 

 neighbouring plains. They boasted of the Kuruman and other rivers, 

 with their impassable torrents, in which the hippopotami played, while 

 the lowing herds walked to their necks in grass, filling their mdkuhas 

 (milk sacks) with milk, making every heart to sing for joy." 



He speaks of that river as issuing from caverns in lime stone hills, 

 full formed, like Minerva fully equipped from the head of Jove ; he 

 writes in 1842 "that it no longer continued to send forth the torrents 

 it once did :" he speaks of it as " once a large river emptying itself 

 into the Gariep, or Orange River, at a distance below the water-fall;" 

 but as then by absorption lost in its bed about ten miles to the north- 

 west of its source. 



In my own tours throughout the Colony I found everywhere in the 

 superficial aspect of the country indications that, at a period not very 

 remote, it must have been a land well-watered everywhere. I found 

 that within the memory of the present occupants of the land there 

 has been a remarkable change in the aridity, both of limited and of 

 extensive districts. And I found that in not a few places the change 

 was observed to follow immediately the destruction of bush. Details 



