TABLE MOUNTAIN RANGE 395 



Indeed, the discontinuity of such ranges as that of Table mountain and 

 of Eiebeecks kasteel, some 40 miles to the northeast, show that even the 

 synclines of Table Mountain sandstones have been worn away along a 

 large portion of the length of their axes, the residuals that still survive 

 probably being their lowest parts. This southwestern coastal district is 

 so open that movement is easy in any direction across the peneplain that 

 has been worn down on the older rocks, except where the isolated remnant 

 mountains stand up. 



There was so often occasion during our journey across the farther in- 

 terior country to speak of its aridity, as in the Karroo and along the 

 eastern border of the Kalahari, or of its monotony, as on the broad plains 

 of the Veld, that there is all the more reason for making mention of the 

 often attractive landscapes in the southwestern district of the Cape Col- 

 ony. The lower lands there frequently possessed a pleasing modulation 

 of surface, and even in the late winter month of our visit the fields 

 seemed hospitably inclined to support the colonists. True, the moun- 

 tains by which the lowlands are interrupted were of bare and ragged 

 rocks, with no forest cover, and indeed with scanty vegetation of any 

 sort; but they were of bold and picturesque outline — a strong back- 

 ground for the view from neat villages across fields in open vales and on 

 lower hills. It is possible that the landscape hereabout may have a more 

 austere aspect in the autumn after the dry summer; but when we saw it, 

 near the opening of spring, it was agreeably appealing, with a homelike 

 quality that was sadly absent elsewhere. 



On going farther inland the heavy Table Mountain sandstones form 

 more continuous ridges, because the general altitude of the synclines there 

 concerned decreases. Among these longer ridges movement is much con- 

 strained. The railway has to make a long detour northward to the 

 oblique gap of Berg river, in the Drakenstein ridge (not to be confounded 

 with the Drakensberg mountains of Basutoland, much farther northeast), 

 by which to reach a north-and-south anticlinal valley; then a long turn 

 is made southward to reach the Hex Eiver gorge, where the railway turns 

 northeastward (over the letters TO in Capetown in figure 1) in the next 

 range of Table Mountain sandstone, the southern termination of the 

 Cedarbergen. It is through this gorge that access is gained to the open 

 inner country of the Great Karroo, worn down to a lowland on the weak 

 Bokkeveld beds. It may be noted that Hex Eiver gorge, a superb ex- 

 hibition of erosion in the massive sandstones, is peculiar in being located 

 near the axis of a northeast-pitching syncline, formed where the north- 

 and-south system of folds joins the east-and-west system. The river is 

 furthermore peculiar in flowing against the pitch of the synclinal axis, 



