118 



THE DESERTS. 



the same horrid aspect ; deceitful roadsteads and 

 dangerous anchorages, forbidding lines of chalky- 

 cliff and barren brown sandstone bluff ; flat 

 strands and white downs, hazed over by the 

 spray of desert sand ; and lowlands backed by 

 maritime sub-ranges, masses of bald hill and 

 naked mountains, streaked with dry wadis and 

 water- courses, that bear scatters of dates and 

 thorns, and which support miserable villages of 

 tents or huts. The fierce and wandering tribes, 

 Berber, Arab, and Arabo- African — an especially 

 ' crooked and perverse generation,' — are equally 

 dangerous to the land traveller and to the ship- 

 wrecked mariner. 



As sterile and unlovely for the same cause — 

 the absence of tropical rains — are the southern 

 regions of the great Nineteenth Century Island. 

 Good harbours are even rarer than in the north, 

 and the seas about the Cape of Hope, sweep- 

 ing up unbroken from the South Pole, are yet 

 more perilous. The highlands fringing the south- 

 ern and eastern coasts arrest the humid winds, 

 and are capable of supporting an extensive popu- 

 lation ; but the interior and the western coast, 

 being lowlands, are wild and barren. The South 

 African or Kafir family, which has overrun this 

 soil, is still for the most part in the nomade 



