THE VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE 



97 



round Bahia Blanca, is any sure guide that they formerly 

 were clothed with a luxuriant vegetation: I have no doubt 

 that the sterile country a little southward, near the Rio 

 Negro, with its scattered thorny trees, would support many, 

 and large quadrupeds. 



That large animals require a luxuriant vegetation, has 

 been a general assumption which has passed from one work 

 to another; but I do not hesitate to say that it is completely 

 false, and that it has vitiated the reasoning of geologists 

 on some points of great interest in the ancient history of 

 the world. The prejudice has probably been derived from 

 India, and the Indian islands, where troops of elephants, 

 noble forests, and impenetrable jungles, are associated to- 

 gether in every one's mind. If, however, we refer to any 

 work of travels through the southern parts of Africa, we 

 shall find allusions in almost every page either to the desert 

 character of the country, or to the numbers of large ani- 

 mals inhabiting it. The same thing is rendered evident 

 by the many engravings which have been published of vari- 

 ous parts of the interior. When the Beagle was at Cape 

 Town, I made an excursion of some days' length into the 

 country, which at least was sufficient to render that which 

 I had read more fully intelligible. 



Dr. Andrew Smith, who, at the head of his adventurous 

 party, has lately succeeded in passing the Tropic of Capri- 

 corn, informs me that, taking into consideration the whole 

 of the southern part of Africa, there can be no doubt of its 

 being a sterile country. On the southern and south-eastern 

 coasts there are some fine forests, but with these exceptions, 

 the traveller may pass for days together through open plains, 

 covered by a poor and scanty vegetation. It is difficult to 

 convey any accurate idea of degrees of comparative fertil- 

 ity; but it may be safely said that the amount of vegetation 

 supported at any one time 5 by Great Britain, exceeds, per- 

 haps even tenfold, the quantity on an equal area, in the 

 interior parts of Southern Africa. The fact that bullock- 

 waggons can travel in any direction, excepting near the 



5 1 mean by this to exclude the total amount which may have beea 

 successively produced and consumed during a given period. 



Vol. 29— D HG 



