SOUTHERN AFRICA. ii 
confifts in many inftances of double and fometimes treble ranges. 
The belt enclofed between it and the firft chain is about the 
mean width of that between the firft and the fea ; of a furface 
very varied, compofed in fome parts of barren hills, in others 
of naked arid plains of clay, known to the natives, and alfo to 
the colonifts, by the name of Karroo ; and in others of choice 
patches of well watered and fertile grounds. The general fur- 
face of this belt has a confiderable elevation above that of the 
firft ; the temperature is lefs uniform ; and from the nature of 
the foil, as well as the difficulty of accefs over the mountains, 
which are pafl!able only in few places, this diftridt is much lefs 
valuable than the other. 
The third range of mountains is the Nieuwveldt's Gebergte, 
which, with the fecond, grafps the Great Karroo or arid defert, 
uninhabited by a human creature. This defert, making the 
third ftep or terrace of Southern Africa, is greatly elevated 
above the fecond ; is near 300 miles in length from eaft to 
weft, and eighty in breadth ; is fcarcely ever moiftened by a 
fliower of rain ; exhibits a furface of clay, thinly fprinkled over 
with fand, out of which a few ftirivelled and parched plants 
here and there meet the eye, faintly extending their half 
withered fibres along the ground, and ftruggling, as it were, 
to preferve their exiftence againft the exceffive heat of one 
feafon of the year and the fevere frofts of the other. 
The country likewife afcends from the weftern coaft towards 
the interior in fucceffive terraces, of which the moft elevated, 
called the Roggeveld, falls in with the laft-mentioned chain of 
c 2 mountains, 
