SOUTHERN AFRICA. 297 
than five hundred miles. On each fide of the river, the fijrface 
of the country was naked and barren as the Karroo, and infi- 
nitely more difagreeable, being loofe fand ; but at the diftance 
of a couple of miles on the fouth fide, were plains well covered 
with herbage. In feveral places the inundations had extended 
beyond a mile from the river, as was apparent by the wreck of 
large trees, roots, fhrubs, and ridges of fand, lying in a long 
continued line. The elevation of the ground, at fuch points of 
inundation, could not be lefs than thirty to forty feet above the 
level of the river at its ordinary ftate. 
The Orange river, like the Nile, has its periodical inunda- 
tions, and, as well as that river, might be made by the help of 
canals, to fertilize a vafl extent of adjoining country. The 
Orange alfo has its cataracts. One of thefe made a prodi- 
gious roaring noife, not far from one of the places where we 
halted ; but it was not approachable without a great deal of 
fatigue and trouble. It is a remark that cannot fail to obtrude 
itfelf on every traveller in Southern Africa, who may have at- 
tended to the accounts that have been given of the northern 
parts of the fame continent, that the analogy between them is 
very clofe. Egypt and the colony of the Cape lie under the 
fame parallels of latitude : they have the fame kind of climate, 
the fame foil, the fame faline waters : they both abound in 
natron ; and the fame plants and the fame animals are com- 
mon to both. Egypt, without the Nile, would be a defart wafte, 
producing only a few fahne and fucculent plants like thofc of 
the Great Karroo, where rain full as feldom falls as in the for- 
mer country j and the fandy foil of the Cape, with the afiiftance 
CLQ^ of 
