SOUTHERN AFRICA. ^57 
mofl: perpendicular rocks, piled on each other in horizontal ftrata 
like thofe of Table Mountain at the Cape j but it defcends with 
a gentle flope to the eaftward, and terminates in Karroo plains. 
The grafles on the fummit are fhort but fweet, and the fmall 
fhrubby plants are excellent food for fheep and goats. The 
horfes, alfo, of this dlvlfion, are among the beft which the colony 
produces, and the cattle, as is the cafe in all the mountainous 
fituations, thrive very well. In fome of the valleys, where the 
grounds will admit of irrigation, the common returns of wheat 
are forty, and of barley fixty, for one, without any reft for 
twenty years, without fallowing, and without manure. In 
fuch fituations the foil is deeply tinged with iron, and abounds 
with maffcs of the fame kind of iron-ftone which I have already 
mentioned. 
The Spring-bok^ or the fpringing antelope, once fo abundant 
in this dlvifion, as to have been the caufe of its name, is now 
but an occafional vifitor, and feen only in fmall herds of a few 
hundreds. Steenboks and orbies and gr'iejboks are ftlll plentiful 
and large. Thtkorhanes or buftards, of three fpecies, and hares 
are fo plentiful that they were continually among the horfes 
feet in riding over the country. On the Karroo plains, clofe 
behind the Bokkeveld, are found the two large fpecies of ante- 
lope, the elatid and ihQ gemjhok, but their numbers are rapidly 
dimlnlftiing in confequence of the frequent excurfions of the 
farmers on purpofe to fhoot them ; not fo much for the fake 
of their flefh, which, however, is excellent, but for their fkins 
alone. 
19. The 
