SOUTHERN AFRICA. 3 
settlement may be considered as an unprofitable waste, unfit 
for any soil of culture, or even to be eui{)loyed as pasture for 
the support of cattle. Level plains, consisting of a hard im- 
penetrable surface of clay, thinly sprinkled over v>^ith crys- 
tallized sand, condemned to perpetual drought, and producing 
only a few straggling tufts of acrid, saline, and succulent 
plants, and chains of vast mountains that are either totally 
naked, or clothed in parts witli sour grasses only, or such 
plants as are noxious to animal life, compose at least one half 
of the colony of the Cape. These chains of mountains and 
the interjacent plains are extended generally in the direction 
of east and west, except indeed that particular range which;, 
beginning at False Bay, opposite to the Cape Point, stretches 
to the northward along the western coast as far as the mouth 
of Olifant's river, which is about 210 miles. 
The first great chain of mountains that runs east and west 
encloses, between it and the southern coast, an irregular belt 
of land from twenty to sixt\' miles in width, indented by seve- 
ral bays, covered with a deep and fertile soil, intersected by 
numerous streamlets, well clothed with grass and small ar- 
boreous or frutescent plants, well wooded in many parts with 
forest-trees, supplied with frequent rains, and enjoying, on ac- 
count of its proximity to the sea, a more mild and equable 
temperature tlian the more remote and interior parts of the 
colony. 
The next great chain is the Zwarte Berg or Black Mountain. 
This is considerably more lofty and rugged than the first, and 
B 2 
