PREFACE. 
The tract of land, which forms the Cape of Good Hope, widens 
gradually as it recedes from the sea ; the western coast consists 
of extensive sandy deserts, incapable of cultivation, and the 
interior part exhibits ridges of high mountains ; between them 
are other deserts, the soil of which is a reddish earth, intermixed 
with rotten schistus, impregnated with salt. 
These deserts, called Karro, are furnished with great variety 
of succulent plants, endowed by nature, as the camel is, with 
the power of retaining within them water, sufficient to enable 
them to survive the long periods of drought v/hich prevail in 
those regions. The climate differs very much from that near 
the Cape, where the vegetable productions approach more to 
the nature of Alpine plants. 
This tract of country has afforded more riches for the na- 
turalist than perhaps any other part of the globe. When the 
Europeans first settled there, the whole might have been com- 
pared to a great park, furnished with a wonderful variety of 
animals, such as the elephant, the rhinoceros, the hippopo- 
tamus, the camelopardalis, numerous species of the genus 
antelope, the lion, panther, hyaena, and many other ferocious 
animals ; but since the country has been inhabited by Euro- 
peans, most of these have been destroyed or driven away. 
The ornithology of the Cape is very interesting; incredible 
numbers of strange sorts of birds, quite unknown to the in- 
habitants, often migrate from the interior country, and visit 
the European settlements. 
The vegetable kingdom seems almost inexhaustible, and 
most of the genera at the Cape are peculiar to the southein 
