BARROW. 
ed by nature to perpetual sterility. It is travers- 
ed by chains of vast mountains, rising one behind 
another ; and, except one, which runs northward 
along the Atlantic ocean, extending all in the di- 
rection of east to west. The intermediate plains 
are in a great measure covered with a hard impe- 
netrable clay, sprinkled over with crystallized 
sand, and condemned to perpetual drought. 
The first great chain runs parallel to the coast 
from east to west, and encloses, between it and 
the sea, a belt of land, varying from 20 to 60 
miles in breadth. This district is fertile, well 
wooded and watered, and enjoying a more mild 
and equal temperature than the rest of the colo- 
ny. Behind this chain rises, at some distance, 
the Zwarte Berg, or Black Mountain, considera- 
bly loftier and more rugged. The belt enclosed 
between these two is partly fertile, but inter- 
spersed with extensive tracts of arid clay land 
called Karroo. A third chain of mountains is 
called the Nieuweldts Gebirgte, and is greatly 
elevated above the Zwarte Berg. Between these 
two chains is situated the Great Karroo, an im- 
mense tract of parched desert, nearly 300 miles 
in length and 80 in breadth, which forms the 
third step or terrace of Southern Africa. 
Cape Town, the capital, and the only place in 
the colony to which the name of a town can be 
applied, consists of about eleven hundred houses^ 
