Chap. V. 
NATURAL DIVISIONS OF AFRICA. 
95 
pliysical appearance^ and population. These are more marked 
beyond than witMn the colony. At some points one district 
seems to be continued in and to merge into the other, but the 
general dissimilarity warrants the division, as an aid to memory. 
The eastern zone is often furnished lAtli mountains, well wooded 
with evergreen succulent trees, on wliich neither fire nor droughts 
can have the smallest effect {Strelitzia^ Zamia horrida^ Portu- 
lacca afra, Sclwtia speciosaj Puphorhias^ and Aloe arborescem) ; 
and its seaboard gorges are clad with gigantic timber. It is also 
comparatively weM watered with streams and flowing rivers. 
The annual supply of rain is considerable, and the inhabitants 
(Caffres or Zulus) are tall, muscular, and well made; they are 
slirewd, energetic, and brave; altogether they merit the cha¬ 
racter given them by military authorities, of being “ magnificent 
savages.” Their splendid physical development and form of skull 
show that, but for the black skin and woolly hair, they would 
take rank among the foremost Europeans. 
The next division, that wliich embraces the centre of the 
continent, can scarcely be called hilly, for what hills there are 
are very low. It consists for the most part of extensive, slightly 
undulating plains. There are no lofty mountains, but few springs, 
and still fewer flowing streams, Eain is far from abundant, and 
droughts may be expected every few years. Without artificial 
irrigation no European grain can be raised, and tlie inhabitants 
(Bechuanas), though evidently of the same stock, originally, with 
those akeady mentioned, and closely resembling them in being 
an agricultural as well as a pastoral people, are a comparatively 
timid race, and inferior to the Caffres in physical development. 
The w^estern division is still more level than the middle one, 
being rugged only near the coast. It includes the great plain 
called the Kalahari Desert, which is remarkable for little water 
and very considerable vegetation. 
The reason probably why so little rain falls on this extensive 
plain is, that the prevailing winds of most of the interior country 
are easterly, with a .little southing. The moisture taken up 
by the atmosphere from the Indian ocean is deposited on the 
eastern Mlly slope ; and, when the moving mass of air reaches its 
greatest elevation, it is then on the verge of the great vaUey, or, 
as in the case of the Kalahari, the great heated inland plains; 
