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that kind of vegetation cannot exist without sunshine, and in the virgin forest there is always a kind of twilight. There is no danger of sunstroke in the forest, but the heat is often suffocating-a moist, dank, sunless heat." There are many hills and vales, and in some of the latter merry streams ripple over their stony beds, but more often the valleys are marshes and beds of black mud, where grows the bamboo with its drooping branches and pale green feathery leaves.

7. Inland from the Slave Coast is the Kingdom of Dahomey, which bears an evil name for its sanguinary rites and horrible religious ceremonies. The capital is Abomey, a town of about 30,000 inhabitants. The Dahomey Negroes are small, but very robust. The king has a female body-guard of real Amazons, renowned for their bravery.

8. Eastward from Lagos, and across the Bight or Bay of Benin, so familiar to palm-oil traders, we come to the Niger, crawling amid swamps and rotting vegetation, and emptying itself by many mouths into the sea. Abo, at the head of the Delta, is the chief trading station. Eastward again is the Bight of Biafra, and here the Cameroon mountains extend to the shore. Opposite the high peaks of the Cameroons are four islands in a line, the inner and outer, Fernando Po, and Annobon, being Spanish, whilst Prince's Island and St. Thomas Island, between the others, belong to Portugal. These islands are all volcanic, very fertile and very beautiful, but most unhealthy. So beautiful are they that they have been called "volcanic flower gardens;" but so dangerous is the hot moist climate to Europeans, that one of them-St. Thomasused to be known as the Dutchman's grave.

9. Southwards from the Bight of Biafra to Cape Frio, a distance of about 1,500 miles, the coast country is called Lower Guinea. It differs little from the more northern portion of the west coast of Africa already described. Close to the equator lie unimportant Spanish and French colonies; elsewhere as far south as the great Congo river are native states, the chief Negro tribe being the Fans.

10. The Congo, or Zaire, which takes its rises in Lake Tanganyika, and after a course through half of Africa, among the villages of wild tribes which line its banks, pours its waters into the sea in territory claimed by Portugal. The river is navigable only for a few miles inland, owing to rapids. Notwithstanding the ferocious and treacherous disposition of the tribes living on the banks, European trading stations have been established on its banks, one as far inland as sixty miles.

11. South of the Congo is the Portuguese territory of Angola. The country is ill-governed, and since the suppression of the slave traffic other trade has declined. St. Paul de Loango and Benguela, the latter at one time a great slave port, are the chief towns.

LESSON XLI.

SOUTH AFRICA.-I.

1. Still keeping southward from the Portuguese possessions, we soon find ourselves in a region widely different from that further north. No longer is the country damp and swampy; luxuriant forests cover no part of it, and instead of the great rivers, like the Niger and the Congo, we find a few muddy streams, swollen during the rains, but dried up in the hot season. The Berber, the Arab, and the Turk, are no longer seen; and the Negroes, with their low foreheads, thick lips, projecting lower jaws, and intensely curly hair, give place to a dark, an almost black people-the bright intelligent race of Kaffirs. Mingled with them are other racesHottentots and Bushmen-to whom they are aliens. The Bushmen were most probably the original inhabitants of the country who were ousted by the Kaffirs. But again the conquerors met with their conquerors, for the British, partly as original colonisers, and partly as successors to the Dutch, have occupied the southern part of Africa, known as Cape Colony, and extended their influence into

the interior until all the South African continent, from Cape Frio on the west to Delagoa Bay on the east-with the single exception of the Orange River Republic-is more or less under British authority.

2. The hilly, dry, and barren country which stretches southwards from 20° south latitude to the Orange river is called Damara and Namaqua Lands. The former is inhabited chiefly by Kaffirs, called, from their numerous herds of cattle, Cattle Damaras. The latter is inhabited chiefly by Hottentots. Copper abounds in Damara Land, and ostriches course over it in abundance. North of the Damara Land is a fertile country, occupied by tribes akin to the Damaras, and known as the Ovampos.

3. Inland from the country just described lies the dreary Kalahari Desert. It is perhaps the driest part of South Africa-the Sahara of the south. There is no

running water, and scarcely any rainfall, and the only vegetation consists of a few tufts of grass and some bulbous plants, which the nomadic savages, the Bushmen, search for, knowing that they contain a refreshing supply of water. There is no attempt at cultivation in all this

waste.

4. The country south and east of the Kalahari Desert, from the Orange River on the west to the Limpopo river on the east we may include under the general name of the South African Provinces. These provinces are Cape Colony, with certain smaller districts more or less closely connected with it, viz., Little Namaqua Land in the north-west; Griqualand West, north of the Orange river ; Basuto Land and Kaffir Land in the east; Natal, to which is assigned the care of the Zululand; the Orange River State, and the Transvaal. The Orange River State is a free Republic; and the British authority over the Transvaal is confined to its foreign relations. the other parts of South Africa are British colonies.

All

5. The chief physical features of South Africa follow from the fact that here we have the termination of the great central plateau of the continent. This plateau does not terminate in one, but in two or three mountain chains parallel to each other as well as to the sea coast.

If we proceed inland from the south coast, we shall find that the country rises step by step in a series of terraces, and that each terrace is bounded by a mountain chain. The outer or maritime ranges have different names in different parts, the most prominent being the LangeBergen. Further inland is the great Zwarte-Bergen range, or the Black Mountains. Eighty or ninety miles further inland again are the Roggeveld and Nieuwveld ranges, which on the east join the Sneuw-Bergen, WinterBergen, and Storm-Bergen, to end in the great DrakenBergen range, which faces the Indian Ocean.

6. The country between the Zwarte-Bergen Mountains and the parallel chains further north is a vast pastoral plain about a third as large as England and Wales-the great Karroo. During the summer months this region is dry and desolate. The river-beds are dry for nine months of the year, except after an occasional thunder shower, and there is an almost total want of vegetation. There are no trees, and but few shrubs. But when the rainy season comes, Nature puts on a new face. The plain is changed "to a smiling flower-garden, or a grassy moor," and for a few weeks the sheep luxuriate in a paradise of herbage.

7. The inland range of mountains, of which Spitz Top, or the "Compass Mountain" is the highest point, is the water parting of South Africa. From this range streams run northward into the Orange River, westward and southward into the Atlantic Ocean, and eastward into the Indian Ocean. The Orange river is the largest stream. It rises in the Draken-Bergen, and runs westward for 500 miles, through a dreary and barren country, into the Atlantic Ocean. It is so broken up by waterfalls as to be useless for navigation, and the same may be said of most of the other rivers of the Cape.

8. The Olifant's, or Elephant's River, also flowing westward into the Atlantic, overflows its banks during the rainy season, and, "like a little Nile," deposits quantities of mud on the coast land, in which fine crops of corn are grown. The Breede River flows south through one of the most fertile and valuable districts of the colony,

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