and is navigable for a short distance near the coast. The rivers flowing south and south-east-the Gauritz, Garntoos, and Great Fish river-are great mountain torrents during the rainy season, and at other times they are almost dried up. Further east the rainfall is more regular, and the rivers and brooks have a more constant flow.

9. The Cape is a dry country, for, although in the east and extreme south there is an abundant supply of rain, in the inland regions the rainfall is scant and fitful, and towards the mouth of the Orange River several years may pass without any rain at all. The temperature in the valleys during the summer* is very hot, but on the higher grounds the ordinary heat of the warmest months does not exceed that of Central Europe, while in the winter the atmosphere is cool, clear, and bracing.

10. On the coast snow does not often fall, and then only remains for a short time. Table Mountain, so prominent an object from Cape Town, is sometimes sprinkled with white, but before the townspeople have had time to wonder at the spectacle, it is again bare of its unwonted covering. Snow lies on the higher mountain ranges, such as the Sneuw-Bergen and Storm-Bergen, for three or four months in the year.

1. Agriculture, sheep and ostrich farming, and mining for copper and diamonds, are the chief sources of wealth in the South African provinces. The maritime strip extending from the Olifant's river on the west to Zululand on the east, is the seat of the agricultural industry. Here large crops of wheat, maize, or "mealies," oats,

The Cape summers are our winters.

barley, and millet, or "Kaffir corn," are raised; and vineyards, orchards, and tobacco, sugar and coffee plantations, abound in the more favoured spots.

2. The slopes of the hills and the table-lands of the interior form vast sheep-walks, and "sheep-herding and shearing, wool-washing, sorting, and packing, and loading it in huge wagons to be sent three or four hundred miles, it may be, to the coast ports, employ a large proportion of the colonists." There are about fifteen millions of sheep in the colony, and £3,000,000 worth of wool are sent out of the country every year. The Angora goat is also kept in large numbers for the sake of its hair; and cattle to the number of a million and half are scattered over the colony.

3. The latest and most curious of the industries of

South Africa is "ostrich farming." Fifteen years ago ostrich feathers were the produce of the chase only; the bird was hunted down and killed, and on this account became scarce. Now flocks of ostriches are found all over the colony, and the Cape farmers buy and sell them as they do sheep. They fence their flocks in, stable them, grow crops for them, study their habits, and cut their feathers, as matters of business.

4. The eggs, which are laid to the number of about twenty by each bird in August, are the objects of particular care. They are hatched artificially, the heat being supplied by means of hot-water pipes. The value of the feathers exported in 1879 amounted to £715,000.

5. Some of the richest copper mines in the world are those of Little Namaqua Land, and copper ore to the value of £250,000 is exported every year. Diamonds are found in Griqualand West to the value of about £2,000,000 yearly.

6. Formerly the Cape was a famous hunting-ground, but of late years the vast number of wild animalslions, giraffes, rhinoceri, leopards, elands, antelopes, and other animals of the deer kind-which roamed over it have been greatly thinned, or have been driven out of the colony. Northwards, beyond the Orange River, hyænas and jackals are still common, and wild ostriches

WASHING SAND FOR DIAMONDS ON THE BANKS OF THE VAAL RIVER.

are occasionally seen in the north. Venomous snakes are also plentiful.

7. The largest town, the chief commercial port, and the capital of the Cape provinces, is Cape Town. It has a population of 45,000, and presents all the appearance of a flourishing European town. Graham's Town, Graaf Reinet, Port Elizabeth, and King William's Town, in Cape Colony; Maritzburg and Durban, or Port Natal, in Natal; and Kimberley, in Griqualand West, are the other principal towns.

8. The Orange River Free State consists for the most part of undulating grassy plains, forming part of the great plateau of the interior. The country is subject to droughts, and agriculture is pursued but little. Sheep and cattle grazing is the main occupation of the people, and wool-sent. in wagons to Durban—is almost the sole export. Bloemfontein, the capital, enjoys a dry and healthy climate.

9. Wool, copper ore, skins, goat's hair, and feathers, are the chief exports from South Africa.

THE EAST COAST OF AFRICA AND THE ISLANDS.

1. Delagoa Bay is a Portuguese possession, and all the coast northward as far as Cape Delgado, a distance of 1,400 miles, and for some distance inland, is claimed by the Portuguese, and governed nominally as their province of Mozambique. But the settlements are few, and only trading stations, and these are not in a flourishing condition. In most cases they exist solely by the sufferance of the fierce tribes in their vicinity.

2. The interior country between the Limpopo and Zambesi is only known to us by the reports of intrepid explorers and sportsmen. This hilly region, known as Matabele, is inhabited by Zulu Kaffir tribes.

3. The Zambesi is the most important river on the

east coast. It gathers most of its waters from the hills of the far inland plateau, but of the country drained by many of its tributary streams we know nothing. More than a thousand miles from its mouth are the wonderful Victoria Falls, the native name of which signifies "smoke does sound there." At the falls the bed of the river is still about 2,500 feet above the sea-level, and there are numerous other rapids and waterfalls before its waters find their way into the Indian Ocean through the numerous channels of a broad delta. The most inland Portuguese station is Tete, about 300 miles from the mouth, and at the head of the navigation from the sea.

4. Not far from the apex of the delta the Zambesi receives a large tributary-the Shire-which brings the surplus waters from Lake N'yassa. On the southern end of this lake is the settlement of Livingstonia. To the north-west is Lake Tanganyika, on which is built the well-known trading station of Ujiji.

5. The sultanate of Zanzibar claims a long narrow strip of territory opposite and to the north of Zanzibar Island, which forms the chief, though not the largest, portion of this enlightened Arab Sultan's kingdom. The population of the island is about one-third of a million, and of these 60,000 occupy the town of Zanzibar—the great emporium for the trade of East Africa. A large trade is done in hides, ivory, and other articles brought from the tribes of the interior, with whom the Arabs carry on an extensive barter.

6. The island is flat, only the interior rising to a height of 400 feet; but the soil is extremely fertile, and under the hot climate which prevails all the year round the crops of cocoa-nuts, mangoes, rice, sugar, millet, cloves, pepper, and cotton, are abundant and lucrative.

7. Westward and inland from the sultanate of Zanzibar is a vast region of mountains and barren plateaus of swamps and alluvial valleys, and, chief of all, of great lakes, forming a fresh-water system second only to that of North America in extent. This district has only been crossed here and there by recent explorers.