The Next Division, That Which 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.
Rain is far from abundant, and droughts
may be expected every few years.
Without artificial irrigation
no European grain can be raised, and the inhabitants (Bechuanas),
though evidently of the same stock, originally, with those already 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 western 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 hilly slope;
and when the moving mass of air reaches its greatest elevation, it is then
on the verge of the great valley, or, as in the case of the Kalahari,
the great heated inland plains; there, meeting with the rarefied air
of that hot, dry surface, the ascending heat gives it greater capacity
for retaining all its remaining humidity, and few showers can be given
to the middle and western lands in consequence of the increased
hygrometric power.
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