The Scene Must Have Been Very Different
In Former Times From What It Is Now.
This is part of the River Mahalapi,
which so-called river scarcely merits the name, any more than
the meadows of Edinburgh deserve the title of North Loch.
These hills are the last we shall see for months.
The country beyond
consisted of large patches of trap-covered tufa, having little
soil or vegetation except tufts of grass and wait-a-bit thorns,
in the midst of extensive sandy, grass-covered plains.
These yellow-colored, grassy plains, with moretloa and mahatla bushes,
form quite a characteristic feature of the country. The yellow or dun-color
prevails during a great part of the year. The Bakwain hills are an exception
to the usual flat surface, for they are covered with green trees
to their tops, and the valleys are often of the most lovely green.
The trees are larger too, and even the plains of the Bakwain country
contain trees instead of bushes. If you look north from the hills
we are now leaving, the country partakes of this latter character.
It appears as if it were a flat covered with a forest of ordinary-sized trees
from 20 to 30 feet high, but when you travel over it
they are not so closely planted but that a wagon with care may be
guided among them. The grass grows in tufts of the size of one's hat,
with bare soft sand between. Nowhere here have we an approach
to English lawns, or the pleasing appearance of English greensward.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 241 of 1070
Words from 69306 to 69567
of 306638
