Below This Mass
Lies A Pale Red Hardened Sandstone, And Beneath That A Trap-Like Whinstone.
Lowest Of All Lies A Coarse-Grained Sandstone Containing A Few Pebbles,
And, In Connection With It, A White Calcareous Rock Is Occasionally Met With,
And So Are Banks Of Loose Round Quartz Pebbles.
The slopes are longer
from the level country above the further we go eastward,
and every where we meet
With circumscribed bogs on them,
surrounded by clumps of straight, lofty evergreen trees,
which look extremely graceful on a ground of yellowish grass.
Several of these bogs pour forth a solution of iron, which exhibits
on its surface the prismatic colors. The level plateaus between the rivers,
both east and west of the Moamba, across which we traveled,
were less woody than the river glens. The trees on them
are scraggy and wide apart. There are also large open grass-covered spaces,
with scarcely even a bush. On these rather dreary intervals
between the rivers it was impossible not to be painfully struck
with the absence of all animal life. Not a bird was to be seen,
except occasionally a tomtit, some of the `Sylviadae' and `Drymoica',
also a black bird (`Dicrurus Ludwigii', Smith) common throughout the country.
We were gladdened by the voice of birds only near the rivers,
and there they are neither numerous nor varied. The Senegal longclaw,
however, maintains its place, and is the largest bird seen.
We saw a butcher-bird in a trap as we passed.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 676 of 1070
Words from 193933 to 194183
of 306638
