Karoo

“ Rain does not fall in this district for a period of nine or ten months. For hundreds of miles there is not a blade of grass to be seen, yet goats, sheep, and ostriches abound, and grain is a product of that strange stretch of land. Cradock, the metropolis of the Karoo, is an oasis, because good shade trees are numerous. A small bush grows, called karoo, on which goats and sheep feed, and do well, if they do not die from thirst. The climate of the Karoo is very favorable to persons suffering from lung trouble. ”

“ The bitto flower has been for us a mere blur of yellow; we find its heart composed of a hundred perfect flowers, the homes of the tiny black people with red stripes, who move in and out in that little yellow city. Every bluebell has its inhabitant. Every day the karoo shows us a new wonder sleeping in its teeming bosom. ”

“ Apart from the price of land, the want of water is a very serious drawback to the Karoo settler—the more so that here, in common with most of the Cape Colony, large farms are essential even for small flocks, because the absence of water necessitates the provision of far more pasturage than would be required were it possible to irrigate the thirsty soil. ”

“ We had not force in our own small settlement to compel Karoo to restore her; and I was therefore obliged to buy a trained ox, on which I rode all the way to the next British settlement, for there are no horses in that country. ”

“ But in the north-west of the Colony, and in Great Namaqualand, they are evidently still to be found in large numbers, and these, when a severe drought comes, trek into the Karoo of the Colony in search of food. As I have said, these Bucks, when trekking down, do not travel fast; but the old Dutch farmers, who should know their habits well, say that when they return they travel at a great pace, even as fast as one hundred miles a day. How true this is I cannot say; it cannot seem impossible to such as know the extraordinary fleetness and staying power of these Antelopes. ”

“ They were equally unaware that about the time of their own establishment in the south, under the protecting shelter of the vast square mass of Table Mountain, a tribe of dark-skinned natives, called the Bantu, had swarmed down upon the far eastern coast and were preparing to overrun from their home in Central Africa all the great region of barren upland and rolling veldt and level Karoo plain known now by the common name of South Africa. ”

“ It will be most convenient and least obscure to follow the movements of the western force (Hertzog's) , and afterwards to consider those of the eastern (Kritzinger's) . The opening of the year saw the mobile column of Free Staters 150 miles over the border, pushing swiftly south over the barren surface of the Karoo. It is a country of scattered farms and scanty population; desolate plains curving upwards until they rise into still more desolate mountain ranges. Moving in a very loose formation over a wide front, the Boers swept southwards. ”

“ I thanked the great Karoo for his kind intentions, but declared my incapability to part with my wife, for that we were one flesh and blood, and nothing could separate us but death. He could comprehend no such tie as this. All men sold their wives and daughters as they listed, I was told,—for that the women were the sole property of the men. He had bought many women from the Tambookies, that were virgins, and had never given above two cows for any of them ”

“ Note 1. “Kloof,” the Boer’s designation of a valley of the ravine order.
Note 2. The “kop” is a cliff-like promontory overhanging a valley or plain, nearly synonymous with the American “bluff.” It is, doubtless, the Dutch radix of our word cape.
Note 3. There are no less than seven distinct species of vultures inhabiting South Africa; while the species of eagles are still more numerous.
Note 4. “Kalahari,” the name of the great South African desert, or Karoo, which extends north from the Orange River, and west of the Transvaal, for hundreds of miles. ”

“ To my mind the loss of stripes in the quagga was entirely due to the environment in which this species had lived for long ages; for on the karoos of the Cape Colony everything is of one dull brown colour, whether on hill or plain, and no shade is to be found anywhere, for the whole country is without trees. The air, too, is intensely hot and dry, and the rainfall scanty. ”

“ There are few tracts of land on the earth’s surface so distinctly marked by zoological and botanical peculiarities, and by a striking aspect of fauna and flora as South Africa. Its mountains—and they attain considerable elevation, as much as 10,000 feet in some instances—its low grounds, sandy plains, and deserts called Karoos, if not everywhere adorned with a luxuriant vegetation, are singularly prolific in remarkable and interesting plants, and are the resorts of numerous quadrupeds, many of them of considerable dimensions. ”

“ On the north end of this are two small governments, Dreeda and Karoota, the only territory in Abyssinia that produces wine, the merchants trade to Caffa and Narea, in the country of the Galla. We speak of these territories as they are in point of right; but when a nobleman of great power is governor of the province of Begemder, he values not lesser rights, but unites them all to his province. ”

“ Again, from the point of view of a carnivorous animal hunting for food by daylight and by sight, no two countries could be more alike than the open karoos of the Cape Colony and the plains in the neighbourhood of Lakes Nakuru and Elmenteita in British East Africa, where the grass is always kept very short by the large herds of game, as well as by the cattle, sheep, and goats belonging to the Masai, which pasture there. Before the advent of Europeans, the carnivorous animals inhabiting the Cape Colony were exactly the same as those found to-day in East Africa, viz. ”

“ The Cape Town line to De Aar and Kimberley after gaining the plateau traverses the Great Karroo, a monotonous stretch of several hundred miles of parched brown, barren-looking plain with isolated, flat-topped mountains, and ranges which serve to give variety, and make a scene of widespread solitude, having a melancholy charm wholly its own. This barren-looking veldt, with its sparse vegetation of stunted shrubs, supports millions of sheep and goats, and however unpromising its aspect, it plays an important part in the railway and general economy of the country. ”

“ Beyond the Zwartebergen, or the Black Mountain, is the great grazing district of Cape Colony. It consists of vast undulating plains, and is known as the Great Karroo.
No trees are found upon the Great Karroo, and but very few shrubs. As soon as the wet season begins, however, this great district is covered with rich verdure and a profusion of flowers. Then the flocks of sheep enjoy all the luxuriance of a paradise of herbage, which clothes field, valley, and hillside alike. ”

“ Much of this high interior, whose settlement has occupied the last sixty years, is a desert unfit, and likely to be always unfit, for human habitation. Even in those parts which are comparatively well watered, the grazing for sheep and cattle is so scanty during some months of the year that farms are large, houses are scattered far from one another, and the population remains extremely thin. The Wilderness of the Karroo cuts off Cape Town and its comparatively populous neighbourhood from the inhabited, though thinly inhabited, pastoral districts of the Orange Free State. ”

“ Departing from Capetown by night, I awoke in the Karroo. Between nine and six in the morning we had made less than a hundred and eighty miles. Now we were climbing the vast desert of the Karroo, the dusty stairway that leads on to the highlands of South Africa. Once you have seen one desert, all the others are like it; and yet once you have loved the desert, each is lovable in a new way. In thePg 12 Karroo you seem to be going up a winding ascent, like the ramps that lead to an Indian fortress. You are ever pulling up an incline between hills, making for a corner round one of the ranges. ”

“ Several days elapsed before anything was heard of the war party, and nothing of any consequence took place at the kraal till it was proposed that a few of us should make a party to hunt the koodoos. This animal is much admired owing to its splendid spiral horns, while its flesh—a rarity with South African animals—is both tender and of a good flavour.
On setting out, the direction we took was that where, between two shelving plains, covered with bright green vegetation, a sparkling river flowed; for the koodoo requires water. ”

“ Beyond the lagoon lie the hard, sun-baked alluvial flats which border the sluggish river. Upon the southern and western sides of the charming oasis of Masinya’s Kraal stretch the great open grass plains, flecked with springboks, and dotted here and there with a troop of larger game, which fifteen or twenty miles away are checked by the endless and waterless forest and bush of the Kalahari—that vast desert which, thanks to its lack of surface water, lies to this day dim, unknown, and mysterious to all races of mankind, save the wandering Bushmen and Vaalpens who inhabit it. ”

“ The general aspect of the vegetation on the Karroo, and eastward over the plateau into Bechuanaland and the Transvaal, is to the traveller's eye monotonous—a fact due to the general uniformity of the geological formations and the general dryness of the surface. In Natal and in Mashonaland types different from those of either the Cape or the Karroo appear, and I have never seen a more beautiful and varied alpine flora than on a lofty summit of Basutoland which I ascended in early summer. ”

“ FROM KAJAAGA TO KASSON.
The kingdom of Kajaaga, in which I was now arrived, is called by the French Gallam, but the name that I have adopted is universally used by the natives. This country is bounded on the south-east and south by Bambouk, on the west by Bondou and Foota-Torra, and on the north by the river Senegal.
The air and climate are, I believe, more pure and salubrious than at any of the settlements towards the coast; the face of the country is everywhere interspersed with a pleasing variety of hills and valleys ”

“ On the rising ground beyond these, the bread-fruit trees are planted, and flourish with the greatest luxuriance.
Koaara extends from the westernmost point to the northern extremity of the island; the whole coast between them forming an extensive bay, called Toe-yah-yah, which is bounded to the north by two very conspicuous hills. Toward the bottom of this bay there is foul, corally ground, extending upward of a mile from the shore, without which the soundings are regular, with good anchorage, in twenty fathoms. ”

“ The thickness of the rocks of the Cape System exceeds 5000 ft.
The Karroo System is par excellence the geological formation of South Africa. The greater part of the colony belongs to it, as do large tracts in the Orange Free State and Transvaal. It includes the following well-defined subdivisions:—
In the southern areas the Karroo formation follows the Cape System conformably; in the north it rests unconformably on very much older rocks. The most remarkable deposits are the conglomerates of the Dwyka series. ”

“ There are some fine pieces of wood and water scenery along the south coast of Cape Colony, and one of singular charm in the adjoining colony of Natal, where the suburbs of Durban, the principal port, though they lack the grandeur which its craggy [Pg 52] heights give to the neighbourhood of Cape Town have, with a warmer climate, a richer and more tropically luxuriant vegetation. In the great range of mountains which runs some seventeen hundred miles from Cape Town almost to the banks of the Zambesi, the scenery becomes striking in three districts only. ”

“ Joining the English possessions on the Gold Coast, two degrees north of the equator, are the German possessions of Kamerun, with high mountains and invigorating breezes; but the land at the foot is no more favorable to the European than the Guinea coast. One or two hundred miles in the interior of this part of the continent, the land rapidly rises to the tableland of equatorial Africa, rich and fertile, resembling the valley of the Kongo, possibly habitable by Europeans. ”

“ Such parts of the Karroo as are under perennial irrigation are among the most productive lands in South Africa. Even the parched bush provides sufficient nourishment for millions of sheep and goats. There are also numerous ostrich farms, in particular in the districts of Oudtshoorn and Ladismith in the Little Karroo, where lucerne grows with extraordinary luxuriance. The Karroo is admirably adapted to sufferers from pulmonary complaints. ”

“ The healthiness of the climate of Cape Town contrasted favourably with that of Batavia, and most of the sick rapidly recovered. The Dutch, at this time, appear to have been living on friendly terms with all the neighbouring tribes of natives, nor did Captain Cook seem to be aware that any of the Hottentots were reduced to a state of slavery. He speaks only of their being servants to the Dutch farmers, and taking care of their cattle. ”

“ The railway from Cape Town to Hope Town avoids this singular formation, consequently the great traffic is carried round in another direction, more to the east, passing through Beaufort West and Victoria West, over a flat and barren part of the great Karroo. The mountain pass at Franschehoek is very fine, also Baiu’s Kloof, both possessing grand scenery.
The principal towns in the colony beside Cape Town, in degree of importance, are Port Elizabeth, Graham’s Town; the capital of the eastern province is pleasantly situated in a fertile valley. ”