the rampart is known successively as the Stormberg, Zuurberg, Sneeuwberg and Nieuwveld mountains. These four ranges face directly south. In the Sneeuwberg range is Compass Berg, 8500 ft. above the sea, the highest point in the colony. In the Nieuwveld are heights of over 6000 ft. The Komsberg range, which joins the Nieuwveld on the east, sweeps from the south to the north-west and is followed by the Roggeveld mountains, which face the western seaboard. North of the Roggeveld the interior plateau approaches closer to the sea than in southern Cape Colony. The slope of the plateau being also westward, the mountain rampart is less elevated, and north of 32° S. few points attain 5000 ft. The coast ranges are here, in Namaqualand and the district of Van Rhyns Dorp, but the outer edges of the inner range. They attain their highest point in the Kamies Berg, 5511 ft. above the sea. Northward the Orange river, marking the frontier of the colony, cuts its way through the hills to the Atlantic.
From the Olifants river on the west to the Kei river on the east the series of parallel ranges, which are the walls of the terraces between the inner tableland and the sea, are clearly traceable. Their general direction is always that of the coast, and they are cut across by rugged gorges or kloofs, through which the mountain streams make their way towards the sea. The two chief chains, to distinguish them from the inner chain already described, may be called the coast and central chains. Each has many local names. West to east the central chain is known as the Cedarberg, Groote Zwarteberg (highest point 6988 ft.), Groote river, Winterhoek (with Cockscomb mountain 5773 ft. high) and Zuurberg ranges. The Zuurberg, owing to the north-east trend of the shore, becomes, east of Port Elizabeth, a coast range, and the central chain is represented by a more northerly line of hills, with a dozen different names, which are a south-easterly spur of the Sneeuwberg. In this range the Great Winter Berg attains a height of 7800 ft.
The coast chain is represented west to east by the Olifants mountains (with Great Winterhoek, 6618 ft. high), Drakenstein, Zonder Einde, Langeberg (highest point 5614 ft.), Attaquas, Uiteniquas and various other ranges. In consequence of the north-east trend of the coast, already noted, several of these ranges end in the sea in bold bluffs. From the coast plain rise many short ranges of considerable elevation, and on the east side of False Bay parallel to Table Bay range is a mountain chain with heights of 4000 and 5000 ft. East of the Kei river the whole of the country within Cape Colony, save the narrow seaboard, is mountainous. The southern part is largely occupied with spurs of the Stormberg; the northern portion, Griqualand East and Pondoland, with the flanks of the Drakensberg. Several peaks exceed 7000 ft. in height. Zwart Berg, near the Basuto-Natal frontier, rises 7615 ft. above the sea. Mount Currie, farther south, is 7296 ft. high. The Witte Bergen (over 5000 ft. high) are an inner spur of the Drakensberg running through the Herschel district.
That part of the inner tableland of South Africa which is in the colony has an average elevation of 3000 ft., being higher in the eastern than in the western districts. It consists of wide rolling treeless plains scarred by the beds of many rivers, often dry for a great part of the year. The tableland is broken by the Orange river, which traverses its whole length. North of the river the plateau slopes northward to a level sometimes as low as 2000 ft. The country is of an even more desolate character than south of the Orange (see Bechuanaland). Rising from the plains are chains of isolated flat-topped hills such as the Karree Bergen, the Asbestos mountains and Kuruman hills, comparatively unimportant ranges.
Although the mountains present bold and picturesque outlines on their outward faces, the general aspect of the country north of the coast-lands, except in its south-eastern corner, is bare and monotonous. The flat and round-topped hills (kopjes), which are very numerous on the various plateaus, scarcely afford relief to the eye, which searches the sun-scorched landscape, usually in vain, for running water. The absence of water and of large trees is one of the most abiding impressions of the traveller. Yet the vast arid plains are covered with shallow beds of the richest soil, which only require the fertilizing power of water to render them available for pasture or agriculture. After the periodical rains, the Karroo and the great plains of Bushmanland are converted into vast fields of grass and flowering shrubs, but the summer sun reduces them again to a barren and burnt-up aspect. The pastoral lands or velds are distinguished according to the nature of their herbage as “sweet” or “sour.” Shallow sheets of water termed vleis, usually brackish, accumulate after heavy rain at many places in the plateaus; in the dry seasons these spots, where the soil is not excessively saline, are covered with rich grass and afford favourite grazing land for cattle. Only in the southern coast-land of the colony is there a soil and moisture supply suited to forest growth.
Rivers.—The inner chain of mountains forms the watershed of the colony. North of this great rampart the country drains to the Orange (q.v.), which flows from east to west nearly across the continent. For a considerable distance, both in its upper and lower courses, the river forms the northern frontier of Cape Colony. In the middle section, where both banks are in the colony, the Orange receives from the north-east its greatest tributary, the Vaal (q.v.). The Vaal, within the boundaries of the colony, is increased by the Harts river from the north-east and the Riet river from the south-east, whilst just within the colony the Riet is joined by the Modder. All these tributaries of the Orange flow, in their lower courses, through the eastern part of Griqualand West, the only well-watered portion of the colony north of the mountains. From the north, below the Vaal confluence, the Nosob, Molopo and Kuruman, intermittent streams which traverse Bechuanaland, send their occasional surplus waters to the Orange. In general these rivers lose themselves in some vlei in the desert land. The Molopo and Nosob mark the frontier between the Bechuanaland Protectorate and the Cape; the Kuruman lies wholly within the colony. From the south a number of streams, the Brak and Ongers, the Zak and Olifants Vlei (the two last uniting to form the Hartebeest), flow north towards the Orange in its middle course. Dry for a great part of the year, these streams rarely add anything to the volume of the Orange.
South of the inner chain the drainage is direct to the Atlantic or Indian Oceans. Rising at considerable elevations, the coast rivers fall thousands of feet in comparatively short courses, and many are little else than mountain torrents. They make their way down the mountain sides through great gorges, and are noted in the eastern part of the country for their extremely sinuous course. Impetuous and magnificent streams after heavy rain, they become in the summer mere rivulets, or even dry up altogether. In almost every instance the mouths of the rivers are obstructed by sand bars. Thus, as is the case of the Orange river also, they are, with rare exceptions, unnavigable.
Omitting small streams, the coast rivers running to the Atlantic are the Buffalo, Olifants and Berg. It may be pointed out here that the same name is repeatedly applied throughout South Africa to different streams, Buffalo, Olifants (elephants’) and Groote (great) being favourite designations. They all occur more than once in Cape Colony. Of the west coast rivers, the Buffalo, about 125 m. long, the most northern and least important, flows through Little Namaqualand. The Olifants (150 m.), which generally contains a fair depth of water, rises in the Winterhoek mountains and flows north between the Cedarberg and Olifants ranges. The Doorn, a stream with a somewhat parallel but more easterly course, joins the Olifants about 50 m. above its mouth, the Atlantic being reached by a semicircular sweep to the south-west. The Berg river (125 m.) rises in the district of French Hoek and flows through fertile country, in a north-westerly direction, to the sea at St Helena Bay. It is navigable for a few miles from its mouth.
On the south coast the most westerly stream of any size is the Breede (about 165 m. long), so named from its low banks and broad channel. Rising in the Warm Bokkeveld, it pierces the mountains by Mitchell’s Pass, flows by the picturesque towns of Ceres and Worcester, and receives, beyond the last-named place,
