Page:EB1911 - Volume 25.djvu/480

 which run in lines parallel to the coast, approach close to the sea, as at Table Bay. In the south-east, in the Drakensberg, they attain heights of 10,000 to 11,000 ft., elsewhere the highest points are between 8000 and 9000 ft. They form terrace-like steps leading to a vast tableland (covering about 900,000 sq. m.) with a mean elevation of 4000 ft., the highest part of the plateau—the High Veld of the Transvaal—being fully 6000 ft. above the sea. In its southern part the plateau has a general tilt to the West, in the north it tilts eastward. This tilt determines the hydrographical system. In the south the drainage is to the Atlantic, chiefly through the Orange River, in the north to the Indian Ocean through the Zambezi, Limpopo and other streams. A large number of smaller rivers rise on the outer slopes of the mountain ramparts and flow direct to the sea. In consequence of their great slope and the intermittent supply of water the rivers—except the Zambezi—are unnavigable save for a few miles from their mouths. The central part of the interior plateau, covering some 120,000 sq. m., is arid and is known as the Kalahari Desert. The western region, both plateau and coast lands, specially that part north of the Orange, is largely semi or wholly desert, while in the Cape province the terrace lands below the interior plateau are likewise arid, as is signified by their Hottentot name karusa (Karroo). The southern and eastern coast lands, owing to different climatic conditions (see infra) are very fertile.

The geological structure is remarkably uniform, the plateau consisting mainly of sedimentary deposits resting on crystalline rocks. The Karroo system (sandstones and marls) covers immense areas (see, § Geology). Intrusive dikes—locally known as ironstone—by preventing erosion are often the cause of the flat-topped hills which are a common feature of the landscape. The Witwatersrand series of the Transvaal includes auriferous conglomerates which have been worked since 1886 and constitute the richest gold-mines in the world. The diamondiferous areas at Kimberley and in the Pretoria district are likewise the richest known. Coal beds are widely distributed in the eastern districts while there are large copper deposits in the west, both at the Cape and in German territory.

Inhabitants.—The aborigines of South Africa are represented by the Bushmen and Hottentots, now found in any racial purity only in the Kalahari and in the southern part of German South-West Africa. All the other natives, popularly called Kaffirs, are members of the Bantu-negroid family, of whom they here form three distinct branches: (1) the Zulu-Xosas, originally confined to the south-east seaboard between Delagoa Bay and the Great Fish River, but later (19th century) spread by conquest over Gazaland, parts of the Transvaal, and Rhodesia (Matabeleland), (2) the Bechuanas, with the kindred Basutos, on the continental plateau from the Orange to the Zambezi, and ranging westwards over the Kalahari desert and the Lake Ngami region; (3) the Ova-Herero and Ova-Mpo, confined to German South-West Africa between Walfish Bay and the Kunene River.

All these mixed Bantu peoples are immigrants at various periods from beyond the Zambezi. The Bechuanas, who occupy by far the largest domain, and preserve the totemic tribal system, were probably the first arrivals from the north or the north-sea coast lands. As early, probably, as the 8th century Arabs had formed a settlement on the coast at Sofala, 130 m. south of the mouth of the Zambezi, but they got no further south nor do they appear to have penetrated inland, though they traded for gold and other articles with the inhabitants of the northern part of the plateau—the builders of the zimbabwes and other ruins in what is now (q.v.) The Asiatic inhabitants of South Africa of the present day are mainly Indian