Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 81.djvu/437

Rh arrived. At any rate, trees grow rapidly on the velts, especially on the mountain sides, and if the forestation continues, within a short time there will not only be an abundance of lumber, but the climate of the country will be vastly improved.

Stangeria and two species of Encephalartos grow in the neighborhood, but are not abundant. There are gorgeous flowers on the grass velts, and in the ravines, or kloofs, there are many ferns and lycopodiums.

The next point on my schedule was Queenstown, not very far from Cedara, as the crow flies, but quite remote as South African railways go, through Ladysmith, Bethlehem, Bloomfontein and Springfontein, names made familiar by the Boer war, a country dotted with monuments and cemeteries.

At Queenstown, the president of the bank, Mr. E. E. Galpin, is a fellow of the Linnean Society of London. He kindly arranged for a day's absence from the bank and not only showed me a great display of Encephalartos Frederici Guilielmi, a species I had never seen, but gave me valuable information which only a competent observer could give after many years' acquaintance with the locality. Mr. Galpin also facilitated my work at Cathcart and gave me directions for finding Encephalartos Lehmannii, which, as yet, I had seen only in gardens. Near the Kei River, where I found this species, Euphorbia tetragona is a prominent feature of the landscape, a big tree, reaching a height