Page:Seven Years in South Africa v1.djvu/399

 South Africa in connexion with the Marico or Matabele mountain systems, we find either the steep, fissured slopes of table-hills, or table-lands studded with conical and isolated peaks. The ascent to this network of hills is effected by a wooded and sandy plain with a scarcely perceptible rise, and the descent is just as gradual to a shallow river-bed, beyond which rises again another similar ridge of heights. The geological composition of these highlands consists of granite, quartz-slate, trapdykes, veins of chalk, and ferruginous sandy clay. The vegetation is characterized by some gigantic aloes, which in places form regular groves.

In concluding my account of Molopolole, I may be allowed to introduce a brief notice of some of the religious and social customs of the Bechuanas generally. I obtained many details from the English missionaries, Messrs. Mackenzie, Hephrun, Price, Willams, Brown, and Webb; from the German missionary, Herr Jensen; and from several of the better educated Bechuanas themselves; and in the course of my three journeys into the interior, I was able to verify many particulars by my own observation.

In the strict sense of the word the Bechuanas, that is to say, the branches of that family in Central South Africa, cannot be said to have any religion at all; nevertheless the circumstance, that upon receiving their first instruction in Christianity, they at once applied to the Unseen God the designation of “Morimo,” without attaching any difference to