Excursions in Southern Afric

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Egypt, without the Nile, would be a desert waste, producing only a few saline and succulent plants like those of the Great Karroo, where rain full as seldom falls as in the former country; and the sandy soil of the Cape, with the assistance of water, is as fertile as that of Egypt possibly can be. The...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Egypt, without the Nile, would be a desert waste, producing only a few saline and succulent plants like those of the Great Karroo, where rain full as seldom falls as in the former country; and the sandy soil of the Cape, with the assistance of water, is as fertile as that of Egypt possibly can be. The rains in the Abyssinian Mountains generally begin in May, and cause the inundations of the Nile to take place in June, continuing to the month of September. The rains in the great mountains beyond the Kaffirs and the Tambookies, along the feet of which the Orange River runs, collecting their tributary streams in its passage, commence in November, and cause the inundations to take place, towards the Namaqua country, in December, corresponding thus exactly with the former, both countries being nearly at the same distance from the Equator, but on contrary sides. The same singular peculiarity has been observed in the conformation of the Egyptian women that pervades the whole of the Hottentot nation. That extraordinary animal, the camelopardalis, is said to be an inhabitant of Ethiopia, nearer to the Line than Egypt; and it is first met with in Southern Africa, beyond the Orange River, which is also nearer to the Line than any part of the Colony of the Cape. Many other analogies might be drawn; but these are more than sufficient to establish the opinion of a striking resemblance existing between the two countries. MAKRIAGE OF A EUROPEAN WITH A HOTTENTOT. Page 143. The following extracts from page 280 of the Authenticated documents relative to the Cape, during the government of Commander Wagenaar, relate to this first marriage concluded between a European and a Hottentot female: June 2, 1664. This forenoon the surgeon Pieter van Meer- hoff was married in the hall here, to th...