“Summer isles of Eden lying in dark purple spheres of sea.”
“Summer isles of Eden lying in dark purple spheres of sea.”
At length, however, by directing their investigations towards the less submerged region of the Indian Ocean, and by sailing beyond the great eastern islands which seem to have been formerly connected with the Indian Peninsula, the Portuguese mariners were the first to descry a long line of coast which they did not doubt was that of anAustral Continent, whose satellites, so to speak, were the previously discovered islands. This supposed continent is still represented in the old maps published at the close of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth centuries, by a mass of ill-defined contours, with this indication:Terra Australis incognita. The succeeding voyages of Carpenter, Nuyts, Tasman, and the illustrious Cook, proved that this Austral or Southern Land was in effect a continent, or, at least, an island of extraordinary dimensions, whose coasts alone—and these but a small extent inland—were inhabited by miserable tribes, with black skin, and hideous features, placed at the extreme limit which separates man from the brute. The Dutch navigators, who had first determined the principal outlines of this continent, named it New Holland, but after it passed into the hands of England, it received, as it still preserves, the appellation of Australia.
Take away from this Australian Continent its fertile districts in the south-east, where have sprung up and developed with amazing rapidity the flourishing colonies of New South Wales, Victoria, and Queensland, and what remains? A country entirely wild, and, one might almost venture to say, an immense Desert. The gloomy aspect and the barrenness of its northern shores, with few exceptions, had repulsed the early Portuguese and Dutch navigators, who little suspected what splendid treasures were hidden among its auriferous sands and rocks. They saw but insufficient rivers and scanty vegetation, and went no further.
None of the rivers of New Holland are navigable to any great distance from their mouths. The want of water is severely felt in the interior, where a treeless desert of sand, swamps, and jungle is intersected by streams called “creeks,” which are dry for the greater portion of the year; yet a belief long prevailed that a large sea or fresh-water lake occupied the centre—a belief founded partly on the nature of the soil, and partly on the circumstance that all the rivers that flow into the sea on the northern coast, between the Gulf of Van Diemen and Carpentaria, converge towards their sources, as if they served for drains to some large body of water.
enlarge-imageAUSTRALIAN LANDSCAPE.AUSTRALIAN LANDSCAPE.
The eastern side of the country is traversed by a great range of thinly timbered down, clothed with grasses and herbage, and rising to an elevation of 3500 feet. These are known as the Blue Mountains, and stretch from north to south over nearly thirty degrees of latitude, from Cape York to Cape Wilson. All their western slopes descend gradually towards the interior, until they are lost in the vast desert plain of the interior.
The streams which flow in this direction either pour their waters into the great rivers, such as the Darling and the Murray, which has an internal navigation of 1800 miles, or lose themselves in the marshes and lakes, which the great summer heats periodically dry up.
Another chain of mountains stretches from south to north along the western coast of Australia, from Point d’Entrecasteaux to Murchison River. A third chain, in the northern region, runs from east to west, between Camden Harbour and the Gulf of Carpentaria. The interior of the country is, as I have already indicated, in all probability an immense plain, thinly sown with trees of the two families of Acaciæ and Eucalypti, and tenanted by the wombat and the kangaroo.
Over this vast portion of Australia, which still remains a blank upon the map, numerous expeditions of discovery have been attempted since the earliest days of European colonization. Hardy pioneers—those men who are the real, but obscure, and speedily forgotten founders of empires—have sacrificed their lives in the endeavour to lay down a track across the great island-continent from north to south. Anglo-Saxon enterprise no sooner found itself securely planted on the sea-coast, than it felt that behind it lay a continent to acquire, and the indomitable instinct of the race bade it continue its mission of colonization. During the last quarter of a century, the colonial governments have liberally encouraged these explorations, and the annals of Australian discovery have been illuminated by the names of Eyre (1840), Sturt (1845), Leichardt (1846-48), Kennedy (1848), and M’Douall Stuart (1858-62), second to none among our English discoverers in patience, resolution, and heroic daring.
The problem remained: to cross the central wilderness of Australia, and prove the possibility of a passage from the southern shores to the northern, from Melbourne to the Gulf of Carpentaria. This problem was finally solved, at no light cost, by the intrepid Burke and energetic Wills.
On the 20th of April 1860, there set out from Melbourne, under the auspices of the Government of Victoria, a small troop of gallant explorers, under the immediate direction of Robert O’Hara Burke, a man well-fitted for his post: born in the county of Galway in 1821, after having served as captain in a Hungarian regiment, he had discharged for several years the duties of inspector of a body of the colonial police.
The second in command was a brave young Englishman, William John Wills, twenty-six years of age, an assistant in the Observatory at Melbourne.
The expedition consisted of eighteen persons, and was provided with horses, camels which had been expressly imported from Arabia, waggons, all kinds of scientific instruments, and the necessary amount of stores and provisions for a protracted journey.
Cooper’s Creek, which marked about a third of the whole distance, was fixed upon as place of rendezvous and as the final starting-point. Thither, to save time, Burke and Wills, with six men, six camels, five horses, and some months’ provisions, proceeded in advance of the main body; and arriving there on the 13th of December, Burke established a depôt, left it in charge of Brahé, a petty officer, and three assistants, and with Wills, a couple of men (King and Gray), the camels, and one horse, plunged on the 16th into the trackless Australian wilds.[98]
Keeping nearly due north, and near or upon the meridian of 140° E., they traversed, day after day, well-watered plains, with numerous clumps of wood, and tolerable indications of a good grazing country. On the 12th of February 1861, the four travellers had conquered every obstacle, and struck the marshes on the AlbertRiver, which flows into the Gulf of Carpentaria. Their goal was reached, and the problem of a connecting route between north and south successfully solved.
The vast Australian solitudes hitherto traversed had presented every variety of aspect, from the stony plateaux and the watery sands where the rivers can keep no regular channel, and where wide spaces of dry bare ground separate great shallows of brackish water, to finely irrigated plains, clothed with herbs or bushes, and promising abundant resources for future colonists. Meteorological phenomena present in these regions the greatest uncertainties: either the dry season is so protracted as to ruin all vegetation, or the rains so thoroughly deluge the soil as by a contrary cause to ensure the same result. These climatic contradictions explain the variations observable in the narratives of the different travellers who have visited the interior. One point, however, is beyond all doubt; the hopeless sterility of Nuyts Land,—that immense sandy tract which, over an extent as yet unknown, is regarded as impassable, and stretches along the southern coast between Spencer Gulf and King George Harbour. As before said, the primary cause of the barrenness of Central Australia is the lack of water—running water and rain water. Yet the most sterile portions lie far nearer the coast than was formerly credited; and monotonous as may be the descriptions of explorers, so far as the landscapes of Central Australia are concerned, we may from to-day consider that, with the exception of certain points, no obstacles exist sufficiently powerful to arrest the expansion of European colonization, in a country especially where cattle-breeding is the principal industry, and the one which takes precedence of all others.
The chief difficulty encountered by each exploring party has been the penury of natural products of the soil adapted for human food. The traveller is compelled to carry with him a sufficiency of provisions to last him from his departure until his return. It was this insufficiency of rations which wrought the fatal dénouement of the glorious enterprise of Burke and Wills.
After reaching the Gulf of Carpentaria, there remained nothing more for Burke and his three companions but to retrace their steps to their depôt at Cooper’s Creek. But their energies were exhausted, and from the beginning of April their provisions failed them. At the close of ten or twelve days’ march, they were constrained to kill a horse. In the following week, Gray succumbed to the excessive fatigue. The three survivors dragged themselves on to the depôt, where they arrived on the morning of the 21st of April. But the men whom they had left in charge had taken their departure that very morning, after waiting long beyond the time originally fixed for their return.
“You may imagine our consternation,” says Wills in his Journal, under the date of April 21st; “four months of harassing marches and privations of every kind had completely exhausted our strength. It was an extremely difficult task for either of us to accomplish a distance of only a few yards. The effort necessary to ascend the smallest elevation of the ground, even without a burden, induces an indescribable sensation of pain and helplessness, and the general lassitude makes one unfit for anything.”
There was no resource now but to rejoin Brahé and his men, if possible. Before quitting the depôt, the latter had left a small supply of provisions, which proved eminently serviceable. On the 23rd Burke, Wills, and King resumed their march, at the rate of four or five miles a-day, in the direction of Mount Despair, which was about sixty miles distant, and where were placed the most advanced posts, northward, of South Australia. A terrible fatality, however, seemed to pursue them; one of their camels, Landa, perished in a bog; the other, Rajah, they were soon forced to kill for food; then they themselves were compelled by sheer exhaustion to return to the depôt, which, meanwhile, had been revisited by Brahé without his discovering a trace of their brief sojourn. Thus abandoned to perish in the Desert, they existed upon the bounty of such natives as they met with, and who occasionally supplied them with a few fish and a littlenardoo, an aquatic plant whose pounded seeds the aborigines makeinto bread. Such a regimen was insufficient to restore their exhausted strength.
enlarge-imageBurke, Wills, and King in the Deserts of Central Australia.Burke, Wills, and King in the Deserts of Central Australia.
Early in June their afflictions were aggravated by a deplorable catastrophe. The flames of their bivouac fire, driven by a strong wind, reduced to ashes their hut and all that they possessed. There was nothing for them now but to live with the friendly natives who had succoured them. Unfortunately, they had disappeared. It was in vain they attempted to seek them out; Burke and Wills never saw them again.
On Saturday the 29th of June, the latter, utterly exhausted, insisted that his companions should leave him in the wilderness, while they continued their search after the natives. Unwillingly they consented,and taking a solemn farewell of their unfortunate comrade, they dragged themselves away with aching hearts. Four or five days afterwards, King returned with some birds he had contrived to kill, but found Wills asleep in the arms of death. King was now alone, for the intrepid Burke had also fallen a victim to the cruel spirit of the wilderness, resting on the barren ground, with his face upturned to the southern stars. The sole survivor was fortunate enough to fall in with the natives, who welcomed him cordially, and carried him with them from camp to camp. After two months and a half of this strange existence, he was discovered by a relief party sent out from Melbourne, under the command of Mr. Howitt (September 15, 1861), who also gathered the remains of the two gallant but ill-fated leaders, and reverently consigned them to a decent grave.
They had not died in vain. From the shores of Port Philip to those of the Gulf of Carpentaria they had discovered and marked out a practicable route; and when the great Australian colonies shall have pushed forward into the interior, and have occupied the borders of the northern gulf, they will remember with gratitude the brave explorers who sacrificed their lives to effect the passage from one sea to the other.
decorative bar
THEfacts actually ascertained in reference to the Flora of the plains of Central Africa, although as yet of a limited character, form as a whole too comprehensive a subject to be fully discussed in these pages. I must, therefore, confine myself to a rapid survey of the principal botanical features of the countries whose general features and physical aspect I have sketched in the preceding chapters.
Senegambia and Upper Guinea, on the west coast of Africa, form alow table-land, situated upwards of 3000 feet above the sea-level, and furrowed by deep gorges, in whose rocky beds the rivers roll and foam, fed by the waters of numerous streams. Grassy savannahs and wide cultivated areas are here inhabited by a numerous population. Several travellers have explored these regions; but all have specially applied themselves to make known the colossal plants which flourish therein, and those, first and foremost, which have a particular interest, either from their Anak-like stature or the manifold uses of their products. I shall have occasion to speak of the arborescent species which, in this part of the Old Continent, blend in immense and impenetrable forests. But owing to this very circumstance we possess few details respecting the plants which clothe the vast plains of Senegambia and Upper Guinea. We only know that there, as everywhere, the great family of the Gramineæ is largely represented. In general these species far exceed in height the plants which make the wealth and glory of our English meads; and they chiefly belong to the tribe of Paniceæ. A legion of Cassias inhabit the low fresh hills of the Senegambian lands; and some are held in high estimation for their fruit, as the Cassia, or Senna, which is considered one of the most active purgatives. The species generally recognized as best adapted for medicinal purposes are those with oboval and those with obtuse leaves—Cassia obovataandCassia obtusifolia. The former is a perennial herbaceous plant, from one to two feet high, with smooth egg-shaped leaves and racemes of yellow flowers; the latter differs only in the form of its leaves, which are short and broad, or obtuse.
Many of the cereals are cultivated in Senegambia on a very large scale; but they differ wholly from those which engage the attention of the European agriculturist. Barley will not grow even on the most elevated plateaux, on account of the constant and excessive heat. It is true that it will germinate; but it develops so rapidly that it passes through all the phases of its vegetation in the space of a few weeks, and yields but impoverished ears empty of grains; it is useless to the people of Senegambia except as forage. But, on theother hand, there are numerous Gramineæ adapted to hot regions, which the natives cultivate for their uses. Among others I may name the Tocussa and the Coracan (Eleasine TocussaandE. Corocana), with their curved digitate spikes and productive seeds; thePennicellaria spicata, or Guinea Corn, a very tall grass, somewhat resembling maize, whose long cylindrical culms or blades bear each a multitude of white round grains, which, ground into meal, form very savoury cakes, as you may read in Mungo Park’s Travels; and theDurra,Doura,Indian Millet, orSorgho Grass(Sorghum), a coarse, strong, broad-leaved grass, four to eight feet high, with a round grain a little larger than mustard seed; it is the principal corn-plant of Africa, and exceedingly nutritious, the natives employing it in the preparation of a favourite dish named Kouskoussou.
The cereals most widely cultivated in Senegal include the Colonial Millet (Oplismenus colonus); the Abyssinian Meadow Grass (Poa Abyssinica), called “Teff” in Abyssinia, whose seeds are used for making bread, and whose blades yield an abundant herbage; Rice (Oryza sativa), and different varieties of maize. Leguminous plants appear wanting in Senegal. Their absence is probably due to the same causes as those which we have indicated as affecting the growth of barley. Cabbages and the different salads grow, in fact, with a rapidity which prevents them from maturing; they flower in two or three weeks after being sown. The inhabitants consequently resort to those alimentary species which belong to hot countries, and which can only be obtained in Europe at an enormous expense and by artificial means. Among the plants with edible roots are various kinds of Yams (such as theDioscorea alata); Batatas (Convolvulus Batatas); and the Manioc or Manihot (Jatropha Manihot),[99]better known as Cassava, which, although in itself a deadly poison, is easily deprived by heat of its noxious properties, and when roasted or boiled becomes a nutritious and highly savoury food. It yields the valuable farinaceous material of Tapioca. Its leaves are cooling and healing; from its seeds an excellent oil is procured; and the juice which dropsfrom its root serves for empoisoning arrows. Good and evil are both strangely mixed in this important plant.
enlarge-imageVEGETABLE LIFE IN THE AFRICAN PLAINS. 1. Guinea Corn (Pennicillaria spicata). 3. Manihot (Jatropha Manihot). 5. Screw Pine (Pandanus candelabrum). 2. Sorgho Grass (Sorghum cernuum). 4. Yam (Dioscorea alata). 6. Black Pepper (Piper nigrum).VEGETABLE LIFE IN THE AFRICAN PLAINS.1. Guinea Corn (Pennicillaria spicata).3. Manihot (Jatropha Manihot).5. Screw Pine (Pandanus candelabrum).2. Sorgho Grass (Sorghum cernuum).4. Yam (Dioscorea alata).6. Black Pepper (Piper nigrum).
TheCorchorus olitorius,[100]an annual cultivated in Egypt as a potherb, is largely grown in Senegal for the tenacious fibres of its root and the oily juices of its seeds. The Black Pepper (Piper nigrum) of India and the Sunda Isles we find perfectly acclimatized in this part of Africa, and it flourishes even in a wild state. Finally, the Coffee-tree (Coffea Arabica), the Cocoa (Theobroma Cacao), Indigo (Indigofera tinctoria), and theCocos oleracea, are among the cultivated plants of Senegambia.
In northern Guinea and the Gaboon, recently made famous by Du Chaillu’s discovery of the gorilla, Savannahs and cultivated districts are intermingled, though their flora is still imperfectly known. A great number of grasses adorn the fresh and humid prairies, and sedges and reeds abound, while, on the river-banks, in shady nooks, flourish some of the Screw-pine tribe,[101]notably thePandanus Candelabrum, a highly curious plant, which attracts one’s attention by its mode of vegetation, its graceful ribbon-like foliage, and its small fragrant flowers. Thatching and cordage are obtained from the fibrous leaves; the fruit resembles a richly-coloured pine-apple, but is insipid to the taste.
The Savannahs of the neighbouring provinces, and especially those of the Gold Coast, are in general sparsely inhabited, nor are those on the banks of the Niger an exception; man shrinks from a region which the deadly malaria seems to claim as its own. The flora is very poor, consisting chiefly of aquatic grasses, with blades of moderate height, and leaves of comparatively little succulence. The herbaceous plants, suitable for food or industrial uses, which are most frequently met with in Guinea and the Gaboon, resemble those already described as belonging also to Senegambia. But there are many different Arums, such as theCaladium segmiumandColocasia mucronatum, properly known as Taro, Tara, or Tayo, and employed in making granulate sugar from the stem of the former, and in boiling or roasting for foodthe rhizomæ of the latter; Tobacco; the ox-heart Annona, a plant sometimes cultivated in Europe, where it never fructifies, though its aromatic fruits are its most valuable product, and are highly esteemed by the Africans,—these “Custard Apples” resembling thick cream, and being eaten, like cream, with a spoon; the Banana,[102]with its gigantic foliage—precious “Musa Sapientum “—valuable not only to “wise men,” but foolish men, as a substitute for wheat or the breadfruit tree, and gratifying the savage with a succulent and nutritious food. Forty or fifty banana plants will flourish in a square space of one thousand feet, and an acre of ground will yield sufficient provision for fifty men. That area of land which, sown with wheat, would feed only one man, will nourish five-and-twenty if planted with bananas.
I must not forget the Pistachios,[103]which flourish spontaneously in the vast plains of Central Africa, and the highly valuable Sugar Cane (Saccharum officinarum), which, like the Cotton Plant, has rendered inestimable services to man, and yet has been the origin of unutterable crime and misery, promoting by its cultivation the accursed slave-trade. The Vine (Vitis vinifera) is cultivated in a few districts. Among the herbaceous or sub-frutescent plants peculiar to this region, and which enjoy a certain reputation on account of the utility of their products, I may name the following:—
The Calebash Nutmeg (Monodora myristica), one of the Annonaceæ, remarkable for its withered fruits, which, when rasped like its seeds, furnish a condiment deservedly esteemed by the natives; Guinea Pepper (Uvaria Æthiopica), whose properties are well known and appreciated in this part of Western Africa; and finally, one of the Cucurbitaceæ, theTelfairia pedata, whose seeds enclose a very oleaginous substance.
To the east, in Nigritia or the Soudan, the country is nearly level, although situated at an elevation of 1200 to 1300 feet above the sea. The vegetation here is very scanty; yet the copious tropical rains favour the growth of plants suitable for the provender of cattle; pastures are abundant, and formed by the principal Grasses (PanicumSetaria, and the like), the Sedges, Rushes, &c. These meads are clothed with verdure for three or four months of the year, and much frequented by the shepherds who dwell in the vicinity of Lake Tchad.
Still further eastward, if we continue our wanderings, we plunge into the warm regions of Darfour and Kordofan. Here the country is cast in bold outlines; numerous lofty mountain-chains are intersected by narrow valleys and smooth expanses of meadow-land. All that portion of Kordofan which lies west of the White Nile is a Prairie some thirty-five miles long by twenty-eight broad, stretching towards the rising sun, and relieved by small patches of shrubs of the familyLeguminosæ, especially the Mimosa, with its graceful shrinking foliage, which shudders at the lightest touch, and its spherical rose-hued or snow-white blossoms.
These meadow-lands suffer from excessive aridity; it is only with an arduous struggle that a few grasses resist the dryness which almost constantly prevails; and frequently, as is the case in other parts of Western Africa, the inhabitants can only procure water for their needs by sinking wells of extraordinary depth. Less arid, the southern part of Kordofan is better clothed with vegetation; the country is more broken, and increases in picturesqueness of aspect as we approach the neighbourhood of Mount Tegeler. Sennaar, which is traversed by the Blue Nile, is far from offering an equally luxuriant vegetation: along the river extends a vast belt of meadow, generally barren, or only blessed with a few herbaceous plants, a few Leguminosæ, with deeply-buried roots; and its aspect, therefore, is one of great gloom. The landscape wants
“The glory in the grass, and the splendour in the flower”
“The glory in the grass, and the splendour in the flower”
which appeal so potently to the sensibilities of the poet. Nor does the scenery improve as we ascend the Sennaar to the Lake of Zana, situated to the south-east, for though the rich black soil of the Kulla valley nourishes a profuse vegetation, it is the vegetation peculiar to the marsh and the swamp; the wind rushes through thick sedges, and whispering reeds, and waving grasses. On the northern bordersof the lake the pasturages are fresh and green, and a man might easily lurk unseen among their gigantic Gramineæ, the Panicas and the Setarias. Still keeping our faces eastward, like the Ghebirs of ancient Iran, we perceive that Abyssinia is divided into two parts by the River Tacazze, an affluent of the Nile; the western being called Amhora, and the eastern Tigré. Owing to its peculiar geographical configuration and the elevation of its mountains, Abyssinia rejoices in a wholly special Flora. In the Semen, west of the Tacazze, there is a mountain lifting its crest above the limit of perpetual snow, or to an altitude of 14,000 feet. Up to a height of 6500 feet its slopes are thickly carpeted with fresh and fragrant sward, and the air throbs with the music of a hundred streams which flow from the perennial fountains of ice and snow.
In the Tigré the country is not fertile, nor is it well populated. Its geological features are interesting, for we meet everywhere with isolated masses of limestone, arranged generally in horizontal strata of various extent, and bearing indisputable traces of a vast volcanic labour. On the coast of the Red Sea, the oriental slopes only present at their base a few scattered thickets chiefly composed of thorny shrubs and the Leguminosæ. We meet also with various kinds of Aloes and Euphorbiaceæ (Spurge-Worts), as theEuphorbia neriifolia,Euphorbia grandidens, andEuphorbia Abyssinica. It is said that King Juba II., of Mauritania, discovered the plant growing on Mount Atlas, wrote a short treatise on its virtues, and named it after his physician Euphorbos (about the end of the first centuryB.C.) The root, generally speaking, is aperient, and the milky juice useful in cases of rheumatism and cramp.
The plains of Tigré present a beautiful appearance with the variety of flowers that bloom among the grass; including a kind of scarlet aloe, which is to be met with almost everywhere in Tigré, and appears, like our gorse, to flower at all seasons, forming a graceful object in the foreground. The many varieties of mimosas, too, with their different-coloured blossoms—pink, yellow, and white—appear to be spread over the whole face of the country, whether rock or plain,hill or valley. “When in blossom,” says an English traveller,[104]“many of them emit a fragrance so powerful as to render the whole neighbourhood more odorous than a perfumer’s shop. The jessamine is seen in profusion in many parts, but principally on the hills; and there is also a beautiful parasitical creeper (an æschynanthus), which grows, like the mistletoe, from the bark of other trees. It has a bright dark-green fleshy leaf, with brilliant scarlet flowers.”
The same traveller describes a tree called thedima,[105]which, though not very solid as food, adds much to the flavour of thecuisine. It has a large greenish shell, some nine inches long; inside of it lie a number of seeds, and attached to them by fibres a quantity of yellowish-white cakey powder, having a sweetish acid taste, and when mixed with water forming an agreeable beverage, somewhat resembling lemonade. The Abyssinians mix with it red pepper and salt, and eat it as a relish with their bread. When the tree reaches a certain size, its trunk almost always becomes hollow; and then it frequently contains a store of wild honey, which may easily be obtained by means of a small axe and fire.
More to the south, in the Shoa, we meet with an almost analogous vegetation: the Socotrine Aloes (Aloe socotrina), which supplies our Pharmacopœia with an active cathartic, is particularly abundant. TheCelastrus edulis,[106]a small branching shrub whose leaves possess very similar properties to those of the Tea-plant, and are employed for the same purpose by the Abyssinians, is widely cultivated. The Arabs distil from them a stimulating drink called Kat. Nor should I forget the Cousso, or Casso, named after its discovererBrayera anthelmintica,[107]an infusion of whose bark or leaves forms one of the most powerful vermifuges in the world; and theMusa ensete, a magnificent banana, with gigantic leaves and nerves of a vivid red, which now flourishes in our European plantations.
Among the cultivated plants may be included most of those whichI have noticed under the head of Senegambia; while, owing to the considerable elevation of the mountains, we find many others which belong to cool and temperate climates—such, for example, as rye and barley. The Sugar Cane, the Pomegranate, and numerous Aurantiaceæ, as, for example, the Citron and the Orange, have been likewise introduced into this part of Southern Africa.
enlarge-imageVegetable Life in South Africa. 1. Mesembryanthemum inflexum. 2. Hottentot’s Fig (Mes. edule). 3. Euphorbia neriifolia. 4. Euphorbia grandidens. 5. Stapelia hirsuta.Vegetable Life in South Africa.1. Mesembryanthemum inflexum.2. Hottentot’s Fig (Mes. edule).3. Euphorbia neriifolia.4. Euphorbia grandidens. 5. Stapelia hirsuta.
From the coast of Aden, where almost complete sterility prevails prior to the rainy season—from the coast of Aden to Cape Guardafui, situated at the easternmost point of Africa, the traveller encounters a constant succession of mountains or elevated table-lands, haunted by the shepherds of the Somali tribes,—a people notorious for their brigandage. Respecting the coast of Ajan we know but little,except that its arid and sandy soil supports a scanty vegetation of stunted plants. The Zanguebar coast is not more familiar to the botanist, and is mainly covered with marshes.
But the littoral of Western Africa is gifted with a flora as luxuriant as it is varied. According to Dr. Welwitsch, who has explored this region, previously almost aterra incognitato Europeans, “the special feature in the neighbourhood of Benguela is the abundance of parasiticalLorunthaceæ, or mistletoe, on the thickets of the thorny Mimosa, to which are attached those Roccellæ (or Archils), theRoccella tinctoriaandR. fuciformis, that yield so brilliant a lilac dye. In the gardens of Benguela the vegetables of Europe are most successfully cultivated, as well as a great number of fruit trees belonging both to tropical and temperate climes: citron and orange, the olive, the cashew-nut, the anana, the fig, the vine, the pomegranate, the elais-palm, the banana, the anona, and the corrossol. The vine bears grapes twice every year, and the crop on each occasion is abundant and of fine flavour. The gardens in the vicinity of Mossamèdes, between the fifteenth and sixteenth parallels of south latitude, exhibit a curious medley of vegetables on every side, where you may see flourishing side by side the banana and the potato, manioc and wheat, sugar-cane and flax, barley, and every kind of Spanish potato.”
A few miles from Cape Negro the coast rises for from 300 to 350 feet above the sea-level, forming a continuous plateau, where the flora, though meagre when compared with that a little further to the north, offers nevertheless to the traveller some objects of the highest interest. It was here that Dr. Welwitsch met with the strange plant which, in commemoration of its intrepid discoverer, Sir William Hooker namedWelwitschia,[108]but which the natives callTumboa. “In its youth its two original cotyledonary leaves appear to grow considerably, and extend horizontally in opposite directions, raised but little above the surface of the sand, whilst the intervening stock thickens and hardens, assuming an obconical shape, flat at the top, and rapidly tapering below into the descending root. As years goon, the original pair of leaves, having attained their full size, and a hard, tough, fibrous consistence, do not die away, but gradually split up into shreds; the woody mass which bears them rises very little higher, but increases horizontally both above and below the insertion of the leaves, so as to clasp their base in a deep marginal slit or cavity; and from the upper side, at the base of the leaf, several short flowering stalks are annually developed. These are erect, dichotomously branched jointed stems, rising from six inches to a foot in height, and bearing a pair of small opposite scales at each fork or joint, each branch being terminated by an oblong cone, under the scales of which are the flowers and seeds. The result is, that the country is studded with these misshapen table-like or anvil-like masses of wood, whose flat tops, pitted with the scars of old flowering stems, never rise above a foot from the ground, but vary, according to age, in a horizontal diameter of from a few inches to five or six feet—those of about eighteen inches diameter being supposed to be already above a hundred years old.”[109]
These fantastic monstrous shapes were found by Dr. Welwitsch, with their deeply-embedded roots, on the dry plateau of the Benguela coast, in 15° 40´ south latitude. Herr Montein met with it in a perfectly similar situation on quartzose soil, in the neighbourhood of the Nicolas River, 14° 20´ south latitude; and Mr. Baines and Mr. Anderson, in Dawaraland, between 22° and 23° south latitude, in the neighbourhood of Whalefish Bay, and in a district where never a drop of rain falls. We may therefore place thehabitatof this remarkable plant between the 14th and 23rd parallels of south latitude. The crown, when divested of its leaves, bears a close resemblance to a fungus.
enlarge-imageVegetable Life of Cape Colony. 1. Aloe verrucosa. 2. Aloe soccotrina. 3. Aloe ciliaris. 4. Aloe arborescens. 5. Aloe plicatilis. 6. Gladiolus blandus.Vegetable Life of Cape Colony.1. Aloe verrucosa.2. Aloe soccotrina.3. Aloe ciliaris.4. Aloe arborescens.5. Aloe plicatilis. 6. Gladiolus blandus.
enlarge-imageVegetable Life of Cape Colony. 1. Helichrysum fruticosum. 2. Erica Cavendishiana. 3. Protea longifolia. 4. Todea Africana.Vegetable Life of Cape Colony.1. Helichrysum fruticosum. 2. Erica Cavendishiana. 3. Protea longifolia. 4. Todea Africana.
enlarge-imageVegetable Life of Cape Colony. 1. Pelargonium hederæfolium (Ivy-leaved Geranium). 2. Oxalis rosacea (Wood-Sorrel). 3. Pelargonium glaucum. 4. Pelargonium zonale (Zone-leaved Geranium). 5. Pelargonium tricuspidatum.Vegetable Life of Cape Colony.1. Pelargonium hederæfolium (Ivy-leaved Geranium). 2. Oxalis rosacea (Wood-Sorrel).3. Pelargonium glaucum. 4. Pelargonium zonale (Zone-leaved Geranium).5. Pelargonium tricuspidatum.
If we now approach the Cape of Good Hope—the Cabo del Tormentoso, or “Cape of Storms,” of the early navigators—we shall observe a characteristic vegetation peculiar to a solid or stony soil, sometimes hilly, but generally dry. It is in the desolate and barren steppes situated within the confines of Caffraria that those splendidherbaceous bulbous plants display their beauties, which are now familiar to our English gardens under the names of Gladiolus, Oxalis, Ixia, and Tulbaya. To those magnificent ornaments of the floral world we must add some less known plants, remarkable in other respects; such as theMollugo cerviana, which, with a few Ficoideæ, form the almost exclusive nourishment of the herbivorous animals belonging to these countries. The Gramineæ are rare in the plains of Cape Colony, but, on the other hand, they contain a number of oleaginous plants included in divers families. Here, for instance, are those singularCompositæ, whose stems so closely resemble waxen tapers; several Ficoideæ, of which some species—as, notably, theMesembryanthemum edule, or Hottentot’s Fig, distributed over the interior of Southern Africa, and theMesembryanthemum tuberosum—areeagerly sought by the Hottentots, Caffres, and natives generally, who eat the fruits of the former and the roots of the latter; theStapelia hirsuta, or Carrion Plant, and several others of the same genus, whose carrion-smelling flowers are singularly handsome, though their odour is most offensive; a great number of aloes, particularly theAloe verrucosa,A. ciliaris,A. plicatilis, andA. arborescens, each distinguished by a strange wayward boldness of form and figure; and, finally, those larger Euphorbias of which I have already spoken, and which yield a white milky juice that hardens on exposure to the air. It is mainly on the slopes or stony hills of the Cape that we meet with numerous and remarkable species of the Immortelles, with their white, yellow, or lilac, and satin-smooth flowers. The woody Immortelle(Helichrysum fruticosum) is one of those peculiar to the Cape districts. It is in analogous but more sandy localities that those graceful little shrubs, with varied corollas, flourish, which are so popular in England under the name ofEricas, and which frequently exhibit the highest beauty of form and colour. In the engraving is figured the exquisiteErica Cavendishiana, a deservedly great favourite in our English conservatories. There, too, the traveller delightedly examines the almost interminable succession of Pelargoniums, or Geraniums, rich in clusters of delicate bloom, and in exquisitely green foliage. What a blank would their absence leave in our blossomy parterres! Here and there he notes dense coppices of theArduinia spinosa, the Lycium Afrum, the Euclæa ondulata, whose berries are eaten by the Hottentots; several species of Rhus,[110]among others theRhus lucidum; and, finally, a great number of the strange fantastic Proteaceæ, with their hard dry evergreen leaves and curiously beautiful flowers. At the foot of the mountains, in the countries bordering on Caffraria, different Cycadaceæ are found, especially theZamiaandEncephalartus, an elegant plant with a short spherical trunk, surmounted by a crown of long rigid palmated leaves. The natives prepare with their pith a species of cake which they eat instead of bread. Ferns are not numerous at the Cape; the most remarkable, undoubtedly, is theTodea Africana. The hills and meadows of this part of South Africa do not always exhibit so marked an aridity; rivers and streams refresh the soil, and there, where the current is not too swift nor the depth too great, grows the beautifulCallaof Ethiopia, a species of Aroidea, whose snow-white fragrant flowers resemble a large horn in shape; theAponogeton distachyum, another aquatic plant, with white flowers and floating leaves, is not less common in similar positions; then on the banks, in fresh and shady nooks of greenery, thrives theStrelitzia reginæ, a gorgeous-flowered genus ofMusaceæ, named after Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, queen of George III. The foliage of this magnificent plant consists of long-stalked leaves sheathing at the base, arising from a contracted stem, the flower stalk encircled below by the sheath of the leaf-stalk; while from its upper portion springs a large bract or spathe placed obliquely, within which lie the flowers, resplendent in orange and purple.
In the Desert of Kalahari exists an abundant and varied vegetation. According to Dr. Livingstone, it is an immense plain which nourishes a prodigious quantity of herbaceous plants, generally of very small elevation, and besprinkled at intervals with thickets of bushy shrubs. The herbs which are enabled to withstand the prolonged droughts of these arid localities are species with tuberous roots, creeping or spindle-like, and deeply buried in the ground.TheCitrullus vulgarisandC. amarusare found in enormous quantities. Dr. Livingstone speaks of another individual of the gourd tribe, probably a kind ofCucumis, whose fruits colour red when ripe, and which has sometimes a sweet and sometimes a bitter flavour. In these vast regions, where a desolating aridity prevails, the rivers and streams dry up for a great portion of the year, and the soil of their bed, generally black and loamy, is rapidly covered with a profuse vegetation, composed in great part of grasses and rush-plants.
The banks of the rivers Mokolo and Zouga, and the shores of Lake Ngami, are covered with herbs and small thorny stunted bushes, including theAcacia detinens. In the south of Africa the soil is so dry that only plants of a fleshy consistency can endure the heat; elsewhere, in more temperate climes, these latter plants are also very abundant, but the surrounding herbage destroys them. Among those which grow there in great numbers I may name the Ficoideæ, and particularly theMesembryanthemum inflexum, which is very widely spread, and whose stems and leaves are eaten by herbivorous animals. This plant, says Dr. Livingstone, is so useful that it is cultivated by the Dutch Boers on an extensive scale. On his northward route towards Linianty, this illustrious traveller fell in with meadows of such rank fertility that its herbage frequently rose above his vehicles. The natives, designated Makalatos, show some agricultural taste and skill, and cultivate durra, maize, two kinds of beans, arachides, pumpkins, and the like. Everywhere, along the banks of the Gambye and the Liba, he met with exceptionally fertile land, where the grasses attained an unusual development. On the Liba bloomed wide verdurous plains, consisting of plants with dazzling corollas and gramineæ of tall stature. Owing to the burning heats which blight these districts, herbaceous plants are developed with extraordinary rapidity.
In the rainy season the Liba meadows are covered, like our own, with an immense variety of mushrooms, some nutritious, others poisonous. The former are much relished by the natives. One ofthe most common, and one of the finest flavour, is found, says Dr. Livingstone, on all the ant-hills; it is completely white, very good even when eaten raw, and about eight inches in diameter. There is another of a brilliant red or superb blue, but it is poisonous.
The banks of the Quilo, like those of the Quango, are endowed with a most luxurious vegetation; the same is the case with the banks of the Zambesi. Everywhere spreads a gigantic and abundant herbage. In the environs of the small town of Cassanga, the natives cultivate manioc, potatoes, haricots, tomatoes, &c. There are found also bananas and guava plants, and probably all the legumes and fruit trees recognized by Dr. Welwitsch at Benguela, which lies nearly under the same latitude. From the table-land of Cassanga you may survey nearly the whole of the valley watered by the Quango. It is a gently undulating plain, covered with herbs, and sown with great woods. The coffee-tree was formerly cultivated in the province of Tété, but has been abandoned; cassias, however, flourish, and indigo. Among the cultivated plants of Tété Livingstone, moreover, mentions some species which are not yet botanically distinguished—such as the Loatsa (Pennisetum typhoideum), and several of the bean tribe, one of which grows underground like the arachides.
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OFall the provinces, as yet uninhabited or only scantily peopled, which compose the northern regions of the New World, none offer so vast an extent of prairies as that which is situated in the vicinity of the Neosho and the Vert-de-Gris, between the Missouri frontier and the River Arkansas. Woods of small extent—or,more generally, limited patches of copse and thicket—are met with at intervals in these plains. TheSmilax rotundifolia, a species of sarsaparilla, with round leaves and sarmentous stems; theRhus toxicodendrum, a shrub with a very poisonous juice; and theAsimina triloba, a plant bearing nutritious fruit, are, with a few other subfrutescent species, the denizens of these lonely localities. Annual or perennial plants abound in the prairies, and attain there a considerable development, especially in the more humid districts. The plains bordering on the Swan’s Marsh, situated upon the upper course of the River Osage, nourish a great number of species, as elegant as they are varied. As in our own meadows, the Gramineæ, the Cyperaceæ (or Sedges), the Leguminosæ, and the Compositæ—the latter especially—are very extensively diffused. But, in contrast to the majority of our species, their representatives are in general of remarkable dimensions, with flowers of extraordinary splendour, and most of them have been naturalized in our British gardens.
The American prairies, again, like the meadow-lands of Europe, are alternated with dry, gravelly spaces, marshes, swampy angles, and wooded tracts. It is curious to trace a certain likeness between the genera which inhabit these localities in both continents. Thus, M. Trécul, who explored, in 1848 and 1849, nearly the whole of the State of Missouri to the foot of the Rocky Mountains, Louisiana, Texas, and a part of Northern Mexico, discovered in the vicinity of the Swan’s Marsh, Water-Plantains (Alisma), Sagittarias, and Nymphæas, in the inundated districts; Characeæ—their tubular branches incrusted with carbonate of lime—bladder-plants, and the beautiful floating Naiadaceæ, in deeper pools and stagnant waters; and the Lythraceæ (or Loose-Strife tribe) on the banks of the brooklets. But the commonest aquatic plant in these morasses, and that which conceals, so to speak, all the other plants proper to such localities, is theNelumbium calophyllum, with its rose-coloured blossoms; its seeds and rhizomes are eaten by the natives.
The vast plains of Missouri are sufficiently fertile. Among the plants most abundant in somewhat damp places we must noticeseveralCompositæ; theLiatris, with their violet flowers and long spiky bunches, theCalliopsis tinctoriaof the dyers, theGauraof Lindheimer, and theTripsacum dactyloides. Asters, Erigerons, Gaillardies, Helianthi (sun-flowers), Solidagos, theRudbeckia hirta, and theCoreopsis, are found almost as far south as Texas. By the side of theseCompositæflourish severalDesmodiumsandCassias, some gracefulBaptisias—with blue flowers and light green foliage, theMelanthum Virginicum, theEuphorbia marginata, theAsclepias Cornuti—now naturalised in the neighbourhood of Paris—theHibiscus palustrisandH. moscheutos, gigantic Malvaceæ, whose splendidly-beautiful flowers are often three or four inches in diameter. As plants widely spread in the stonier Prairies, we may note the Gauras, different varieties ofŒnothera, and especially theSilphium laciniatum(vulgarly called the Magnetic Plant, or Compass of the Prairies). Its leavesare saidto turn their faces uniformly east and west, so that their edges are consequently directed due north and south. The plant is also known as Pilot-weed, Polar-plant, Rosin-weed, and Turpentine-weed; the latter name derived from the copious resin exuded by its stems, which grow to a height of three to six feet, as well as by the leaves, which are deeply pinnatified.
In the small woods which skirt the Prairies is found in abundance, twining round the bushes, theApios tuberosa, a leguminous plant formerly recommended to European cultivation on account of the rounded tubercles which grow upon its subterranean stems. The Arabians collect them in the spring, and carefully dry them to eat for food. The Apios belongs to the family of Umbelliferæ, and is consequently allied to celery, parsnip, and carrot.
In Missouri, and as far as the confines of Mississippi, we also fall in with very productive sandy plains alternating with wooded uplands. This country recalls, on the whole, the aspect of that which we have just described, and the plants which thrive therein are almost the same.
On the hills and woody slopes in the neighbourhood of the Iron Mountain, we likewise meet with sufficiently verdurous prairies.M. Trécul collected there numerous Gramineæ, some species of Carex, Plantains, Euphorbias, Polygalas, and Vervains; many genera, in fact, which in France, and similar soils elsewhere, have numerous representatives. It is in the grassy tracts of the wooded districts that the larger species ofPhloxflourish, while the smaller varieties of the same genus vegetate upon the hills. The low humid meadows enchant us with their gorgeous scarletActæas,[111]their yellow Balsams theirEchinacea purpureas, and their superb Lilies; those which are dry and rather stony are covered with the broad golden flowers of the gayŒnothera macrocarpa.[112]