The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1900-01-30
SUCH IS SOUTH AFRICA.
From Ainslee.s AIars

IFrom Ainslee's Magazine.1
You land in South Africa at the foot
OF mountain 3, 500 feet high. They call
it Table Mountain, and the veil of mist
that excepting on very clear days,
oyerhangs it, SouthAfricans are pleased
to term the "tableclOth." Presenting a
front of solid rock 1000 feet in height
perpendicular as a wall and for half
mile on top level, this mountain offers
the best natural signboard on earth.
Time and again have British firms
attempted with fabulous sums to Sc
cure it for advertising purposes, but az
yet, there has been no such DETACHMENT.
Table Mountain marks the tip end of
the Dark Continent. Below it nestIes
the city Of Cape Town, a beautiful bay
stretching out in the foreground. On
the west the mountain breaks off
abruptly, and the railroad skirts about
1t to the interior. On the east it slopes
off into a billy, picturesque formation
known as the Lions Back" and then
gradually rises into the Drakensburg
Mountains. This is the only great
mountain range south of the Zanabesi,
and by noting its location one may I'M
derstand in triee just what South At
RIGA is geographically. Stea1ning
along the east coast from Cape Colony
northWard you have the ErakenSburg
in view nearly all the way to Bcira, a
distance of 1000 miles. In Cape Colony
and Natal the mountains in many
places dip the waters edga. and with
4 field glass one may see on their
craSS and peaks smoke curling up from
the native villages. In Portuguese ter
ritory the mountains rece1e slightly
from the coast. and at DelagOa Bay
there is an intervening stretch of low
land twenty miles wide. At Beira this
has increased to sixty miles. At the
Zambesi the Drakensburg ends.
To get into the interior of South At
RIGA from any of the five east coast
landing places-Port Elizabeth, East
London, Durham, Delagoa Bay and
Beira-One must cross a short extent
of low land and then ascend steep
mountains. Having arrived there, the
traveller is conscious of little or no
descent, fve-sixths of the whole inte-
rior being a vast plateau that extends
to the Zambesi on the north. the Allan
tic ocean on the west, and varies in al
titude from 5000 to 5000 feet above the
sea.
A fringe of tropical country, where
bloom the magnolia and the rose, where
flourish the orange, pineapple, lemon.
guavo, grape, banana, the cotton and
the tea plant; a long stretch of noun
tains running parallel with the Indian
Ocean. the highest peaks OF which are
capped with snow, and in whose val
leyS wave tracts OF wheat and corn; a
vast prairie, dotted here ana there with
patches OF scrub woodland, mission sta
tions, and immense farms with millions
of sheep and cattle grazing thereon; a
few thousand hamletS scattered like
GASES over a great landscape, made
black by the native Africans who live
in matched huts, and wear but a breech
clout; a dozen large towns where is
heard the clang of the American trolley
car and the clatter of the police patrol,
and about which men cluster as flies
gather to a jar of sweets; the remnants
of a once mighty geological garden, in
Guiding many leopards, beautiful and
1.-the, balloons, antelope, jackals and
crocodiles, less number of hippopo-
tami and a few herds of buffalo, e1e-
plants and giraffes; some iron ore,
some coal, some copper. and a little
silver, forty miles of gold and 100 acres
of diamonds That is South Africa.