The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1900-01-28
THE SOUTH AFRICAN PLATEAU.
\ Bird's-Eye View of the Vast Plain
COCO Feet Above Sea Level.

Allan Sangree in Anslees Magazine.
You land in South Africa a the foot of a
mountain $500 feet high They call it Ia
BILE mountain and the veil of mist that,
excepting on very clear days, overhangs
it, South Africans are pleased to term the
"tablecloth.'' Presenting a front of solid
rock 1000 feet in hight, perpendicular as
a wall, and for half a mile on top quite
level, this mountain offers the best natural
signboard on earth. Time and again have
English firms attempted with fabulous
sums to secure it for advertising purposes
but as yet there has been no such deface-
menI.
Table mountain marks the tip end Of th5
Dark Continent. Below it nestles 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 it to the interior. on
the east it slopes off into a billy, pictur-
esque formation known as the Lion
Back" and then gradually rises into the
Drakensburg mountains. This is the only
great mountain range south of the Fam
best. and by noting its location, one may
understand in a-trice just what South
Africa is geographically.
Steaming along the east coast from
Cape Colony northward, you have the
Drakensburg in view nearly ell the way 10
Beira, a distance of 1000 miles. In Cape
Colony and Natal the mountains in many
places dip to the waters edge, and with
field glass one may see on their crags
smoke curling up from the native VII
lagos. In Portuguese territory the mouh-
tains recede slightly from the coast anu
at Delagoa bay there is an Intervening
stretch of lowland twenty miles wide. AL
bac 10 SiXtV miles.
AT the Zambesb the Drakensburg ends.
To get into the interior of South Africa
from any of the five east coast LANDING
places, Port Elizabeth, East London, Dur
ban, Delagoa bay and Beira. one must
first cross a short extent of lowland, ana
then ascend steep mountains. Having ar
rived there the traveller is conscious OF
little or no descent, tive-sixths of the Whoe
interior being vast plateau that eXtehd5
to the Zambesi on the north, the Atlanuo
ocean on the west and varies in altltude
from 5000 to 5000 feet above the sea level
A fringe of tropical country, where bloom
the magnolia and the rose, where flourish
the orange, pineapple. lemon, guauo'
grape, banana, the cotton and the tea
plant; a long stretch of mountains run
ming parallel with the Indian ocean, tha
highest peaks of which are capped with
snow, and in whose valleys wave tracts
of wheat and corn; a vast prairie. dotted
here and there with patches of scruo
woodland mission stations, and immense
farms with millions Of sheep and catue
grazing thereon; few thousand hamets
scattered like GASES over a great lana
scape. made black by the native Africans
VINO live in matched huts and wear but
a breech clout; 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 tiieS
gather to a jar of sweets; the remnants
of once mighty geological garden, III"
Guiding many leopards, beautiful and lithe'
balloons. antelope, jackals and crocodiles,
a less number of hippopotami, and a Few
herds of buffalo, elephants and girailesi
some iron ore, some coal some copper,
and little silver; forty miles of gold ana
100 acres of diamonds. That is South
Africa.