filling up and coloring are no less so. Everything upon which the eye rests has the appearance of having been cast in a mould nowhere else made use of in the system of nature. Among the terrestrial animals, what bulk and fantastic formations! How numerous and strikingly contrasted are the groups that present themselves! In their character and habits what extremes seem to meet! How unspeakably lavish seems to be the waste of vitality! Yet who will dare to say that, in this prodigious outpouring of animal life, there is a single creature that does not enjoy and adorn the scene on which it moves? If there be anything we should be disposed to think out of place, it is the stunted representatives of humanity, who, under the name of Bushmen, roam in indescribable misery and degradation over those sublime savannahs. To a man of imagination, nothing more inspiring can be conceived than climbing one of the breezy peaks overlooking that strange wilderness, at the moment that the dawn is busily unfolding all its varied features. From every tree the heavy dew-*drops pour like rain; streams of white mist, smooth and glassy as a tranquil river, float slowly down the valleys, reflecting from their surface the trees, and cliffs, and crags on either hand. Here, through openings between feathery mimosas, weeping-willows, and tall trembling reeds, we catch a glimpse of some quiet lake, the haunt of the hippopotamus; while a herd of graceful purple antelopes are seen drinking on its further margin. There, amidst thick clumps of camel-thorn, we behold a drove of giraffes, with heads eighteen feet high, browsing on the tops of trees. Elsewhere, the rhinoceros pokes his long ugly snout from a brake; while the lion, fearless in the consciousness of his own strength, parades his tawny bulk over the plain, or reclines, in sphinx-like attitude, beneath some ancient tree.'
Eastern Africa. With the exception of the countries bordering on
the Red Sea—Egypt, Nubia, and Abyssinia—which cannot be included in
so general a survey as the present, the eastern coast of Africa is undoubtedly
the least-known portion of the whole circuit of the continent. The
tract of country extending from the northern extremity of Caffreland to
Cape Guardafui, and including the states or territories of Sofala, Mozambique,
Zanguebar, and Ajan, was early visited by the Portuguese in their
voyages to India; and in the course of the sixteenth century, various
settlements were planted in it by them, similar to those which they planted
along the Guinea Coast. The most conspicuous difference was, that here
the ruling race were not pure negroes, but men of Arabic descent, and
vehement Mohammedans. It was from these that the Portuguese wrested
the immense line of coast-territory which they once held in this part of
Africa, and of which they made Mozambique the capital. On the ruin of
the Portuguese power in India, their settlements in Eastern Africa declined;
the Arabs and blacks reconquered a great portion of their ancient territory;
and it is now merely by sufferance that the once-powerful Portuguese
retain a footing on the coast at all. What they do possess, however, they
guard with the utmost jealousy; and they testify extreme aversion to the
intrusion of any other European nation into those territories where they
once lorded it so proudly. Mr. Salt, who visited Mozambique in 1808,
found it to contain a population of less than three thousand, of whom only
five hundred were Portuguese. 'The rural population of this part of
