Dr. Smith crossed the Tropic of Capricorn in a journey from the Cape of Good Hope, where the country had still the same arid character. North from that there is a vast tract unexplored. In 1802 two native travelling merchants crossed the continent, which is 1590 miles wide, from Loando on the Atlantic to Zambeze on the Mozambique Channel. They found various mercantile nations, considerably advanced in civilization, who raise abundance of maize and millet, though the greater part of the country is in a state of nature. Ridges of low hills, yielding copper, the staple commodity of this country, run from S.E. to N.W. to the west of the dominions of the Camleaze, a country full of rivers, morasses, and extensive salt marshes which supply this part of the continent with salt. The travellers crossed 102 rivers, most of them fordable. The leading feature of this country is Lake N’yassi, of great, but unknown length, and comparatively narrow. It begins 200 miles north from the town of Tete, on the Zambeze, and extends from S.E. to N.W., flanked on the east by a range of mountains of the same name, running in the same direction, at the distance of 350 miles from the Mozambique Channel. This is all we know from actual observation of the table-land of South Africa, till about the 10th northern meridian, where Dr. Beke’s Abyssinian journey terminated. It is evident, however, that there can be no very high mountains covered with perpetual snow on the table-land, for, if there were, Southern Africa would not be destitute of great rivers; nevertheless, the height of the table-land, and of the mountains of Komri on its northern edge, must be considerable, to supply the perennial sources of the Nile, the Senegal, and the Niger. The edges of the table-land are better known. At the Cape of Good Hope the African continent is about 700 miles broad, and ends in three narrow parallel ridges of mountains, the last of which is the highest, and abuts on the table-land. All are cleft by precipitous deep ravines, through which winter torrents flow to the ocean. The longitudinal valleys, or koroos, that separate them, are tiers, or steps, by which the plateau dips to the maritime plains. The descent is rapid, as both these plains and the mountain-ranges are very narrow. On the western side the mountains form a high group and end in steep promontories on the coast, where Table Mountain, at Cape Town, 3582 feet high, forms a conspicuous landmark for mariners. Granite, which is the base of Southern Africa, rises to a considerable height in many places, and is generally surmounted by vast horizontal beds of sand-stone, which give that character of flatness peculiar to the summits of many of the Cape mountains.