The existing
stately tree is the fruit of this patient labour; it grows at twice
the pace of our oaks, and attains far larger dimensions; it is quite
useless as a timber tree, but produces enormous acorns which, in windy
weather, descend in showers from the trees and batter the corrugated
iron roofs of the houses with a noise like an air-raid.
The Union of South Africa is unfortunate in having the great range of
the Drakensberg running parallel to the coastline for hundreds of
miles, for until the Zambesi is reached there are practically no
navigable rivers at all. This barrier mountain range, and the
recklessness of the early settlers in cutting down the forests, are
together responsible for the aridity of South Africa. She is, indeed,
as Ezekiel said of old, "planted in the wilderness, in a dry and
thirsty ground." The Cape peninsula is comparatively well-watered;
between the giant rocky buttresses of Table Mountain little clear
streams gush down, and there are several brooks, proudly termed
"rivers" locally, quite visible to the naked eye. Everything in this
world is relative. I remember at Alkmaar in North Holland ascending an
artificial mound perhaps seventy feet high, planted with trees. In the
dead-flat expanse of the Low Countries, this hillock is looked on by
the natives of Alkmaar much as Mont Blanc is regarded by the
inhabitants of Geneva, with feelings of profound veneration; so in
South Africa the tiniest brooklet is the source of immense pride to
the dwellers on its banks, and rightly so, for it is the very
life-blood of the district, and literally Isaiah's "rivers of water in
a dry place.
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