[Sidenote: Spurs of Drakensberg.]

North of Basutoland, the western spurs of the Drakensberg, jutting out
on to the Orange Free State uplands, are far less numerous and
pronounced than those in Natal, where the mountains dip steeply down
towards the sea; but the Versamelberg, the Witteberg, and the
Koranaberg further south, although of no great height, are strategical
features of importance.

[Sidenote: Drakensberg and Lobombo ranges.]

Beyond Laing's Nek, the Drakensberg, no longer a watershed, and losing
much both of its continuity and splendour, still preserves its
north-easterly trend, dropping still further to a mean altitude of
between 5,000 and 6,000 feet, and passing under many local
appellations, through the eastern Transvaal, until near Lydenburg, it
again rises in the Mauch Berg. Along its eastern edge the Drakensberg
here descends in the ruggedest slopes and precipices to the plains
which divide it from the Lobombo Mountains, a range which, commencing
at the Pongola river opposite Lake St. Lucia, runs parallel to the
Drakensberg, the two systems inclining inward to coalesce at the
Limpopo. South of that river the Lobombo formed throughout its length
the eastern frontier of the Transvaal State.

[Sidenote: The rands.]

North of the Oliphant river, which pierces both the Drakensberg and
Lobombo, the character of the Drakensberg becomes still more
fragmentary. Here its most important features are the transverse
ridges, or _rands_, thrown off from it in a direction generally
south-westerly. Chief amongst these are the Murchison and Zoutpansberg
Mountains, which, covering more than 350 miles of the country, unite
in the Witfontein Berg in the Rustenburg district. These ridges,
though of an elevation of over 4,000 feet above the sea level, rise
nowhere more than, and seldom as much as, 1,500 feet above the
terrain, and do little to relieve the monotony of the great prairies
they traverse and surround. The same type is preserved by the various
low ridges running parallel to and south of them towards the Orange
Free State border. One of these is the famous Witwaters Rand,
extending from Krugersdorp to Springs, and another the Magaliesberg, a
chain of more imposing character, connecting Pretoria and Rustenburg
to the north-east, and disappearing in the fertile Marico valley.
North of the Limpopo the Drakensberg, though becoming more broken and
complicated, still presents a bold front where the great
sub-conti