ree. One is that of colour.
Monotonous as the landscapes often are, there is a warmth and richness
of tone about them which fills and delights the eye. One sees
comparatively little of that whitish-blue limestone which so often gives
a hard and chilling aspect to the scenery of the lower ridges of the
Alps and of large parts of the coasts of the Mediterranean. In Africa
even the grey granite or gneiss has a deeper tone than these limestones,
and it is frequently covered by red and yellow lichens of wonderful
beauty. The dark basalts and porphyries which occur in many places, the
rich red tint which the surface of the sandstone rocks often takes under
the scorching sun, give depth of tone to the landscape; and though the
flood of midday sunshine is almost overpowering, the lights of morning
and evening, touching the mountains with every shade of rose and crimson
and violet, are indescribably beautiful. It is in these morning and
evening hours that the charm of the pure dry air is specially felt.
Mountains fifty or sixty miles away stand out clearly enough to enable
all the wealth of their colour and all the delicacy of their outlines to
be perceived; and the eye realises, by the exquisitely fine change of
tint between the nearer and the more distant ranges, the immensity and
the harmony of the landscape. Europeans may think that the continuous
profusion of sunlight during most of the year may become wearisome. I
was not long enough in the country to find it so, and I observed that
those who have lived for a few years in South Africa declare they prefer
that continuous profusion to the murky skies of Britain or Holland or
North Germany. But even if the fine weather which prevails for eight
months in the year be monotonous, there is compensation in the
extraordinary brilliancy of the atmospheric effects throughout the rainy
season, and especially in its first weeks. During nine days which I
spent in the Transvaal at that season, when several thunderstorms
occurred almost every day, the combinations of sunshine, lightning, and
cloud, and the symphonies--if the expression may be permitted--of light
and shade and colour which their changeful play produced in the sky and
on the earth, were more various and more wonderful than a whole year
would furnish forth for enjoyment in Europe.

The other peculiar charm which South African scenery possesses is that
of primeval solitude and silence. It is a charm which is differently
felt