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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE DE KAAP VALLEY. The De Kaap district, of which the town of Barberton is the centre, occupies the extreme southeastern portion of the Transvaal. On the south it is bounded by Swaziland and the district of New Scotland, on the east by the Portuguese territory of Delagoa Bay; on the north the Crocodile River separates it from the district of Lydenburg, and on the west the steep range of the Drakensberg Mountains borders the high central plateau and the district of Middelburg. On the southern boundary of the district flows the Komati River, on the northern the Crocodile, and between these run the Lomati, Queen's, and North and South Kaap rivers. All these streams run eastward, and eventually find their way into the sea at Delagoa Bay. What is known as the De Kaap Valley is a comparatively low-lying area of country, some thirty miles in diameter, and almost circular in form, on all sides surrounded by steep and rugged mountains; those on the western side, the Drakensberg, forming the edge of the great inland plateau which occupies the centre of Southern Africa. The edge of this tableland is much broken, and forms a belt of very rugged and difficult country beyond which, towards the coast, lie flat plains and swamps extending to the sea. There are no forests, and trees of any considerable size are not plentiful; but on the mountain sides and in the ravines there grows a quantity of scrubby thorn- bush useful for fuel and other purposes, and after the rains, the whole country is covered with a luxuriant vegetation of tall grass and ferns, with many different species of wild flowers; indeed, the flora of this district would well repay a minute botanical study. The climate is healthy and cool during the dry season, from April to September; during the other months of the year th...