SOME PHYSICAL FEATURES.
Naturally, in looking upon the contour of a country, we wish to consider its general features, that we may call up a mental picture of it. You know how quickly you can recall an absent friend, if you are familiar enough with his form and features to make a clear mental photograph.
The best authors divide Africa, for convenience, into five different sections: first, the triangular-shaped region south of the Gulf of Guinea and Cape Guardafui; second, the great tract called Soudan, which lies north and northwest of this triangular plateau; third, the Sahara, or Great Desert, which stretches between the Soudan and the cultivated tract that borders the Mediterranean Sea; fourth, the Atlas region, which includes the mountainous countries of Morocco, Algeria, Tunis, and Tripoli; fifth, the region which borders on the Red Sea, and comprises Abyssinia, Nubia, and Egypt.
The first section is mostly a high table-land, with mountains fringing its edges. The Lupata range, which runs parallel with the coast, forms the eastern crest of this table-land. Two snow-clad mountains, Kilimanjaro and Kenia, rise to an elevation of about twenty thousand feet, and mark the greatest height of this table-land in any one section of it.
The table-land does not rise abruptly from the coast. A belt of lowlands lies between the coast and where the elevation begins. These lowlands range from fifty to three hundred miles in breadth.
The eastern extremity of the table-land stretches into the mountainous country of Abyssinia. Its most northern extremity, the summit of Abba Yared, is fifteen thousand feet high.
In the south, the hills of Cape Colony rise by gradual stages from Table Mount to the summits of the mountain ranges in the northern part of the Colony. These summits are estimated to be from seven thousand to ten thousand feet high.
The spaces between these ranges are either valleys covered with shrubs, or broad, elevated terraces. In Cape Colony, which was founded by the Dutch, these valleys have been named kloofs. The terraces have been named karroos. It will be well to remember these names, as we shall find them again in later descriptions of this region.
The second section, Soudan, has sometimes been called Central Nigritia. This tract includes the countries which are watered by the Senegal, Gambia, and Niger, together with the coast of Lower Guinea and the basin of Lake Tchad.
In the western part of this section there is a mountainous table-land. This table-land does not attain any great elevation, but the rivers Senegal, Gambia, and Niger have their rise here.