Western Africa within the tropics constitutes in many respects one vast natural-history province, extending far into the interior and towards the eastern coasts. This wide-spreading region is capable of being subdivided, and the steaming districts along the coast from Senegal to Congo present numerous peculiarities that are not seen in the inland portions. These latter again vary considerably in features of surface, and the animal and vegetable population must change more or less accordingly. But throughout this portion of the African continent there range not a few of the large quadrupeds, and doubtless of the smaller ones and other tribes along with them. The African elephant, the hippopotamus, the two-horned rhinoceros, the phascochœrus, or wart-hog, the lion and the jackal, are examples; although the Great Desert cuts off the range northwards of several of them. Among birds, the ostrich and the Vultur kolbii are instances.
The most conspicuous zoological peculiarities of this region are manifested by quadrumanous and edentate quadrupeds. This is a country of monkeys, and of very remarkable ones. The thumbless apes (Colobus) are concentrated here. The various herds of Cercopithecus are chiefly members of this region: the mandrills are all belonging to it, and the baboons abound. The African orang-outang is a native of Guinea; and three species of chimpanzee are found on the same line of coast.
The edentata of this region are confined to the countries in the neighbourhood of the coast, and though few are highly peculiar. There are species of the genus Manis, the scaly ant-eater, or pangolin. In the presence of these extraordinary quadrupeds along the western shores of Africa we seem to have a relation with the New World shadowed out; one that is also indicated by a few analogies among the plants. At the same time, by similar indications, a relationship of analogy with the Indian region may be traced. Thus, there are curious resemblances between the flora of Congo, that of India, and of the islands of the Indian Ocean. These similitudes are the more remarkable since the physical features of the country between the western and eastern coasts are such as scarcely to admit of any continuity of like vegetation or animal population. With the flora of South Africa that of the west has but very slight connection.
A number of antelopes, though as we go northwards the species are less numerous, manifest the distinguishing feature of the group of African ruminants. In our group the harnessed and Isabella antelopes typify this character.
The vegetation of intertropical Africa varies considerably in different districts, on account of the striking difference in the mineral constitution of the soil, and the elemental peculiarities of the seaward and inland districts. Palms of several kinds are abundant along the coast countries, and among them the most prominent is the Elais guiniensis, a palm-oil species. As a group, however, although playing so prominent a part in the West African landscape, the number of kinds of palm is small, when compared with the vast number of individuals. The Pandanus candelabrum, one of the screw-palms, is a conspicuous tree. Mangroves clothe the sides of swamps and the deltas of rivers. Towards the inner country the great Adansonia digitata or Baobab, the largest tree in the world, becomes frequent, and ranges westwards to the boundaries of Abyssinia. The great tree-cotton, or Bombax, is also characteristic. Among the herbaceous plants that range along the western coasts of Africa, one of the best known and prettiest is the Gloriosa superba. Cinchoniaceæ and Malvaceæ are among the tribes of plants that attain a considerable development.
SOUTH AFRICA.
There are few tracts of land on the earth’s surface so distinctly marked by zoological and botanical peculiarities, and by a striking aspect of fauna and flora as South Africa. Its mountains—and they attain considerable elevation, as much as 10,000 feet in some instances—its low grounds, sandy plains, and deserts called Karoos, if not everywhere adorned with a luxuriant vegetation, are singularly prolific in remarkable and interesting plants, and are the resorts of numerous quadrupeds, many of them of considerable dimensions. In its mammalia and its flowering plants we recognise the prominent and distinctive natural-history characteristics of the region.
One baboon, Cynocephalus porcarius, and a Cercopithecus, are the only monkeys of the Cape region, and though peculiar as species, are rather to be regarded as links of the fauna of the South African with the general fauna of Africa. In this light, too, must the carnivora be regarded, although numerous and prominent; for the most conspicuous, the lion for example, are common to a vast extent of the African continent. The hyæna genus, however, may be regarded as having its metropolis in this province. Some of the conspicuous pachyderms also appertain to the general African group, such as the elephant, the hippopotamus, the two-horned rhinoceros, the Ethiopic hog, and the zebra. Here is the country of the gnoos and other antelopes, of quaggas, lions following in the track; some of the antelopes may be seen in herds of hundreds.
Here we are out of the region of palms; nor are large trees of any kind very distinctive of the South African flora. There are no vast forests, arborescent plants are scarce, but instead, there are great tracts of bush, composed, in the Caffrarian districts, for the most part of succulent and thorny shrubs; leafless columnar euphorbias, some of them shaped like great candelabra and occasionally towering to thirty or forty feet, and fleshy aloes with threatening weapon-like leaves and tall standards of handsome flowers, give a strange and bizarre aspect to the Bush-country vegetation, and cover with prickly thickets the steep sides of the ravines that furrow and separate the long flat ridges of hills. Here grow the Zamia horrida, the crane-like Strelitzia, prickly kinds of acacia, everlasting-flowers in great variety, and ice-plants. One of the latter, the Mesembryanthemum edule, or Hottentot fig, is the only native fruit, and a bad one at best.
The mention of Cape plants at once suggests to the lover of flowers a number of beautiful natives of the South African region: Cape lilies, various sorts of corn-flags, ixias, lobelias, oxalidiæ, peculiar orchids, pelargoniums, diosmeas, polygalas, and heaths, of the last in wondrous variety. The curious little pachydermatous quadruped, Hyrax capensis, is a specific peculiarity; so also is the quagga. It is the group of the hollow-formed ruminants that give the grand distinguishing feature to the South African fauna. The beautiful family of antelopes attains its maximum here, nearly one half of the total number of species being South African. The gnoo, the eland, the harte-beest and spring-bok, are some of those most familiar on account of their dimensions or beauty: the abundance of antelopes compensates for the absence of deer. The Cape buffalo (Bos caffer) is another distinctive ruminant; and the giraffe, though ranging far to the north, is a conspicuous member of the southern fauna. The sand-flats around the Cape are bored by peculiar moles of the genus Bathyergus, and one of the most curious of African animals, the Cape ant-eater, Orycteropus capensis, one of the few members of its order existing in the Old World, is confined to the province from which it derives its specific appellation. The ornithological peculiarities of the Cape are not so striking.