The aspect of this part of the country during most of the year is of a light yellow color; for some months during the rainy season it is of a pleasant green mixed with yellow.  Ranges of hills appear in the west, but east of them we find hundreds of miles of grass-covered plains.  Large patches of these flats are covered with white calcareous tufa resting on perfectly horizontal strata of trap.  There the vegetation consists of fine grass growing in tufts among low bushes of the “wait-a-bit” thorn (’Acacia detinens’), with its annoying fish-hook-like spines.  Where these rocks do not appear on the surface, the soil consists of yellow sand and tall, coarse grasses, growing among berry-yielding bushes, named moretloa (’Grewia flava’) and mohatla (’Tarchonanthus’), which has enough of aromatic resinous matter to burn brightly, though perfectly green.  In more sheltered spots we come on clumps of the white-thorned mimosa (’Acacia horrida’, also ’A. atomiphylla’), and great abundance of wild sage (’Salvia Africana’), and various leguminosae, ixias, and large-flowering bulbs:  the ’Amaryllis toxicaria’ and ‘A.  Brunsvigia multiflora’ (the former a poisonous bulb) yield in the decayed lamellae a soft, silky down, a good material for stuffing mattresses.

In some few parts of the country the remains of ancient forests of wild olive-trees (’Olea similis’) and of the camel-thorn (’Acacia giraffe’) are still to be met with; but when these are leveled in the proximity of a Bechuana village, no young trees spring up to take their places.  This is not because the wood has a growth so slow as not to be appreciable in its increase during the short period that it can be observed by man, which might be supposed from its being so excessively hard; for having measured a young tree of this species growing in the corner of Mr. Moffat’s garden near the water, I found that it increased at the rate of a quarter of an inch in diameter annually during a number of years.  Moreover, the larger specimens, which now find few or no successors, if they had more rain in their youth, can not be above two or three hundred years old.

It is probable that this is the tree of which the Ark of the Covenant and the Tabernacle were constructed, as it is reported to be found where the Israelites were at the time these were made.  It is an imperishable wood, while that usually pointed out as the “shittim” (or ’Acacia nilotica’) soon decays and wants beauty.

In association with it we always observe a curious plant, named ngotuane, which bears such a profusion of fine yellow strong-scented flowers as quite to perfume the air.  This plant forms a remarkable exception to the general rule, that nearly all the plants in the dry parts of Africa are scentless, or emit only a disagreeable odor.  It, moreover, contains an active poison; a French gentleman, having imbibed a mouthful or two of an infusion of its flowers as tea, found himself rendered nearly powerless.