Miles of fruitful country are now lying absolutely waste, for there is not even game to eat off the fine pasturage, and to recline under the evergreen, shady groves which we are ever passing in our progress.

The people who inhabit the central region are not all quite black in color.

Many incline to that of bronze, and others are as light in hue as the Bushmen, who, it may be remembered, afford a proof that heat alone does not cause blackness, but that heat and moisture combined do very materially deepen the color.

Wherever we find people who have continued for ages in a hot, humid district, they are deep black, but to this apparent law there are exceptions, caused by the migrations of both tribes and individuals; the Makololo, for instance, among the tribes of the humid central basin, appear of a sickly sallow hue when compared with the aboriginal inhabitants; the Batoka also, who lived in an elevated region, are, when seen in company with the Batoka of the rivers, so much lighter in color, they might be taken for another tribe; but their language, and the very marked custom of knocking out the upper front teeth, leave no room for doubt that they are one people.
Apart from the influences of elevation, heat, humidity, and degradation, I have imagined that the lighter and darker colors observed in the native population run in five longitudinal bands along the southern portion of the continent.

Those on the seaboard of both the east and west are very dark; then two bands of lighter color lie about three hundred miles from each coast, of which the westerly one, bending round, embraces the Kalahari Desert and Bechuana countries; and then the central basin is very dark again.