Inland the descent is less, and more regular, issuing in a plateau from three to five thousand feet above the sea, and presenting almost throughout a comparatively level or undulating surface that offers no serious difficulty to transit.
The territory of the Orange Free State and of the Transvaal lies wholly within this table-land.

In this region, and throughout Africa south of 25 deg., there are river beds, but no navigable rivers.

The country is generally treeless, and there is a great deficiency of steady natural water supply.

During the rainy season, from October to March, the naked ground fails to retard the running off of the waters, which therefore escape rapidly by the rivers, swelling them to momentary torrents that quickly and fruitlessly subside.

During the long dry season the exposed herbage dries to the roots.
From these conditions it results that not only is agriculture generally impracticable, economically, but {p.008} that cattle and sheep, the chief wealth of the Boer farmers, require an unusual proportion of ground per head for pasture; and the mobility of bodies of horsemen, expecting to subsist their beasts upon local pasturage, is greatly affected by the seasons--an important military consideration.