Africa, Vol. 4: South and East Africa (Classic Reprint) - Tapa dura

Excerpt from Africa, Vol. 4: South and East Africa

The more westerly summits, standing on the last terrace of the plateau as it falls seawards, vary in altitude from 600 or 700 to feet. Developing at their base precipitous cliffs, they present in many places the aspect of veritable mountains. But most of the hills skirting-the coast are mere table rocks, rising little more than 300 or 400 feet above the terraces. They are usually flanked bv steep slopes of talus formation, but may be surmounted by following the long winding valleys of erosion, which have been excavated at intervals in the thickness of the plateau.

In the southern region of the Angola territory, the uplands of the interior have everywhere been denuded and eroded to great depths, by the affluents of the Cunene and the torrents of the coastlands. Nevertheless the Chella, or Sierra da N eve, that is, Snowy Range, a superb mountain mass to the east of Mossamedes, has maintained its integrity in isolated grandeur, some of its crests falling little short of feet. It owes its alternative Portuguese name to the white streaks sometimes visible in the more elevated crevasses, after the heavy rains brought by the cold southern winds. These highlands, whence flow an abundance of running waters, appear to present the most favourable prospects for the future colonisation of Angola. The climate approaches, nearer than that of auv other of the Portuguese possessions in Africa, to the conditions prevailing in the south of Europe, while the mean altitude of the upland valleys is about the same as that of Angola generally, being approximatelyr estimated at feet.

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