The Congo rivers and another great river called the Zambezi stretch
right across Africa from east to west. North of this the country is
called Central Africa, about some of whose people we have been
reading. South of it across the Zambezi lies South Africa. East and
west of this land is the salt sea, on the east called the Indian
Ocean, on the west the Atlantic Ocean. As we travel south the country
gets narrower and narrower, until the two great oceans meet at the
Cape of Good Hope. Near the Congo and the Zambezi towards Central
Africa the sun is very hot, but as we journey southwards it gets
cooler. When we reach the colder lands of the south we find that the
grass and maize do not grow so tall, and that there are no great
forests. For long distances the land stretches as far as we can see,
covered with short grass, but there are no trees. This kind of
country is called "veld" in South Africa. There are some waterless
deserts here, too, but none so large as the Sahara in North Africa.
In other parts there are rivers, though some of them dry up in the
summer and only have water in the rainy season. In South Africa, as
in Central Africa, it rains some months of the year and is dry the
others.