KALLIIA'RI DESERT. The Kalihari is a vast central and nearly uninhabited tract of country lying between Great Namaqualand and thu Betjuana country, in South Africa, extending from the northern banks of the Gariep or Orange river to the latitude of .21° s., or the verge of the Nganti region, is distance of nearly 600 in., with an average breadth of about 350 m., and presenting some curious physical features quite distinct from other desert regions of the globe. It is a nearly waterless, sandy, but in ninny places well wooded region on which rain seldom falls, intersected by dry water courses, with a substratum of is tufaceous and to all appearance formerly the bed of an immense lake. Livingstone considers it remarkable for little water and con siderable vegetation, and therefore very different from the karroos of time Cape Colony, which have neither water nor vegetation except after heavy rains, and.from the ba•
and sandy deserts of North Africa and Arabia. No mountains or elevations of any con siderable height are found in the Kalihari, the general level of which may be considered as 3,000 ft. above the sea. The few springs or "sucking-places" which here and there are found are generally carefully concealed by the Bakillhari, a miserable wandering race of Betjuana Bushmen, who roam through the desert in quest of genie, of the skins of which they make the fur robes called "carosses." The Kalihari has been crossed by C. J. Andersson and others, near its outskirts; but of its central parts very little is known. After heavy rains immense herds of elephants, rhinoceroses, and giraffes are found in its dense thickets, and feed on the succulent wild melons called " kengwe" which then abound there. In the n. part are immense forests of thorn trees.