384 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



miles. This is an immense stream; 300 to 500 yards across in the 

 dryest season. Ten days up the river is the seat of the Barotsi, once 

 the most powerful tribe* in that region. The river has many tributa- 

 ries and some rapids. In this region there are many large rivers ; 

 the country is flat, and in the rainy season is flooded for many miles 

 from the streams. The people here are very black, very large, and 

 strongly developed, but peaceful. They are more ingenious than the 

 Cape people. The Baloc tribes melt large quantities of iron, and 

 are very good smiths. 



From an examination of the recently constructed maps of this 

 country, it is seen that the Zambesi (which is a very large river, 

 emptying into the Mozambique Channel, by innumerable mouths, in 

 latitude 18 and 19 south,) seems to divide into two great branches 

 some 350 miles up ; that these branches run west, and then for several 

 hundred miles north ; that the branches are something like 200 miles 

 apart, and that the country between is a rich delta, since junction 

 streams constantly run from one branch to the other, thus forming 

 large islands inhabited each by a different tribe ; that 700 or 800 

 miles from the ocean, the western branch of the Zambesi receives the 

 Chobe, which is also a large river the Ohio to this African Mississippi ; 

 that the sources of none of these rivers are as yet known ; that south 

 and west of the Chobe runs the Zonga, another very large river, 

 neither end of which has been found, but it is supposed to empty into 

 the Zambesi ; that one or two hundred miles further south is the Lim- 

 popo river, also unexplored either way. It seems probable, from 

 these documents, that there is a large and fertile region, well watered, 

 wooded and peopled, on the spot generally set down as the lower part 

 of a great desert, lying within a space bounded by longitude 20 and 

 35, and latitude 10 and 20. 



A NINEVEH IN THE PACIFIC. 



CAPTAIN ALFRED K. FISHER, of Edgartown. has communicated 

 to the Vineyard Gazette, of that place, a most remarkable story of 

 the discovery of an ancient and deserted city, upon an island in the 

 North Pacific Ocean. The following is the captain's statement : 



" When on his last whaling voyage, in the ship America, of New 

 Bedford, which was about eight years ago, he had occasion to visit the 

 island of Tinian, one of the Ladrone Islands, to land some sick men. 

 He stopped there some days. One of his men, in his walks about the 

 island, came to the entrance of the main street of a large and splendid 

 city in ruins. Capt. Fisher, on being informed of the fact, entered 

 the city by the principal street, which was about three miles in length. 

 The buildings were all of stone, of a dark color, and of the most 

 splendid description. In about the centre of the main street, he 

 found twelve solid stone columns, six on each side of the street ; they 

 were about forty-five or fifty feet in height, surmounted by capstones 

 of immense weight. The columns were ten feet in diameter at the 

 .base, and about three feet at the top. Capt. Fisher thinks the 



