THROUGH AFRICA FROM THP] CAPE TO CAHiO/ 



Bv EwAKT S. Grogan. 



(Read licfoic tin- Royal Geographical Society, Ajiril 30, 1900.) 



There i,s a «aying- in South Africa that '-everyone who has once drunk 

 (lop (a brandy made in the Cape) and smoked Transvaal tobacco will, 

 in spite of all inducements to the contrary, in spite of all the abomin- 

 able discomforts inseparable from life in Africa, continualh^ return to 

 the old free untrammeled life of the veldt." 



Anything- more ridiculous than the possibility of my return to Africa 

 never occurred to me as I wearily munched my ration of everlasting- 

 bully beef and rice during the Matabele war of 1896, and, after three 

 weeks of dysentery and an attack of hajmaglobinuric fever, 1 shook 

 my fist at Beira from a homeward-bound steamer, happy in the thought 

 that never again shoidd I set e^'es on those accursed sands. Thirteen 

 months later 1 stood on those same sands with my friend, Mr. Sharp, 

 having made up our minds to explore the little-known country between 

 Tanganyika and Ruwenzori, and, if possible, to continue our journey 

 down the Nile. Wars and rumors of wars in many of the countries to 

 be traversed, and Khartoum in the clutch of the Khalifa, rendered the 

 success of our enterprise extremely problematical; and as failure is 

 unpardonable, we wisely refrained from announcing our intentions. 



From the Cape to the Zambezi is perhaps better known to most 

 English people than many parts of England, and conseciuently I will 

 pass over this stage, confining myself to a very few remarks on the 

 Gorongoza country of Portuguese East Africa. 



The river Pungwe, as everyone knows, fiows into the channel of 

 Mozaml)ique, forming Avith the river Busi the extensive bay on which 

 Beira, the port of Rhodesia, is situated. Thirty -six miles in a straight 

 line from Beira the railway crosses the Pungwe to a spot called Fon- 

 tesvilla, on the right bank' Four miles above this the Pungwe flows 

 in two channels; the left, which is the larger, is called the Dingi Dingi, 

 the inclosed island being about 40 miles by 6. Twenty miles aboAc the 

 lower junction an important tributary called the Ure ma flows into the 



1 Reprinted from The Geographical Journal, London, Vol. XVI, No. 2, August, 1900. 



431 



