134 STEPPES AND DESERTS. 



are connected with, the elevated parts of the Earth's surface on the 

 north side of the Equator (or with the Abyssinian mountains), by 

 the mountains of the Moon. The word " Lupata," we learn from 

 the last-named African traveller, is used in the language of Tette, 

 as an adjective, meaning "closed." The chain of mountains would 

 thus be called the "closed" or " barred." "The Lupata, chain of 

 Portuguese writers," says Peters, "is about 90 legoas or leagues 

 from the mouth of the Zambeze, and is only about two thousand feet 

 high. The direction of this mountain rampart is north and south, 

 but with occasional bends alternately to the east and to the west. 

 It is sometimes interrupted by plains. Along the whole of the 

 Zanzibar coast, the traders into the interior speak of this long but 

 not very elevated ridge, which extends from 6 to 26 S. latitude, 

 as far as the Factory of Lourenzo-Marques, on the Rio de Espiritu 

 Santo (in the Bay da Lagoa, or Delagoa Bay of the English). The 

 farther the Lupata chain advances towards the south, the nearer it 

 approaches the coast, from which it is only fifteen legoas distant at 

 Lourenzo-Marques." 



f 3 *) p. 32. " Caused ~by the great revolving current." 

 In the northern part of the Atlantic, between Europe, North 

 Africa, and the New Continent, the waters of the ocean are driven 

 round in a true revolving current, or circle. This general current - 

 which, from its cause, might be called a "Rotation Current" moves 

 between the tropics, as is well known, with the trade wind, from east 

 to west. It accelerates the passage of ships sailing from the Canaries 

 to South America, and makes it almost impossible to sail "up stream/' 

 or in a direct line from Cartagena de Indias to Cumana. Jhis set 

 to the west, attributed to the trade winds, receives, however, in the 

 Caribbean Sea, the accession of a much stronger movement, origi- 

 nating in a very remote cause, which was discovered as early as 

 1560 by Sir Humphrey Gilbert (Hakluyt, Voyages, vol. iii. p. 14), 

 and developed with greater certainty by Rennell in 1832. The 

 Mosambique current, flowing from north to south between Mada- 

 gascar and the east coast of Africa, sets on the Lagullas Bank, turns 

 on the north side of it round the south point of Africa, and advances 

 with much force up the western coast of the Continent to a little 



