19G COURSE OF THE ZAMBESI. 



and from west to east, until, with a south-eastern inclination, it 

 moves onward to the Indian Ocean. 



It was at a point nearly midway between the two oceans the 

 Indian and the Atlantic that the intrepid Livingstone first descried 

 the Zambesi, regarding its fertile banks and noble stream with much 

 the same emotions of delight and surprise as thrilled to the heart of 

 Balboa, when 



" With eagle eyes 



He stared at the Pacific and all his men 



Looked at each other with a wild surmise 



Silent, upon a peak in Darien."* 



He arrived there near the close of the dry season, and yet a grand 

 volume of water still sparkled in the river's bed, which varied from 

 950 to 1900 feet in breadth. At the epoch of the great floods, the 

 Zambesi rises perpendicularly more than eighteen feet, and at certain 

 points extends more than forty miles from its bank. From the 

 borders of the Chobe to those of the Zambesi spreads a low, level 

 country, whose uniform expanse is only broken by the gigantic 

 hillocks of the termites. At intervals the traveller lights upon spots 

 where the waters have formerly settled, then on great morasses and 

 deep rivers, winding their slow way through an almost impervious 

 jungle. There is a certain fatal beauty about the whole region, like 

 that of a Circe or a Lucrezia Borgia; but its atmosphere breathes 

 disease and death. 



A general depression and flatness of surface seems to be the physical 

 characteristic of this part of Central Africa. Thus, on the route adopted 

 by Livingstone, in a N.N.E. direction, from the chain of Bamunguatos 

 to the Zambesi, all is level. Mount N'goua, an isolated mass in 

 18 27' 20" south latitude, and 24 13' 63" east longitude, is a 

 wholly exceptional accident. The Kandehy Valley, which deploys on 

 the northern slope of this narrow colossus, is one of the most 

 picturesque scenes that greeted the eyes of Livingstone during his 

 adventurous pilgrimage. Fruit trees, loaded with emerald foliage, 

 * Kcat's " Poetical Works," sonnet ix. 



