66 THE RIVER ZAMBEZI AND ITS SCENERY 



Continuing up the river, one is immediately struck 

 on leaving Shupanga by the increased luxuriance 

 of the tropical vegetation. The high river-banks 

 are covered with an exuberant growth of low 

 bushes. Palms of various kinds become very 

 numerous ; immense baobabs, clumps of stiff 

 euphorbias, and groves of feathery albizzias mingle 

 with acacias of several kinds. Few large trees 

 appear, however, if we omit a species of camwood, 

 whose bark is used for dyeing, and which 1 believe 

 to be a species of baphia. Climbing plants quite 

 cover the bushes and lower trees in places, and 

 hang down lovely, transparent green trailers 

 gemmed with deep mauve, white-centred con- 

 volvulus blooms to gaze Narcissus-like, in placid 

 admiration of their beauties, in the calmly flowing 

 water beneath. And now the pale blue outline of 

 Morambala Mountain shows faintly in the north- 

 west. We should have seen it yesterday evening 

 if the weather had not been cloudy. As the day 

 advances this fascinating elevation, which springs 

 to a height of, I believe, nearly 5,000 feet from the 

 plain, continues to unfold a wide succession of 

 glittering granite peaks, rocky escarpments, and 

 tree-clothed foothills. From appearing in the 

 distance as one single, isolated, majestic peak, it 

 opens out on nearer approach into an exquisite 

 panorama of undulating eminences which form 

 what is really the rocky advance guard of the 

 Shir^ Highlands, and marks one upward step in 

 the curious ascent leading to that wide upland 

 plateau of which so vast an area of Central Africa 

 consists. Away to the westward again, more 



