144 THE REGION OF THE BARU]^ 



Passing through the Barue in 1907 from Tete 

 to the Pungwe River, I was enabled to make some 

 notes upon it, and form some impressions of a 

 region in which I had for some years been greatly 

 interested. 



Properly speaking, it forms the water-parting 

 between the Zambezi on the one hand, and the 

 Pungwe on the other, and consists of an elevated, 

 rocky, upland plain, highest at its north-western 

 end, and sloping gradually towards Gorongoza in 

 the south-east. It Was at one time, doubtless, 

 very densely peopled, but its population, driven 

 into British territory by Coutinho in 1902, has 

 not altogether returned ; indeed, I consider it 

 extremely improbable that in its former density 

 it ever will. 



The upper expanse of country points to volcanic 

 origin, some of the mighty masses of granite, 

 hundreds of feet high, seeming to indicate that 

 they have been exposed in the early history of the 

 world as the result of terrific upheavals of nature. 

 Some of these masses rise to a considerable height 

 above the plateau, as in the case of M'handa, 

 Chitenddri, and Zemelan'gomb^, and display every 

 variety of astonishing shape and angle. Near Mun- 

 gari, the residence of the courteous Capitao-mdr 

 Captain Jos^ Rodrigues Lage, to whose energetic 

 policy this entire region owes so much, a most 

 singularly shaped peak rises. This monster, whose 

 name M'sunga means, I am told, a cake of tobacco, 

 rises in the form of a perfect cone for fully 900 

 feet, and upon the apex of the cone an immense 

 block of granite, shaped exactly like an afternoon 



