148 THE REGION OF THE BARU^' 



across the wide plain cut by Zemelan'gombd on 

 the one hand, and quaintly shaped Gonda on the 

 other, is so superb that even my usually impassive 

 native escort could not behold it unmoved. Zeme- 

 lan'gomb^ is without question the most imposing, 

 as its situation is the most beautiful, of the many 

 isolated mountains of this interesting region. At 

 its foot lies, to the northward, a valley so perfectly 

 lovely as almost to baffle description, so completely 

 does it realise one's preconceived ideas of an 

 ideal " land of the mountain and the flood." 

 And not brusquely, not harshly. The majestic 

 proportions of the mighty mountainous mass are 

 decently clothed with a deliciously appropriate 

 dress of suave, undulating greenery, the angles of 

 granite only showing where they break through 

 the rounded coverings of the massive escarpment 

 and crown the harmonious whole with an appro- 

 priate, glittering, sunlit diadem. At the foot of 

 the huge upheaval, a placid, silvery riband of water 

 flows rapidly northward to join the main stream of 

 the Zambezi on its way to the sea. In some 

 places this crystal-clear watercourse rushes over 

 a rocky bed down between high, red banks, through 

 which, in the flight of the ages, it has pierced a well- 

 worn furrow. Farther on it bends itself gracefully 

 over a lip of smooth- worn rock, and plunges, jade- 

 green at the summit to pinkish white at the base, 

 down some steep descent, and foams through the 

 rock-filled basin below, throwing up a continuous 

 crystal spray to irrigate the masses of ferns and 

 water plants which cling to the fissures and cracks 

 in the granite of the skirting boulders. On the 



