CONFLUENCE OF CHOBE AND LEEAMBYE. 253 



nutritious and good, but, like many wild fruits of this country, 

 the fleshy parts require to be enlarged by cultivation : it is near- 

 ly all stone. 



The course of the river we found to be extremely tortuous ; 

 so much so, indeed, as to carry us to all points of the compass 

 every dozen miles. Some of us walked from a bend at the vil- 

 lage of Moremi to another nearly due east of that point, in six 

 hours, while the canoes, going at more than double our speed, 

 took twelve to accomplish the voyage between the same two 

 places. And though the river is from thirteen to fifteen feet in 

 depth at its lowest ebb, and broad enough to allow a steamer to 

 ply upon it, the suddenness of the bendings would prevent navi- 

 gation ; but, should the country ever become civilized, the Chobe 

 would be a convenient natural canal. We spent forty-two and a 

 half hours, paddling at the rate of five miles an hour, in coming 

 from Linyanti to the confluence ; there we found a dike of amyg- 

 daloid lying across the Leeambye. 



This amygdaloid with analami and mesotype contains crystals, 

 which the water gradually dissolves, leaving the rock with a worm- 

 eaten appearance. It is curious to observe that the water flowing 

 over certain rocks, as in this instance, imbibes an appreciable, 

 though necessarily most minute, portion of the minerals they con- 

 tain. The water of the Chobe up to this point is of a dark mossy 

 hue, but here it suddenly assumes a lighter tint ; and wherever 

 this light color shows a greater amount of mineral, there are not 

 musquitoes enough to cause serious annoyance to any except per- 

 sons of very irritable temperaments. 



The large island called Mparia stands at the confluence. This 

 is composed of trap (zeolite, probably mesotype) of a younger age 

 than the deep stratum of tufa in which the Chobe has formed its 

 bed, for, at the point where they come together, the tufa has been 

 transformed into saccharoid limestone. 



The actual point of confluence of these two rivers, the Chobe 

 and the Leeambye, is ill defined, on account of each dividing 

 into several branches as they inosculate ; but when the whole 

 body of water collects into one bed, it is a goodly sight for one 

 who has spent many years in the thirsty south. Standing on 

 one bank, even the keen eye of the natives can not detect whether 

 two large islands, a few miles east of the junction, are main land 



