HOT SPRINGS. 679 



still larger bed of coal exposed. Farther up the Lofubu there 

 are other seams in the rivulets Inyavu and Makare ; also several 

 3pots in the Maravi country have the coal cropping out. This 

 has evidently been brought to the surface by volcanic action at a 

 later period than the coal formation. 



I also went up the Zambesi, and visited a hot spring called 

 Nyamboronda, situated in the bed of a small rivulet named 

 Nyaondo, which shows that igneous action is not yet extinct. 

 We landed at a small rivulet called Mokorozi, then went a mile 

 or two to the eastward, where we found a hot fountain at the 

 bottom of a high hill. A little spring bubbles up on one side of 

 the rivulet Nyaondo, and a great quantity of acrid steam rises up 

 from the ground adjacent, about 12 feet square of which is so 

 hot that my companions could not stand on it with their bare 

 feet. There are several little holes from which the water trickles, 

 but the principal spring is in a hole a foot in diameter, and about 

 the same in depth. Numbers of bubbles are constantly rising. 

 The steam feels acrid in the throat, but is not inflammable, as it 

 did not burn when I held a bunch of lighted grass over the bub- 

 bles. The mercury rises to 158° when the thermometer is put 

 into the water in the hole, but after a few seconds it stands stead- 

 ily at 160°. Even when flowing over the stones the water is too 

 hot for the hand. Little fish frequently leap out of the stream in 

 the bed of which the fountain rises, into the hot water, and get 

 scalded to death. We saw a frog which had performed the ex- 

 periment, and was now cooked. The stones over which the wa- 

 ter flows are incrusted with a white salt, and the water has a sa- 

 line taste. The ground has been dug out near the fountain by 

 the natives, in order to extract the salt it contains. It is situated 

 among rocks of syenitic porphyry in broad dikes, and gneiss tilted 

 on edge, and having a strike to the N.E. There are many spec- 

 imens of half-formed pumice, with greenstone and lava. Some 

 of the sandstone strata are dislocated by a hornblende rock and 

 by basalt, the sandstone nearest to the basalt being converted into 

 quartz. 



The country around, as indeed all the district lying N. and 

 X.W. of Tete, is hilly, and, the hills being covered with trees, the 

 scenery is very picturesque. The soil of the valleys is very fruit- 

 ful and well cultivated. There would not be much difficulty in 



