700 GORGE AND RANGE OF LUPATA. 



After a breakfast of tea, roasted eggs, and biscuits next morning, 

 he presented six fowls and three goats as provisions for the journey. 

 When we parted from him we passed the stockade of Bonga at the 

 confluence of the Luenya, but did not go near it, as he is said to 

 be very suspicious. The Portuguese advised me not to take any 

 observation, as the instruments might awaken fears in Bonga's 

 mind, but Manoel said I might do so if I wished ; his garden, 

 however, being above the confluence, could not avail as a geo- 

 graphical point. There are some good houses in the stockade. 

 The trees of which it is composed seemed to me to be living, and 

 could not be burned. It was strange to see a stockade menacing 

 the whole commerce of the river in a situation where the guns of a 

 vessel would have full play on it, but it is a formidable affair for 

 those who have only muskets. On one occasion, when Nyaude 

 was attacked by Kisaka, they fought for weeks ; and though 

 Nyaude was reduced to cutting up his copper anklets for balls, 

 his enemies were not able to enter the stockade. 



On the 24th we sailed only about three hours, as we had done 

 the day before ; but having come to a small island at the western 

 entrance of the gorge of Lupata, where Dr. Lacerda is said to have 

 taken an astronomical observation, and called it the island of 

 Mozambique, because it was believed to be in the same latitude, 

 or 15° V, I wished to verify his position, and remained over night: 

 my informants must have been mistaken, for I found the island of 

 Mozambique here to be lat. 16° 34' 46" S. 



Respecting this range, to which the gorge has given a name, 

 some Portuguese writers have stated it to be so high that snow 

 lies on it during the whole year, and that it is composed of marble. 

 It is not so high in appearance as the Campsie Hills when seen 

 from the Vale of Clyde. The western side is the most abrupt, 

 and gives the idea of the greatest height, as it rises up perpen- 

 dicularly from the water six or seven hundred feet. As seen 

 from this island, it is certainly no higher than Arthur's Seat 

 appears from Prince's Street, Edinburgh. The rock is compact 

 silicious schist of a slightly reddish color, and in thin strata ; the 

 island on which we slept looks as if torn off from the opposite 

 side of the gorge, for the strata are twisted and torn in every 

 direction. The eastern side of the range is much more sloping 

 than the western, covered with trees, and does not give the idea 



