634 HOT SPRING. Chap. XXXI. 



there is another and still larger bed of coal exposed. Further 

 up the Lofubu, there are other seams in the rivulets Inyavu and 

 Makare ; also several spots 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 bubbles. 

 The mercury rises to 158° when the thermometer is put into the 

 water in the hole, but after a few seconds it stands steadily 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 that experiment, and 

 was now cooked. The stones over which the water flows are 

 encrusted with a white salt, and the water has a saline 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 dykes, and gneiss tilted on edge, 

 and having a strike to the N.E. There are many specimens 

 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 

 N.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 hi 



