Chap. XXXII. GORGE AND RANGE OF LUPATA. 655 



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 Nyaucle 

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

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

 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 Mo- 

 zambique, because it was believed to be in the same latitude, or 

 15° 1', 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., long. 33° 51' E. 



Respecting tins 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 hi appearance as the Campsie Hills 

 when seen from the Yale of Clyde. The western side is the most 

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

 perpendicularly from the water six or seven hundred feet. As 

 seen from tins little island, it is certainly no higher than Arthur's 

 Seat appears from Prince's-street, Edinburgh. The rock is com- 

 pact siliceous schist of a slightly reddish colour, 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 



