666 CAPTAIN HYDE PAKKEK ON THE Chap. XXXH. 



on which there is usually a bad sea. When you get near the 

 cross-bar, keep along it till the bluff of trees on the west side of 

 the entrance bears N.E. ; you may then steer straight for it. This 

 will clear the end of the cross-bar, and, directly you are within 

 that, the water is smooth. The worst sea is generally just 

 without the bar passage. 



" Within the points the river widens at first and then contracts 

 again. About three miles from the Tree Bluff is an island ; the 

 passage up the river is the right-hand side of it, and deep. The 

 plan will best explain it. The rise and fall of the tide at the 

 entrance of the river being at springs twenty feet, any vessel can 

 get in at that time, but, with all these conveniences for traffic, 

 there is none here at present. The water in the river is fresh 

 down to the bar with the ebb-tide, and in the rainy season it is 

 fresh at the surface quite outside. In the rainy season, at the 

 full and change of the moon, the Zambesi frequently overflows 

 its banks, making the country for an immense distance one 

 great lake, with only a few small eminences above the water. 

 On the banks of the river the huts are built on piles, and at 

 these times the communication is only in canoes; but the 

 waters do not remain up more than three or four days at a 

 time. The first village is about eight miles up the river, on the 

 western bank, and is opposite to another branch of the river 

 called ' Muselo,' which discharges itself into the sea about five 

 miles to the eastward. 



" The village is extensive, and about it there is a very large 

 quantity of land in cultivation ; calavances, or beans, of different 

 sorts, rice, and pumpkins, are the principal things. I saw also 

 about here some wild cotton, apparently of very good quality, 

 but none is cultivated. The land is so fertile as to produce 

 almost any (thing ?) without much trouble. 



" At tins village is a very large house, mud-built, with a court- 

 yard. I believe it to have been used as a barracoon for slaves, 

 several large cargoes having been exported from this river. I 

 proceeded up the river as far as its junction with the Quilimane 

 river, called ' Boca do Bio,' by my computation between 70 and 

 80 miles from the entrance. The influence of the tides is felt 

 about 25 or 30 miles up the river. Above that, the stream, in 

 the dry season, runs from 1^ to 1\ miles an hour, but in the 



