18 THE KONGONE. Chap. I. 



west again, lie can easily make out East Luabo from its great 

 size ; and Kongone follows seven miles west. East Luabo has 

 a good but long bar, and not to be attempted unless the wind 

 be north-east or east. It has sometimes been called " Barra 

 Catrina," and was used in the embarkations of slaves. This 

 may have been the "River of Good Signs," of Yasco da 

 Gama, as the mouth is more easily seen from the seaward 

 than any other ; but the absence of the pillar dedicated by 

 that navigator to " St. Raphael," leaves the matter in doubt. 

 No Portuguese live within eighty miles of any mouth of the 

 Zambesi. The names given by the natives refer more to 

 the land on each side than to the streams; thus, one side 

 of the Kongone is Nyamisenga, the other Nyangalule ; and 

 Kongone, the name of a fish, is applied to one side of the 

 natural canal which leads into the Zambesi proper, or Cuama, 

 and gives the port its value. 



When a native of the temperate north first lands in the 

 tropics, his feelings and emotions resemble in some respects 

 those which the First Man may have had on his entrance 

 into the Garden of Eden. He has set foot in a new world, 

 another state of existence is before him ; everything he sees, 

 every sound that falls upon the ear, has all the freshness and 

 charm of novelty. The trees and the plants are new, the 

 flowers and the fruits, the beasts, the birds, and the insects 

 are curious and strange ; the very sky itself is new, glowing 

 with colours, or sparkling with constellations, never seen in 

 northern climes. 



The Kongone is five miles east of the Milambe, or western 

 branch, and seven miles west from East Luabo, which again is 

 five miles from the Timbwe. We saw but few natives, and 

 these, by escaping from their canoes into the mangrove 

 thickets the moment they caught sight of us, gave unmis- 



