xlvi PREFATORY LETTER. 



with about two hundred of his followers, accompanied them 

 as far as the falls of the Zambesi. 



The first part of their journey was through a low country, 

 which is partially inundated by the tropical floods, and forms 

 the north-eastern brim of the great central basin of South 

 Africa: but before they reached Kalai the country was 

 greatly changed. Beautiful hills and woodlands rise, on 

 both sides of the river, to a considerable elevation ; and still 

 higher hills stretch through the country further toward the 

 east. How then does the Zambesi work its way through 

 these hills to the Indian sea? This is an important question; 

 for it is certain that the river once stood at a much higher 

 level than its does now ; arid that it then helped to supply 

 the waters of a great central lake. Of this fact we find 

 ample proof in the work of Livingstone. 



About ten miles below Kalai, dark clouds (looking, at a 

 distance, like the smoke of a burning jungle) are constantly 

 seen to hang over the broad bed of the river. A thundering 

 sound — loud enough sometimes to be heard beyond Kalai — 

 had seemed to Sebituane to come out of the overhanging 

 clouds. He had spoken of this fact in 1850, when he asked 

 Livingstone if he had ever seen sounding smoke. Hence 

 it was that the Chief called the place Mosyoatunya (smoke 

 sounds there) — no bad name for one of the most wonderful 

 spots on the face of the earth. Livingstone was not the man 

 to be content with a mere name. He twice descended to the 

 "sounding smoke" — in the second instance accompanied by 

 Sekeletu. His descriptions of the scene are admirable; but 

 too long to be extracted here. In a few words then : just 

 where the "sounding smoke" begins to rise towards the 

 sky, the great Zambesi — nearly a thousand yards wide and 

 with rapid and pellucid waters — suddenly disappears. It 

 is engulfed in a basaltic rock that forms the bed of the 

 river, and descends at one plunge into a deep fissure, less 

 than a hundred feet wide, which traverses the channel from 



