356 CONFORMATION OF COUNTRY. Chap. XXVtt 



Lekone flowing westward, proved to us that we were now 

 standing on the apex of the ridge, the height of which above 

 the sea we found to be above 5000 feet. Here the granite 

 crops out again in great rounded masses which change the clip 

 of the gneiss and mica schist rocks from the westward to the 

 eastward. Both eastern and western ridges are known to be 

 comparatively salubrious, and in this respect, as well as in 

 the general aspect of the country, they resemble that most 

 healthy of climates, the interior of South Africa adjacent to 

 the Desert. This ridge has neither fountain nor marsh upon 

 it, and east of the Kalomo we look upon treeless undulating 

 plains covered with short grass. It is continued in a S.E. 

 direction across the Zambesi to a point about four days east of 

 Matlokotloko, the present residence of Mosilikatse, where it 

 assumes the name of the Mashona tribe. 



The ridge on which, we were now standing, and which 

 forms the eastern limit of the great central basin of Africa, is 

 distant from the western one about 600 geographical miles. 

 I cannot hear of a hill on either ridge, and there are scarcely 

 any in the space enclosed by them. The Monakadze is the 

 highest, but that is not more than a thousand feet above the 

 flat valley. On account of this want of hills I have adopted 

 the term ridges to describe the gradual elevations which I 

 have been noticing. We shall yet see that the mountains 

 which are met with outside these ridges are only a low 

 fringe, many of which are not of much greater altitude than 

 even the bottom of the great central valley. Leaving out of 

 view the greater breadth of the central basin at other parts, 

 we might say that its form in this region resembles a broad 

 furrow in the middle, with an elevated ridge about 200 miles 

 broad on either side, whence the land slopes on both sides to 

 the sea. If I am right in believing the granite to be the 

 cause of the elevation of this ridge, the direction in which 

 the strike of the rocks trends to the N.N.E. may indicate that 

 the same geological structure prevails farther north, and in 

 this case the lakes which exist in that direction may be of 

 exactly the same nature with lake Ngami, having been dimi- 

 nished to their present size by the same kind of agency as 

 that which formed the falls of Victoria. 



On the Kalomo we met an elephant which had no tusks, as 



