APPENDIX. 429 



APPENDIX. 



Extracts from the Journal of the late Capt. Hyde Parker, B.N , 

 TIM. Brig "Bantaloon." 



" The Luabo is the main outlet of the Great Zambesi. In the rainy 

 season —January and February principally — the whole country is over- 

 flowed, and the water escapes by the different rivers as far up as Quilimane ; 

 but in the dry season neither Quilimane nor Olinda communicates with 

 it. The entrance to the Luabo river is about two miles broad, and is easily 

 distinguishable, when abreast of it, by a bluff (if I may so term it) of 

 high straight trees, very close together, on the western side of the entrance. 

 The bar may be said to be formed by two series of sandbanks, — that 

 running from the eastern point runs diagonally across (opposite ?) the 

 entrance and nearly across it. Its western extremity is about two miles 

 outside the west point. 



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

 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 con- 

 veniences 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 west- 

 ern 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 this village is a very large house, mud-built, with a courtyard. 

 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 rivei 



