344 GEOLOGY. Chap. XIII. 



— namely, above Tedzane. The rest is all rapid, and 

 much of it being only fifty or eighty yards wide, and 

 rushing like a mill-race, it gives the impression of water- 

 power, sufficient to drive all the mills in Manchester, 

 running to waste. Pamofunda, or Pamozima, has a deep 

 shady grove on its right bank. When we were walking 

 alone through its dark shade, we were startled by a 

 shocking smell like that of a dissecting-room ; and on 

 looking up saw dead bodies in mats suspended from the 

 branches of the trees, a mode of burial somewhat similar 

 to that which we subsequently saw practised by the Parsees 

 in their " towers of silence " at Poonah, near Bombay. The 

 name Pamozima means, " the departed spirits or gods " — a 

 fit name for a place over which, according to the popular 

 belief, the disembodied souls continually hover. 



The rock lowest down in the series is dark reddish- 

 grey syenite. This seems to have been an upheaving 

 agent, for the mica schists above it are much disturbed. 

 Dark trappean rocks full of hornblende have in many 

 places burst through these schists, and appear in nodules 

 on the surface. The highest rock seen is a fine sandstone 

 of closer grain than that at Tette, and quite metamorphosed 

 where it comes into contact with the igneous rocks below 

 it. It sometimes gives place to quartz and reddish clay 

 schists, much baked by heat. This is the usual geological 

 condition" on the right bank of the Cataracts. On the 

 other side we pass over masses of porphyritic trap, in 

 contact with the same mica schists, and these probably 

 give to the soil the great fertility we observed. The 

 great body of the mountains is syenite. So much mica is 

 washed into the river, that on looking attentively on the 

 stream one sees myriads of particles floating and glancing 

 in the sun ; and this, too, even at low water. 



It was the 15th of August before the men returned 

 from the ship, accompanied by Mr. Eae and the steward 



