KEBRA-BASA RAPIDS. 279 



appears covered with huge blocks of rock, interspersed with great rounded 

 boulders. Large patches of the underlying rock, which is porphyry and 

 various metaniorphic masses huddled together in wild confusion, are also 

 seen on the surface; and winding from side to side in this uppper bed 

 there is a deep narrow gorge, in which, when we were steaming up the 

 usual call of the man at the lead was, " no bottom at ten fathoms." 

 Though the perpendicular sides of this channel are generally of hard 

 porphyry or syenite, they are ground into deep pot-holes, and drilled into 

 numerous vertical groves similar to those in Eastern wells, where the draw- 

 rope has been in use for ages ; these show the wearing power of the water 

 when the river is full. The breadth of this channel was from 30 to 60 yards, 

 and its walls at low water from 50 to 80 feet high. At six or seven points 

 there are rocky islands in it which divide the water into two or three channels 

 for short distances. The current, which we generally found gentle, increases 

 in force at these points to four or five knots, and as our vessel has only a 

 single engine of 10-horse power, it can scarcely stem that amount in open 

 water ; and besides, being of an extremely awkward and unhandy ' canoe- 

 form,' and only one-sixteenth of an inch in thickness, it is evident we cannot 

 risk her in any but the gentlest currents. The attempt to haul her through 

 would have doubled her up, so we left her at the beginning of the first rapid, 

 and went forward to examine the parts above on foot. The usual course 

 traders have pursued is to come to a point below, where we left the steamer 

 in canoes, and leaving them there, go overland through the level Shidima 

 country, well away from the mountains which skirt the river, and when they 

 reported an impediment to navigation, they referred to the unwieldy canoes 

 only in common use on the lower parts of the Zambesi. These cannot paddle 

 against a 4-knot stream ; nor can they punt at a depth of 60 feet, nor tow 

 along a precipice often 80 feet high, and always smooth, slippery, or jagged. 

 But though there is an impediment to canoe-navigation, it would prove none 

 during four or five months each year to a steamer capable of going 12 or 14 

 knots an hour. 



" With Dr. Kirk, Mr. Rae, and some Makololo in company, we marched 

 about 12 miles nearly North from the entrance, at Panda Maboa. The upper 

 bed, in which we were travelling, was excessively rough, but we occasionally 

 got glances of the river at the bottom of the groove, and saw four rapids. 

 The people having all fled from some marauding party, we could neither get 

 provisions nor information, and returned in order to organize a regular 

 exploration of the whole difficulty. 



" Major Sicard having found out that a native Portuguese, Sn. Jose 

 Santa Anna, had, when young, hunted elephants among the mountains which 

 confine the Zambesi, engaged him to accompany us in our second expedition, 

 whieh consisted of the seven members of our party and ten Makololo. 



