NAVIGATION OF THE ZAMBESI. 283 



exception of one slight sun-stroke, have been colds, modified by the malaria 

 to which we were exposed in the Delta. Dr. Kirk and I have enjoyed 

 uninterrupted good health. The only cases of real fever we have seen have 

 been among the Kroomen, and, as far as our experience goes at present, 

 Europeans are more likely to be safe and useful than Kroomen. 



" The geologist reports having found three fine beds of coal ; the first 

 seven feet thick, the second thirteen feet six inches, and the third twenty-five 

 feet in thickness. They are all in cliff sections, and the last was fired a few 

 years ago by lightning, and burned a long time. I have already reported on 

 its good quality, though obtained only from the surface. Mr. Thornton will 

 run a shaft some distance in order to ascertain its quality there. There are 

 immense quantities of the finest iron-ore in the same district. 



" I was not aware that sugar was manufactured by the natives till lately, 

 but I bought six pots of it, at the rate of two yards of calico for twenty 

 pounds. This is only the beginning of the fine country, and I naturally feel 

 anxious that my companions should have an opportunity of verifying my 

 statements respecting both its productions and people. As for the inhabitants 

 near the Portuguese, I almost despair of doing anything with them. My 

 hopes are in my own countrymen and the natives of the central regions. 



" The Zambesi being now about twelve feet above low- water mark in 

 November, it was difficult to recognise it as the same river. It is truly what 

 Captain Gordon called it ; ' more like an inland sea than a river,' and exhibits 

 none of those sand-banks to the view which, in trying to depict it at its lowest 

 ebb, we have marked in the tracings sent home. 



" On the day after our arrival here Messrs. C. Livingstone and Baines 

 returned from Kebra-basa : their reports coincide exactly with what I stated in 

 No. 12 as to the effect of a rise of the river on the rapids. It thoroughly obliterates 

 formidable cataracts ; but a vessel of good steam-power is necessary to stem 

 the current in the middle and resist the suction of the eddies. On hearing that 

 the rapid was so much changed that, but for the mountains which had been 

 sketched, the situations of the cataracts would not have been known, I felt 

 strongly inclined to attempt hauling the vessel up ; but she can carry no cargo, 

 and, besides the risk of her breaking up in the attempt, we should very soon 

 be destitute of supplies after we had succeeded." 



Finding it impossible to take their steamer through the Kebra-basa 

 Rapids, the party forwarded from Tete, to which they had returned, informa- 

 tion to that effect to the English Government, requesting that a more suitable 

 vessel for the ascent of the river should be sent out to them. In the 

 meantime, they determined on ascending the Shire, which falls into the 

 Zambesi about a hundred miles from its mouth. The Portuguese could give 

 no information about it, no one ever having gone up it for any distance, or 

 found out from whence it came. Years ago, they informed him, that a 



