666 
CAPTAIN HYDE PAKKER ON THE Chap. XXXIL 
on wliicli tliere is usually a bad sea. When you get near the 
eross-bar, keep along it till the bluff of trees on the west side of 
the entrance bears JST.E.; you may then steer straight for it. This 
will clear the end of the cross-bar, and, directly you are within 
that, the water is smooth. The worst sea is generally just 
without the bar passage. 
“ Within the points the river widens at first and then contracts 
again. About tliree miles from the Tree Bluff is an island; the 
passage up the river is the right-hand side of it, and deep. The 
plan will best explain it. 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 conveniences 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 
western 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 court¬ 
yard. I believe it to have been used as a barracoon for slaves, 
several large cargoes haviog been exported from tliis river. I 
proceeded iip the river as far as its junction with the Quilimane 
river, called ‘Boca do Eio,’ by my computation between 70 and 
80 miles from the entrance. The influence of the tides is felt 
about 25 or 30 miles up the river. Above that, the stream, in 
the dry season, runs from to miles an hour, but in the 
