The Part Of The River Called Zabesa, Or Zabenza, Is Spread Out
Like A Little Lake, Surrounded On All Sides
By dense masses of tall reeds.
The river below that is always one hundred or one hundred and twenty
yards
Broad, deep, and never dries up so much as to become fordable.
At certain parts, where the partial absence of reeds affords
a view of the opposite banks, the Makololo have placed villages of observation
against their enemies the Matebele. We visited all these in succession,
and found here, as every where in the Makololo country,
orders had preceded us, "that Nake (nyake means doctor) must not be allowed
to become hungry."
The banks of the Chobe, like those of the Zouga, are of soft calcareous tufa,
and the river has cut out for itself a deep, perpendicular-sided bed.
Where the banks are high, as at the spot where the wagons stood in 1851,
they are covered with magnificent trees, the habitat of tsetse,
and the retreat of various antelopes, wild hogs, zebras, buffaloes,
and elephants.
Among the trees may be observed some species of the `Ficus Indica',
light-green colored acacias, the splendid motsintsela,
and evergreen cypress-shaped motsouri. The fruit of the last-named was ripe,
and the villagers presented many dishes of its beautiful pink-colored plums;
they are used chiefly to form a pleasant acid drink. The motsintsela
is a very lofty tree, yielding a wood of which good canoes are made;
the fruit is nutritious and good, but, like many wild fruits of this country,
the fleshy parts require to be enlarged by cultivation:
it is nearly all stone.
The course of the river we found to be extremely tortuous; so much so, indeed,
as to carry us to all points of the compass every dozen miles.
Some of us walked from a bend at the village of Moremi to another
nearly due east of that point, in six hours, while the canoes,
going at more than double our speed, took twelve to accomplish
the voyage between the same two places. And though the river
is from thirteen to fifteen feet in depth at its lowest ebb, and broad enough
to allow a steamer to ply upon it, the suddenness of the bendings
would prevent navigation; but, should the country ever become civilized,
the Chobe would be a convenient natural canal. We spent
forty-two and a half hours, paddling at the rate of five miles an hour,
in coming from Linyanti to the confluence; there we found a dike of amygdaloid
lying across the Leeambye.
This amygdaloid with analami and mesotype contains crystals, which the water
gradually dissolves, leaving the rock with a worm-eaten appearance.
It is curious to observe that the water flowing over certain rocks,
as in this instance, imbibes an appreciable, though necessarily most minute,
portion of the minerals they contain. The water of the Chobe up to this point
is of a dark mossy hue, but here it suddenly assumes a lighter tint;
and wherever this light color shows a greater amount of mineral,
there are not mosquitoes enough to cause serious annoyance
to any except persons of very irritable temperaments.
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