A Cloud Was Passing Across The Middle Of The Valley,
From Which Rolling Thunder Pealed, While Above All Was Glorious
Sunlight;
and when we went down to the part where we saw it passing, we found
that a very heavy
Thunder-shower had fallen under the path of the cloud;
and the bottom of the valley, which from above seemed quite smooth,
we discovered to be intersected and furrowed by great numbers
of deep-cut streams. Looking back from below, the descent appears
as the edge of a table-land, with numerous indented dells and spurs
jutting out all along, giving it a serrated appearance.
Both the top and sides of the sierra are covered with trees,
but large patches of the more perpendicular parts are bare,
and exhibit the red soil, which is general over the region
we have now entered.
The hollow affords a section of this part of the country; and we find
that the uppermost stratum is the ferruginous conglomerate already mentioned.
The matrix is rust of iron (or hydrous peroxide of iron and hematite),
and in it are imbedded water-worn pebbles of sandstone and quartz.
As this is the rock underlying the soil of a large part of Londa,
its formation must have preceded the work of denudation by an arm of the sea,
which washed away the enormous mass of matter required
before the valley of Cassange could assume its present form.
The strata under the conglomerate are all of red clay shale
of different degrees of hardness, the most indurated being at the bottom.
This red clay shale is named "keele" in Scotland, and has always been
considered as an indication of gold; but the only thing we discovered
was that it had given rise to a very slippery clay soil, so different
from that which we had just left that Mashauana, who always prided himself
on being an adept at balancing himself in the canoe on water,
and so sure of foot on land that he could afford to express contempt
for any one less gifted, came down in a very sudden and undignified manner,
to the delight of all whom he had previously scolded for falling.
Here we met with the bamboo as thick as a man's arm, and many new trees.
Others, which we had lost sight of since leaving Shinte, now reappeared;
but nothing struck us more than the comparative scragginess of the trees
in this hollow. Those on the high lands we had left were tall and straight;
here they were stunted, and not by any means so closely planted together.
The only way I could account for this was by supposing,
as the trees were of different species, that the greater altitude
suited the nature of those above better than the lower altitude did
the other species below.
SUNDAY, APRIL 2D. We rested beside a small stream, and our hunger
being now very severe, from having lived on manioc alone
since leaving Ionza Panza's, we slaughtered one of our four remaining oxen.
The people of this district seem to feel the craving for animal food
as much as we did, for they spend much energy in digging large white larvae
out of the damp soil adjacent to their streams, and use them as a relish
to their vegetable diet.
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