Close On Our South,
The Hills Of Lokole Rise To A Considerable Height, And Beyond Them Flows
The Mazoe With Its Golden Sands.
The great numbers of pot-holes
on the sides of sandstone ridges, when viewed in connection with
the large
Banks of rolled shingle and washed sand which are met with
on this side of the eastern ridge, may indicate that the sea
in former times rolled its waves along its flanks. Many of the hills
between the Kafue and Loangwa have their sides of the form seen
in mud banks left by the tide. The pot-holes appear most abundant
on low gray sandstone ridges here; and as the shingle
is composed of the same rocks as the hills west of Zumbo,
it looks as if a current had dashed along from the southeast
in the line in which the pot-holes now appear; and if the current
was deflected by those hills toward the Maravi country, north of Tete,
it may have hollowed the rounded, water-worn caverns in which these people
store their corn, and also hide themselves from their enemies.
I could detect no terraces on the land, but, if I am right in my supposition,
the form of this part of the continent must once have resembled the curves
or indentations seen on the southern extremity of the American continent.
In the indentation to the S.E., S., S.W., and W. of this,
lie the principal gold-washings; and the line of the current,
supposing it to have struck against the hills of Mburuma,
shows the washings in the N. and N.E. of Tete.
We were tolerably successful in avoiding the villages, and slept one night
on the flanks of the hill Zimika, where a great number of deep pot-holes
afforded an abundant supply of good rain-water. Here, for the first time,
we saw hills with bare, smooth, rocky tops, and we crossed over
broad dikes of gneiss and syenitic porphyry: the directions
in which they lay were N. and S. As we were now near to Tete,
we were congratulating ourselves on having avoided those who would only
have plagued us; but next morning some men saw us, and ran off to inform
the neighboring villages of our passing. A party immediately pursued us,
and, as they knew we were within call of Katolosa (Monomotapa),
they threatened to send information to that chief of our offense,
in passing through the country without leave. We were obliged to give them
two small tusks; for, had they told Katolosa of our supposed offense,
we should, in all probability, have lost the whole. We then went through
a very rough, stony country without any path. Being pretty well tired out
in the evening of the 2d of March, I remained at about eight miles distance
from Tete, Tette, or Nyungwe. My men asked me to go on;
I felt too fatigued to proceed, but sent forward to the commandant
the letters of recommendation with which I had been favored in Angola by
the bishop and others, and lay down to rest.
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