But When They Reach This Lake,
A Little To The Northwest Of Its Southern Extremity, They Find No Difficulty
In Obtaining Canoes To Carry Them Over.
They sleep on islands, for it is said
to require three days in crossing, and may thus be forty
Or fifty miles broad.
Here they punt the canoes the whole way, showing that it is shallow.
There are many small streams in the path, and three large rivers.
This, then, appeared to me to be the safest; but my present object
being a path admitting of water rather than land carriage,
this route did not promise so much as that by way of the Zambesi or Leeambye.
The Makololo knew all the country eastward as far as the Kafue,
from having lived in former times near the confluence of that river
with the Zambesi, and they all advised this path in preference to that
by the way of Zanzibar. The only difficulty that they assured me of
was that in the falls of Victoria. Some recommended my going to Sesheke,
and crossing over in a N.E. direction to the Kafue, which is only
six days distant, and descending that river to the Zambesi.
Others recommended me to go on the south bank of the Zambesi until
I had passed the falls, then get canoes and proceed farther down the river.
All spoke strongly of the difficulties of traveling on the north bank,
on account of the excessively broken and rocky nature of the country
near the river on that side.
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