The Western Side Is The Most Abrupt,
And Gives The Idea Of The Greatest Height, As It Rises Up Perpendicularly
From The Water Six Or Seven Hundred Feet.
As seen from this island,
it is certainly no higher than Arthur's Seat appears from Prince's Street,
Edinburgh.
The rock is compact silicious schist of a slightly reddish color,
and in thin strata; the island on which we slept looks as if torn off
from the opposite side of the gorge, for the strata are twisted and torn
in every direction. The eastern side of the range is much more sloping
than the western, covered with trees, and does not give the idea of altitude
so much as the western. It extends a considerable way
into the Maganja country in the north, and then bends round
toward the river again, and ends in the lofty mountain Morumbala,
opposite Senna. On the other or southern side it is straighter,
but is said to end in Gorongozo, a mountain west of the same point.
The person who called this Lupata "the spine of the world"
evidently did not mean to say that it was a translation of the word,
for it means a defile or gorge having perpendicular walls.
This range does not deserve the name of either Cordillera or Spine,
unless we are willing to believe that the world has a very small
and very crooked "back-bone".
We passed through the gorge in two hours, and found it rather tortuous,
and between 200 and 300 yards wide.
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