The Worst Sea
Is Generally Just Without The Bar Passage.
"Within the points the river widens at first and then contracts again.
About three miles from the Tree Bluff is an island; the passage up the river
is the right-hand side of it, and deep.
The plan will best explain it.
The rise and fall of the tide at the entrance of the river
being at springs twenty feet, any vessel can get in at that time,
but, with all these conveniences for traffic, there is none here at present.
The water in the river is fresh down to the bar with the ebb tide,
and in the rainy season it is fresh at the surface quite outside.
In the rainy season, at the full and change of the moon,
the Zambesi frequently overflows its banks, making the country
for an immense distance one great lake, with only a few small eminences
above the water. On the banks of the river the huts are built on piles,
and at these times the communication is only in canoes;
but the waters do not remain up more than three or four days at a time.
The first village is about eight miles up the river, on the western bank,
and is opposite to another branch of the river called `Muselo',
which discharges itself into the sea about five miles to the eastward.
"The village is extensive, and about it there is a very large quantity of land
in cultivation; calavances, or beans, of different sorts, rice, and pumpkins,
are the principal things.
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