Looking
Back, The Mountain Scenery In Kebrabasa Was Magnificent; Conspicuous
From Their Form And Steep Sides, Are The Two Gigantic
Portals of the
cataract; the vast forests still wore their many brilliant autumnal-
coloured tints of green, yellow, red, purple,
And brown, thrown into
relief by the grey bark of the trunks in the background. Among these
variegated trees were some conspicuous for their new livery of fresh
light-green leaves, as though the winter of others was their spring.
The bright sunshine in these mountain forests, and the ever-changing
forms of the cloud shadows, gliding over portions of the surface,
added fresh charms to scenes already surpassingly beautiful.
From what we have seen of the Kebrabasa rocks and rapids, it appears
too evident that they must always form a barrier to navigation at the
ordinary low water of the river; but the rise of the water in this
gorge being as much as eighty feet perpendicularly, it is probable
that a steamer might be taken up at high flood, when all the rapids
are smoothed over, to run on the Upper Zambesi. The most formidable
cataract in it, Morumbwa, has only about twenty feet of fall, in a
distance of thirty yards, and it must entirely disappear when the
water stands eighty feet higher. Those of the Makololo who worked on
board the ship were not sorry at the steamer being left below, as
they had become heartily tired of cutting the wood that the
insatiable furnace of the "Asthmatic" required.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 145 of 505
Words from 39135 to 39387
of 136856
