The Mortally
Wounded Animal Made A Desperate Plunge, And Hauling The Crocodile
Several Yards Tore Itself Out Of The Hideous Jaws.
To escape the
hunter, the waterbuck jumped into the river, and was swimming across,
when another crocodile gave chase, but a ball soon sent it to the
bottom.
The waterbuck swam a little longer, the fine head dropped,
the body turned over, and one of the canoes dragged it ashore. Below
Kakolole, and still at the base of Manyerere mountain, several coal-
seams, not noticed on our ascent, were now seen to crop out on the
right bank of the Zambesi.
Chitora, of Chicova, treated us with his former hospitality. Our men
were all much pleased with his kindness, and certainly did not look
upon it as a proof of weakness. They meant to return his
friendliness when they came this way on a marauding expedition to eat
the sheep of the Banyai, for insulting them in the affair of the
hippopotamus; they would then send word to Chitora not to run away,
for they, being his friends, would do such a good-hearted man no
harm.
We entered Kebrabasa rapids, at the east end of Chicova, in the
canoes, and went down a number of miles, until the river narrowed
into a groove of fifty or sixty yards wide, of which we have already
spoken in describing the flood-bed and channel of low water. The
navigation then became difficult and dangerous. A fifteen feet fall
of the water in our absence had developed many cataracts. Two of our
canoes passed safely down a narrow channel, which, bifurcating, had
an ugly whirlpool at the rocky partition between the two branches,
the deep hole in the whirls at times opening and then shutting. The
Doctor's canoe came next, and seemed to be drifting broadside into
the open vortex, in spite of the utmost exertions of the paddlers.
The rest were expecting to have to pull to the rescue; the men
saying, "Look where these people are going! - look, look!" - when a
loud crash burst on our ears. Dr. Kirk's canoe was dashed on a
projection of the perpendicular rocks, by a sudden and mysterious
boiling up of the river, which occurs at irregular intervals. Dr.
Kirk was seen resisting the sucking-down action of the water, which
must have been fifteen fathoms deep, and raising himself by his arms
on to the ledge, while his steersman, holding on to the same rocks,
saved the canoe; but nearly all its contents were swept away down the
stream. Dr. Livingstone's canoe, meanwhile, which had distracted the
men's attention, was saved by the cavity in the whirlpool filling up
as the frightful eddy was reached. A few of the things in Dr. Kirk's
canoe were left; but all that was valuable, including a chronometer,
a barometer, and, to our great sorrow, his notes of the journey and
botanical drawings of the fruit-trees of the interior, perished.
We now left the river, and proceeded on foot, sorry that we had not
done so the day before.
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