The Principal Hills On Our Right, As We Look Up
Stream, Are From Six To Twelve Miles Away, And Occasionally They Send
Down Spurs To The River, With Brooks Flowing Through Their Narrow
Valleys.
The banks of the Zambesi show two well-defined terraces;
the first, or lowest, being usually narrow, and of great fertility,
while the upper one is a dry grassy plain, a thorny jungle, or a
mopane (Bauhinia) forest.
One of these plains, near the Kafue, is
covered with the large stumps and trunks of a petrified forest. We
halted a couple of days by the fine stream Sinjere, which comes from
the Chiroby-roby hills, about eight miles to the north. Many lumps
of coal, brought down by the rapid current, lie in its channel. The
natives never seem to have discovered that coal would burn, and, when
informed of the fact, shook their heads, smiled incredulously, and
said "Kodi" (really), evidently regarding it as a mere traveller's
tale. They were astounded to see it burning freely on our fire of
wood. They told us that plenty of it was seen among the hills; but,
being long ago aware that we were now in an immense coalfield, we did
not care to examine it further.
A dyke of black basaltic rock, called Kakolole, crosses the river
near the mouth of the Sinjere; but it has two open gateways in it of
from sixty to eighty yards in breadth, and the channel is very deep.
On a shallow sandbank, under the dyke, lay a herd of hippopotami in
fancied security.
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