The Sun Is Excessively Hot, And
Feels Sharp In Africa; But, Probably From The Greater Dryness Of The
Atmosphere, We Never Heard Of A Single Case Of Sunstroke, So Common
In India.
The Makololo told Dr. Livingstone they "always thought he
had a heart, but now they believed he had none,
" And tried to
persuade Dr. Kirk to return, on the ground that it must be evident
that, in attempting to go where no living foot could tread, his
leader had given unmistakeable signs of having gone mad. All their
efforts of persuasion, however, were lost upon Dr. Kirk, as he had
not yet learned their language, and his leader, knowing his companion
to be equally anxious with himself to solve the problem of the
navigableness of Kebrabasa, was not at pains to enlighten him. At
one part a bare mountain spur barred the way, and had to be
surmounted by a perilous and circuitous route, along which the crags
were so hot that it was scarcely possible for the hand to hold on
long enough to ensure safety in the passage; and had the foremost of
the party lost his hold, he would have hurled all behind him into the
river at the foot of the promontory; yet in this wild hot region, as
they descended again to the river, they met a fisherman casting his
hand-net into the boiling eddies, and he pointed out the cataract of
Morumbwa; within an hour they were trying to measure it from an
overhanging rock, at a height of about one hundred feet. When you
stand facing the cataract, on the north bank, you see that it is
situated in a sudden bend of the river, which is flowing in a short
curve; the river above it is jammed between two mountains in a
channel with perpendicular sides, and less than fifty yards wide; one
or two masses of rock jut out, and then there is a sloping fall of
perhaps twenty feet in a distance of thirty yards. It would stop all
navigation, except during the highest floods; the rocks showed that
the water then rises upwards of eighty feet perpendicularly.
Still keeping the position facing the cataract, on its right side
rises Mount Morumbwa from 2000 to 3000 feet high, which gives the
name to the spot. On the left of the cataract stands a noticeable
mountain which may be called onion-shaped, for it is partly conical
and a large concave flake has peeled off, as granite often does, and
left a broad, smooth convex face as if it were an enormous bulb.
These two mountains extend their bases northwards about half a mile,
and the river in that distance, still very narrow, is smooth, with a
few detached rocks standing out from its bed. They climbed as high
up the base of Mount Morumbwa, which touches the cataract, as they
required. The rocks were all water-worn and smooth, with huge
potholes, even at 100 feet above low water.
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