This Process Has Been
Going On For Ages, And As The Delta Has Enlarged Eastwards, The River
Has Always Kept A Channel For Itself Behind.
Wherever we see an
island all sand, or with only one layer of mud in it, we know it
Is
one of recent formation, and that it may be swept away at any time by
a flood; while those islands which are all of mud are the more
ancient, having in fact existed ever since the time when the ebbing
and flowing tides originally formed them as parts of the delta. This
mud resists the action of the river wonderfully. It is a kind of
clay on which the eroding power of water has little effect. Were
maps made, showing which banks and which islands are liable to
erosion, it would go far to settle where the annual change of the
channel would take place; and, were a few stakes driven in year by
year to guide the water in its course, the river might be made of
considerable commercial value in the hands of any energetic European
nation. No canal or railway would ever be thought of for this part
of Africa. A few improvements would make the Zambesi a ready means
of transit for all the trade that, with a population thinned by
Portuguese slaving, will ever be developed in our day. Here there is
no instance on record of the natives flocking in thousands to the
colony, as they did at Natal, and even to the Arabs on Lake Nyassa.
This keeping aloof renders it unlikely that in Portuguese hands the
Zambesi will ever be of any more value to the world than it has been.
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