Again, the rapidly growing popular demand throughout the United States for more intimate commercial relations with Mexico and the several sister nations of Central and South America, which lie opposite the mouth of this great River System, is stimulating the long-neglected longitude trade and thereby creating a new demand for new transportation on the longitudinal water-ways which comprise the Mississippi and its tributaries.
The Mississippi and tributaries considered as a drainage system, extend nearly the whole length of the United States from Canada to the Gulf, and across more than half its width, or from the summit of the Rocky Mountains to that of the Alleghanies.
Steamers can now transport freight in unbroken bulk from St. Anthony’s Falls to the Gulf of Mexico, a distance of 2,161 miles, and from Pittsburg to Fort Benton, Mont., 4,333 miles. Lighter craft can ascend the Missouri to Great Falls, near where that river leaves the Rocky Mountains.
THE ZAMBESI
HENRY DRUMMOND
Zambesi, the most important river on the East Coast of Africa, and the fourth largest on the continent, drains during its course of about 1,200 miles an area of 600,000 square miles. Its head-streams, which have not yet been fully explored, are the Leeambye, or Iambaji, rising in Cazembe’s country; the Lungebungo, which descends from the Mossamba Mountains; and the Leeba River, from the marshy Lake Dilolo (4,740 feet), situated between 10° and 12° south latitude and 22° and 23° east longitude. These three rivers, reinforced by the Nhengo, unite to form the upper Zambesi (Leeambye), which flows at first southwards and slightly eastwards through the Barotse valley, then turns prominently to the east near its junction with the Chobe (Chuando or Linianti), and passes over the Victoria Falls. Thence, as the middle reach of the Zambesi, the river sweeps north-east towards Zumbo and the Kebrabassa rapids above Tete, and finally forms the lower Zambesi, which curves southwards until it reaches the Indian Ocean at 18° 50′ south latitude. Fed chiefly from the highland country which stretches from Lake Nyassa to inner Angola, its chief tributaries are the Loängwa and the Shiré, the last an important river draining out of Lake Nyassa, and which in the dry season contains probably as great a volume of water as the Zambesi, and is much more navigable. Except for an interruption of seventy miles at the Murchison cataracts, the Shiré is open throughout its entire length to the lake.
[Illustration: THE ZAMBESI]
On the whole the Zambesi has a gentle current, and flows through a succession of wide fertile valleys and richly wooded plains; but, owing to the terrace-like structure of the continent, the course of the river is interrupted from point to point by cataracts and rapids. These form serious, and in some cases insurmountable, hindrances to navigation. Those on the lower Zambesi begin with its delta. The bar here was long held to be impassable, except to vessels of the shallowest draught, but the difficulty was exaggerated partly through ignorance and partly in the interests of the Portuguese settlement of Quilimane, which, before the merits of the Kongone entrance were understood, had been already established on the Qua-qua River, sixty miles to the north. The Zambesi is now known to have four mouths, the Milambe to the west, the Kongone, the Leeabo, and the Timbwe. The best of these, the Kongone, has altered and the channel improved recently. There are at least eighteen feet of water on the bar at high water neap tides; and steamers drawing fifteen feet, and sailing vessels drawing three feet less, have no difficulty in entering. The deep water continues only a short distance, and, after Mazaro (sixty miles) is reached, where the river has already dwindled to the breadth of a mile, the channel is open in the dry season as far as Senna (120 miles from the mouth) for vessels drawing four and one-half feet. Up to this point navigation could only be successfully and continuously carried on by vessels of much lighter draught--stern-wheelers for preference with a draught of little more than eighteen inches. About ninety miles from Senna the river enters the Lupata gorge, the impetuous current contracting between walls to a width of scarcely 200 yards. Passing Tete (240 miles from the mouth with a smooth course) the channel becomes dangerous at Kebrabassa, ninety miles further on. From the Kebrabassa rapids upwards, and past the Victoria Falls, there are occasional stretches of navigable water extending for considerable distances, while the upper Zambesi with its confluents and their tributaries forms a really fine and extensive waterway. Like the Nile, the Zambesi is visited by annual inundations, during which the whole country is flooded and many of the minor falls and rapids are then obliterated.
The chief physical feature of the Zambesi is the Mosi-oa-tunya (“smoke sounds there”) or Victoria Falls, admitted to be one of the noblest waterfalls in the world. The cataract is bounded on three sides by ridges 300 or 400 feet high, and these, along with many islands dotted over the stream, are covered with sylvan vegetation. The falls, according to Livingstone, are caused by a stupendous crack or rent, with sharp and almost unbroken edges, stretching right across the river in the hard black basalt which here forms the bed. The cleft is 360 feet in sheer depth and close upon a mile in length. Into this chasm, or more than twice the depth of Niagara, the river rolls with a deafening roar, sending up vast columns of spray, which are visible for a distance of twenty miles. Unlike Niagara, the Mosi-oa-tunya does not terminate in an open gorge, the river immediately below the fall being blocked at eighty yards by the opposing side of the (supposed) cleft running parallel to the precipice which forms the waterfall. The only outlet is a narrow channel cut in this barrier at a point 1,170 yards from the western end of the chasm and some 600 from its eastern, and through this the Zambesi, now only twenty or thirty yards wide, pours for 120 yards before emerging into the enormous zigzag trough which conducts the river past the basalt plateau.
The region drained by the Zambesi may be represented as a vast broken-edged plateau 3,000 or 4,000 feet high, composed in the remote interior of metamorphic beds and fringed with the igneous rocks of the Victoria Falls. At Shupanga, on the lower Zambesi, thin strata of grey and yellow sandstone, with an occasional band of limestone, crop out on the bed of the river in the dry season, and these persist beyond Tete, where they are associated with extensive seams of coal. Gold is also known to occur in several places.
The higher regions of the Zambesi have only been visited by one or two explorers; and the lower, though nominally in possession of the Portuguese since the beginning of the Sixteenth Century, are also comparatively little known. The Barotse valley, or valley of the upper Zambesi, is a vast pastoral plain, 3,300 feet above sea-level, about 189 miles in length and thirty to thirty-five broad. Though inundated in the rainy season, it is covered with villages and supports countless herds of cattle. The Luiwas who inhabit it are clothed with skins, work neatly in ivory, and live upon milk, maize, and sweet potatoes. In the neighbourhood of the falls the tsetse fly abounds; and the Batoka people who live there, and who are the only arboriculturists in the country, live upon the products of their gardens. Zumbo, on the north bank, and Chicova, opposite on the southern side (500 miles above the delta), were the farthest inland of the Portuguese East African settlements, and are well placed for commerce with the natives. Founded by Pereira, a native of Goa, these settlements were ultimately allowed to go to ruins; but Zumbo has been recently reoccupied. The once celebrated gold mines of Parda Pemba are in the vicinity. The only other Portuguese settlements on the Zambesi are Tete and Senna. Tete, formerly a large and important place, now nearly in ruins, still possesses a fort and several good tiled stone and mud houses. Thither Portuguese goods, chiefly wines and provisions, are carried by means of canoes. The exports, which include ivory, gold dust, wheat, and ground-nuts, are limited owing to the difficulty of transport; but this difficulty is not insurmountable, for Tete has been twice visited by some small steam vessels. Senna, further down the river, a neglected and unhealthy village, has suffered much from political mismanagement, and has ceaseless troubles with the Landeens or Zulus, who own the southern bank of the river, and collect in force every year to exact a heavy tribute-money. The industrial possibilities of the lower Zambesi, and indeed of the whole river system, are enormous. India-rubber, indigo, archil, beeswax, and columbo root are plentiful, and oil-seeds and sugar-cane could be produced in sufficient quantity to supply the whole of Europe.