In its course to the sea the river becomes navigable from the Portuguese town of Tete downward to the mouth. During the dry season, however, navigation is somewhat difficult.
Working its way through the Lupata Mountains the river comes to one or two narrow, rocky gorges which tend to make ugly rapids, except in the rainy season, when the river is high.
About eighty miles from the mouth, the Zambesi receives the waters of the Shiré, which flows out from Lake Nyassa.
Lake Nyassa is a sheet of water about two hundred miles long. It attains a width of fifty miles at its widest point.
The Zambesi enters the low country about fifty miles from its mouth. It separates into various streams to form a large delta. The neighborhood of this delta bears the reputation of being very unhealthy.
The most northern stream of the Zambesi is the Kuaka; the most southern, and the one with the deepest channel, is the Luabo.
Various ports and entrances lie along the Zambesi. These were formerly used by slaving vessels and others not engaged in very honorable trade.
These ports are not shown very accurately upon the maps, and it is considered a very difficult and dangerous undertaking to attempt to enter the river without a good pilot.
The falls and the rapids of the Zambesi region, together with its elevated lakes and sites of settlements, are its most picturesque features.
Tete, a Portuguese town, is about four hundred feet above the level of the sea. The rapids of Lake Nyassa where the Shiré issues from it, are more than fifteen hundred feet higher than the ocean. A smaller lake southeast of Nyassa is two thousand feet above the level of the sea.