The River Zambesi—Luavo Mouths—Killimane—River Shire—Valley of the Shire Abounding in Elephants—How Salt is Made on the Zambesi—From the Ocean to Kaord Vasa Navigable at all Seasons—Water Rises Sixty Feet in Narrows of Lupata—Access to the Cazembe Territory by the Zambesi—Three Seams of Coal Discovered—Products.
The river Zambesi is one of the most remarkable of the mighty streams of the African continent, and is destined to work great changes in the future of that vast portion of the globe.
The course of this river was but imperfectly known until the recent publication of the travels of the enterprising missionary, Dr. Livingstone.
Like all the great rivers of Africa, it was supposed to have its source in one of two great lakes communicating with each other; and thus it was stated that the Nile, the Niger, the Congo, and the Zambesi had one common origin.
This idea of the most ancient geographers, strictly speaking, has been found to be erroneous; but the march of discovery shows us that, in a general sense, ancient geographical writers had a very fair conception of the physical formation of the interior of Africa.
The existence of a large hydrographical basin, draining Central Africa, and affording the sources of the main streams discharging themselves into the oceans and seas surrounding that continent, has been clearly indicated by Sir Roderick Murchison; while the task of exploring the paths pointed out by this great geologist has been cheerfully undertaken by our countrymen, Livingstone, Burton, and Speke, whose explorations have won for themselves a world-wide celebrity, and maintained for this country the proud pre-eminence of her sons, even in this region, being the first in the path of discovery.
By the achievements of our countrymen at present, we are aware that there are four large lakes in Central Africa, viz., the Nyanza, Tanganyika, Nyassi or Maravi, and Nyngesi, doubtless affording the sources of the White Nile, the Zambesi, and its feeders, and perhaps, more remotely, those of the Niger.
The object of the present work being to draw attention to East Africa as a rich field for commercial enterprise, geographical and historical disquisitions are studiously avoided, as they have been deemed unsuitable to the general reader, whose attention to this neglected portion of the globe it is my earnest endeavour to attract. I shall, therefore, at once proceed to view this great river in a practical light, remarking upon the products of the country through which it runs, and the suitableness of this stream as a highway for commercial relations between the Indian Ocean and the interior of Africa.
The mouths of the Zambesi extend from 18° to 19° S. Lat., or a distance of 90 miles along the coast. The most southern of these are called the Luavo Mouths, the two principal of which are known as the East and West Luavo Mouths. The East Luavo Mouth was surveyed by the late Captain Hyde Parker, R.N., in 1850; and we also had an imperfect survey of the West Luavo Mouth; but the channels leading from them to the Zambesi at the Boca do Rio were not explored, and therefore deemed unnavigable; although the Portuguese have known all along that these Luavo Mouths were navigable, and they have been used by the Portuguese authorities engaged in the slave-trade for the ingress and exit of vessels engaged in this traffic, while the British cruisers have been detained at anchor off the Killimane Mouth of the river, and their boats have been kept under specious pretexts of information received relative to an embarkation of slaves being about to take place in the Killimane branch of the river, while vessel after vessel was sailing away from the Luavo Mouth full of slaves.
The present Zambesi expedition, under the command of Dr. Livingstone, has dispelled the mystery which hung over the mouths of this great river, for he entered the East Luavo Mouth in the “Pearl” steamer, in June, 1858, and thence ascended the Zambesi in the exploring steam launch, “Ma Robert.”