Between Seña and Tete there are numerous islands and banks, and even some rocks, and a few eddies; but when the river is in flood, there is no difficulty in the way of steam navigation; and the river may be confined into a narrow channel, at some of the shoaler places, so as to have at all times a channel for navigation.
The Zambesi, even in the dry season, is navigable from the Luavo Mouth to the rapids of Kaord Vasa, for a vessel drawing four feet. During the rainy season, the water rises about sixty feet in the narrows of Lupata, when the rapids of Kaord Vasa are entirely covered, and only require a powerful steamer to overcome them, as Livingstone has just reported. At the same season it will be found that the two rapids above Kaord Vasa will also be navigable; so that the steamer may soon be lying opposite the city of Zumbo, where one of the affluents, or branches, of the Zambesi will give it access to the country of the Cazembe, and even to Londa. Behold what the energy of one Englishman can do! But to carry out this great feat, leading to incalculable benefits to Africa, Livingstone must be provided with a proper steam launch, fitted with a screw (as proposed by me for the exploration of the river Niger, in 1852), instead of the trumpery paddle-wheeled “Ma Robert,” very properly designated by Livingstone the “Asthmatic,” in allusion to her shortcomings.
As I have already stated, the tide in the Zambesi reaches Mangara. The current is from two to six miles per hour, according to the season. The river is about 3,000 yards wide at Tete; at Seña, 1½ miles; at Killimane, about 800 yards; at Killimane Bar, more than 2 miles; and at the Luavo Mouths, from 200 yards to nearly a mile.
There are no fords. In some dry seasons there are rapids between Seña and Tete; they are always passable. The bed of the river is mud, gravel, and sand.
In the dry season, the water of the river is clear and transparent; in the rainy season, it is brown, and at times approaching to a bright yellow. At this season, the Mozambique Channel is discoloured at a distance of 80 or 100 miles from the Killimane Bar.
In the neighbourhood of Tete, gold, coal, and iron are found in close proximity. Dr. Livingstone has worked the “Asthmatic” with the coal of the country; and he states, in a letter to Sir George Grey, dated Tete, December 18, 1858, that “the Geologist reports having found three seams of coal:—1st, seven feet thick; 2nd, thirteen feet, six inches; 3rd, twenty-five feet thick in a fine cliff section. It was fired by lightning a few years ago, and burned a long time.”
Opposite to Tete the country is almost overrun by the sugar-cane. The natives make sugar, but it is of an inferior quality, owing to their not understanding the manufacture of it.
Dr. Livingstone is supplied with a small steam engine, for the purpose of showing the natives in the interior what machinery can do. By the last accounts he had erected this little steam-engine, with which he had sawn timber into planks; and intended trying his hand at making sugar as soon as the cane was fit to cut.
Large quantities of wheat are grown at Tete and in the surrounding country, which is considered the granary of the Zambesi, and may become that of Southern Africa; both Seña and Killimane are already supplied by Tete, which exports 6000 Portuguese bushels of wheat. Any quantity of this wheat may be raised at six shillings per quarter.
The people of Tete have a great advantage over other parts of the river, for in the rear of the town, and only a mile distant from it, is the Karuera, a high mountain, said to be from 3,000 to 5,000 feet in height. Here they have their plantations, consisting of different varieties of Indian or Kaffir corn, peas, beans, sweet potatoes, cabbages, onions, &c.; and close to the village is a place called Ilhalutanda, having an area of from ten to twenty square miles, which, in the rainy season, is more or less flooded. When the waters retire, they plant rice, corn, wheat, beans, &c.; so that, should the plantations in the high lands fail for want of rain, they have a crop below; and if the floods destroy the crop below, they have a supply in the mountains. In the rainy season, there is generally a great fall of rain, accompanied by very high winds from the south and south-west.