canoe. We had to go on so
far before finding a suitable spot to spend the night in, that the
natives concluded we did not intend to share the meat with them, and
returned to the village. We slept two nights at the place where the
hippopotamus was cut up. The crocodiles had a busy time of it in the
dark, tearing away at what was left in the river, and thrashing the water
furiously with their powerful tails. The hills on both sides of Kariba
are much like those of Kebrabasa, the strata tilted and twisted in every
direction, with no level ground.

Although the hills confine the Zambesi within a narrow channel for a
number of miles, there are no rapids beyond those near the entrance. The
river is smooth and apparently very deep. Only one single human being
was seen in the gorge, the country being too rough for culture. Some
rocks in the water, near the outlet of Kariba, at a distance look like a
fort; and such large masses dislocated, bent, and even twisted to a
remarkable degree, at once attest some tremendous upheaving and
convulsive action of nature, which probably caused Kebrabasa, Kariba, and
the Victoria Falls to assume their present forms; it took place after the
formation of the coal, that mineral having then been tilted up. We have
probably nothing equal to it in the present quiet operations of nature.

On emerging we pitched our camp by a small stream, the Pendele, a few
miles below the gorge. The Palabi mountain stands on the western side of
the lower end of the Kariba strait; the range to which it belongs crosses
the river, and runs to the south-east. Chikumbula, a hospitable old
headman, under Nchomokela, the paramount chief of a large district, whom
we did not see, brought us next morning a great basket of meal, and four
fowls, with some beer, and a cake of salt, "to make it taste good."
Chikumbula said that the elephants plagued them, by eating up the cotton-
plants; but his people seem to be well off.

A few days before we came, they caught three buffaloes in pitfalls in one
night, and, unable to eat them all, left one to rot. During the night
the wind changed and blew from the dead buffalo to our sleeping-place;
and a hungry lion, not at all dainty in his food, stirred up the putrid
mass, and growled and gloated over his feast, to the disturbance of our
slumbers. Game of all kinds is in most extraordinary abundance,
especially from this point to below the Kafue, and so it is on
Moselekatso's