in the
valley, declaring that here they never had a headache, they may even be
recommended as a sanatorium for those whose enterprise leads them into
Africa, either for the advancement of scientific knowledge, or for the
purposes of trade or benevolence. In the case of the eastern ridge, we
have water carriage, with only one short rapid as an obstruction,
right up to its base; and if a quick passage can be effected during the
healthy part of the year, there would be no danger of loss of health
during a long stay on these high lands afterward. How much farther do
these high ridges extend? The eastern one seems to bend in considerably
toward the great falls; and the strike of the rocks indicating that,
farther to the N.N.E. than my investigations extend, it may not, at a
few degrees of latitude beyond, be more than 300 or 350 miles from
the coast. They at least merit inquiry, for they afford a prospect to
Europeans of situations superior in point of salubrity to any of those
on the coast; and so on the western side of the continent; for it is
a fact that many parts in the interior of Angola, which were formerly
thought to be unhealthy on account of their distance inland, have been
found, as population advanced, to be the most healthy spots in the
country. Did the great Niger expedition turn back when near such a
desirable position for its stricken and prostrate members?

The distances from top to top of the ridges may be about 10 Deg. of
longitude, or 600 geographical miles. I can not hear of a hill ON either
ridge, and there are scarcely any in the space inclosed by them. The
Monakadze is the highest, but that is not more than a thousand feet
above the flat valley. On account of this want of hills in the part of
the country which, by gentle undulations, leads one insensibly up to
an altitude of 5000 feet above the level of the sea, I have adopted the
agricultural term ridges, for they partake very much of the character of
the oblong mounds with which we are all familiar. And we shall yet see
that the mountains which are met with outside these ridges are only a
low fringe, many of which are not of much greater altitude than even the
bottom of the great central valley. If we leave out of view the greater
breadth of the central basin at other parts, and speak only of the
comparatively narrow part formed by the bend to the westward of the
eastern ridge, we might say that the form of this region is a broad
furrow in the midd