feet
in depth at its lowest ebb, and broad enough to allow a steamer to ply
upon it, the suddenness of the bendings would prevent navigation;
but, should the country ever become civilized, the Chobe would be a
convenient natural canal. We spent forty-two and a half hours, paddling
at the rate of five miles an hour, in coming from Linyanti to the
confluence; there we found a dike of amygdaloid lying across the
Leeambye.

This amygdaloid with analami and mesotype contains crystals, which
the water gradually dissolves, leaving the rock with a worm-eaten
appearance. It is curious to observe that the water flowing over certain
rocks, as in this instance, imbibes an appreciable, though necessarily
most minute, portion of the minerals they contain. The water of the
Chobe up to this point is of a dark mossy hue, but here it suddenly
assumes a lighter tint; and wherever this light color shows a greater
amount of mineral, there are not mosquitoes enough to cause serious
annoyance to any except persons of very irritable temperaments.

The large island called Mparia stands at the confluence. This is
composed of trap (zeolite, probably mesotype) of a younger age than the
deep stratum of tufa in which the Chobe has formed its bed, for, at
the point where they come together, the tufa has been transformed into
saccharoid limestone.

The actual point of confluence of these two rivers, the Chobe and the
Leeambye, is ill defined, on account of each dividing into several
branches as they inosculate; but when the whole body of water collects
into one bed, it is a goodly sight for one who has spent many years
in the thirsty south. Standing on one bank, even the keen eye of the
natives can not detect whether two large islands, a few miles east of
the junction, are main land or not. During a flight in former years,
when the present chief Sekomi was a child in his mother's arms, the
Bamangwato men were separated from their women, and inveigled on to
one of these islands by the Makalaka chief of Mparia, on pretense of
ferrying them across the Leeambye. They were left to perish after seeing
their wives taken prisoners by these cruel lords of the Leeambye, and
Sekomi owed his life to the compassion of one of the Bayeiye, who,
pitying the young chieftain, enabled his mother to make her escape by
night.

After spending one night at the Makololo village on Mparia, we left the
Chobe, and, turning round, began to ascend the Leeambye; on the 19th