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When they can they purchase the whole of a family, thus taking away the chief inducement for running off. The expedition having heard of the Kebrabasa Falls, steamed up the river, and on the 24th of November reached Panda Mokua, where the navigation ends, about two miles below them. Hence the party started overland, by a frightfully rough path among rocky hills, where no shade was to be found.
Finding that it was impossible to take our steamer of only ten-horse power through Kebrabasa, and convinced that, in order to force a passage when the river was in flood, much greater power was required, due information was forwarded to Her Majesty's Government, and application made for a more suitable vessel.
It may not be granted that the same blood flows in all veins, or that all have descended from the same stock; but the traveller has no doubt that, practically, the white rogue and black are men and brothers. Pangola is the child or vassal of Mpende. Sandia and Mpende are the only independent chiefs from Kebrabasa to Zumbo, and belong to the tribe Manganja.
In connection with these basaltic dikes, it may be mentioned that when I reached Tete I was informed of the existence of a small rapid in the river near Chicova; had I known this previously, I certainly would not have left the river without examining it. It is called Kebrabasa, and is described as a number of rocks which jut out across the stream.
Believing that there was sufficient depth of water, they ventured down the Kebrabasa Rapids. For several miles they continued onward till, the river narrowing, navigation became both difficult and dangerous. Two canoes passed safely down the narrow channel with an ugly whirlpool, caused by the water being divided by a rock in the centre.
The scenery of this pass reminded us of Kebrabasa, although it is much inferior. A band of the same black shining glaze runs along the rocks about two feet from the water's edge. There was not a blade of grass on some of the hills, it being the end of the usual dry season succeeding a previous severe drought; yet the hill-sides were dotted over with beautiful green trees.
From what we have seen of the Kebrabasa rocks and rapids, it appears too evident that they must always form a barrier to navigation at the ordinary low water of the river; but the rise of the water in this gorge being as much as eighty feet perpendicularly, it is probable that a steamer might be taken up at high flood, when all the rapids are smoothed over, to run on the Upper Zambesi.
It is currently reported, and commonly believed, that once upon a time a Portuguese named Jose Pedra, by the natives called Nyamatimbira, chief, or capitao mor, of Zumbo, a man of large enterprise and small humanity, being anxious to ascertain if Kebrabasa could be navigated, made two slaves fast to a canoe, and launched it from Chicova into Kebrabasa, in order to see if it would come out at the other end.
By the time we had got well into the Kebrabasa hills thirty men, nearly a third of the party, had turned back, and it became evident that, if many more left us, Sekeletu's goods could not be carried up. At last, when the refuse had fallen away, no more desertions took place.
We emerged from the thirty-five or forty miles of Kebrabasa hills into the Chicova plains on the 7th of June, 1860, having made short marches all the way. The cold nights caused some of our men to cough badly, and colds in this country almost invariably become fever. The Zambesi suddenly expands at Chicova, and assumes the size and appearance it has at Tette.
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