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Updated: June 24, 2025
This, then, appeared to me to be the safest; but my present object being a path admitting of water rather than land carriage, this route did not promise so much as that by way of the Zambesi or Leeambye.
No better proof of previous ignorance of this river could be desired than that an untraveled gentleman, who had spent a great part of his life in the study of the geography of Africa, and knew every thing written on the subject from the time of Ptolemy downward, actually asserted in the "Athenaeum", while I was coming up the Red Sea, that this magnificent river, the Leeambye, had "no connection with the Zambesi, but flowed under the Kalahari Desert, and became lost;" and "that, as all the old maps asserted, the Zambesi took its rise in the very hills to which we have now come."
We came down a branch of the Leeambye called Marile, which departs from the main river in latitude 15d 15' 43" S., and is a fine deep stream about sixty yards wide. It makes the whole of the country around Naliele an island. When sleeping at a village in the same latitude as Naliele town, two of the Arabs mentioned made their appearance.
Procure Canoes and ascend the Leeambye Beautiful Islands Winter Landscape Industry and Skill of the Banyeti Rapids Falls of Gonye Tradition Annual Inundations Fertility of the great Barotse Valley Execution of two Conspirators The Slave-dealer's Stockade Naliele, the Capital, built on an artificial Mound Santuru, a great Hunter The Barotse Method of commemorating any remarkable Event Better Treatment of Women More religious Feeling Belief in a future State, and in the Existence of spiritual Beings Gardens Fish, Fruit, and Game Proceed to the Limits of the Barotse Country Sekeletu provides Rowers and a Herald The River and Vicinity Hippopotamus-hunters No healthy Location Determine to go to Loanda Buffaloes, Elands, and Lions above Libonta Interview with the Mambari Two Arabs from Zanzibar Their Opinion of the Portuguese and the English Reach the Town of Ma-Sekeletu Joy of the People at the first Visit of their Chief Return to Sesheke Heathenism.
Here I might have turned back, as no locality can be inhabited by Europeans where that scourge exists; but hearing that we were not far from the confluence of the River of Londa or Lunda, named Leeba or Loiba, and the chiefs of that country being reported to be friendly to strangers, and therefore likely to be of use to me on my return from the west coast, I still pushed on to latitude 14d 11' 3" S. There the Leeambye assumes the name Kabompo, and seems to be coming from the east.
I tried to measure the Leeambye with a strong thread, the only line I had in my possession, but, when the men had gone two or three hundred yards, they got into conversation, and did not hear us shouting that the line had become entangled. By still going on they broke it, and, being carried away down the stream, it was lost on a snag.
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.
Indeed, many parts are much like the Thames at the Isle of Dogs, only the Leeambye has to rise twenty or thirty feet before it can overflow some of its meadows. The rivers have each a bed of low water a simple furrow cut sharply out of the calcareous tufa which lined the channel of the ancient lake and another of inundation.
Another incident, which occurred at the confluence of the Leeba and Leeambye, may be mentioned here, as showing a more vivid perception of the existence of spiritual beings, and greater proneness to worship than among the Bechuanas.
The Batoka lived on large islands in the Leeambye or Zambesi, and, feeling perfectly secure in their fastnesses, often allured fugitive or wandering tribes on to uninhabited islets on pretense of ferrying them across, and there left them to perish for the sake of their goods.
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