Catawba River

“ Existing examples of compound, composite rivers are seen in the Catawba, the Yadkin-Pedee, the Cape Fear and the Neuse rivers of North Carolina, which all rise on the inland crystalline area, and traverse the coastal quaternary plain before reaching the sea. But unlike these, there must have been, when the old submerged land rose with the Cretaceous cover on its back, numerous small streams whose drainage area lay entirely within the Cretaceous plain. These were simple streams, flowing over a structure of one kind and one age. ”

“ Three brothers, Barolongs, fought for the possession of a woman who was considered worth a battle, and the tribe has remained permanently divided ever since.
From the bend up to the north, called Katima-molelo (I quenched fire) , the bed of the river is rocky, and the stream runs fast, forming a succession of rapids and cataracts, which prevent continuous navigation when the water is low. The rapids are not visible when the river is full, but the cataracts of Nambwe, Bombwe, and Kale must always be dangerous. ”

“ Any weakness in the Gatun Dam would ruin the whole project. You can see, of course, why this is so, because the water in that Gatun Lake will be relied upon to fill the locks which will raise vessels up or down.”
[179]
“But suppose the Chagres River cuts up ugly, as you said it does sometimes?” asked Merritt.
“Well,” said Rob, “I heard Mr. Mainwaring say that the great lake will be so big that a flood would affect its level no more than a cup of water poured into a bath tub. The river will merely serve to keep the lake filled and supply the water needed to work the locks.” ”

“ Beautiful specimens of cataua trees of great height were constantly to be seen in the forest along the banks. The resin from these trees is extremely poisonous, and is much used by the local Indians for killing fish. We halted for five hours that day in order to take on board sufficient wood for the engines to last us the entire journey. At 6.30 that afternoon we left the Ucayalli river and entered the tributary Pachitea, on the left side, the Ucayalli describing a [431] big curve where the Pachitea enters it. ”

“ We early struck a little stream, which, I observed, we followed constantly. It proved to be the branch of the great river Patuca, upon which the Poyer village is situated, and bore the musical name of Guallambre. At night, when we encamped, the Poyer boy took a calabash, and, motioning to me to follow, led the way down the stream to a little sand-bar. Scooping up some of the sand in his bowl, and then filling it with water, he whirled it rapidly, so that a feathery stream of mingled sand and water flew constantly over its edge. ”

“ At forty leagues still farther up there is another fort which is the common retreat of the Kanibas, or Abenakis, when they are afraid of something in their country. It is on the bank of a little river which flows into the St. John, and which comes from a lake called Madagouasca, twelve leagues long and one wide. It is a good country for moose hunting.”
In another edition of his narrative Cadillac says that Madawaska lake and river turn northward so those who journey from Acadia to Quebec go across the portage from the lake to the River St. Lawrence, opposite Tadoussac. ”

“ The synclinal streams that entered the Anthracite lakes from the southwest may be named, beginning on the south, the Swatara, S, fig. 21, the Wiconisco, Wo, the Tuscarora-Mahanoy, M, the Juniata-Catawissa, C, and the Wyoming, Wy. One of these, probably the fourth, led the overflow from the Broad Top lake into the Catawissa lake on the middle Anthracite river. The Nittany highland formed a strong divide between the central and northwestern rivers, and on its outer slope there must have been streams descending to the Alleghany lowlands ”

“ At the upper portage of this fall we found two of the bark canoes, belonging to the Caripuna savages, who have a “malocal,” or clearing inland, near this rapid. The canoes appeared to have been abandoned for some time, as they were full of mud, having probably been sunk on the bank, according to the custom of these savages, when the river was at its flood height. The savages did not show, and we had no time to spare to search for them in the interior. Travellers must be on their guard in the neighbourhood of this rapid, for the tribe bears a very bad and treacherous character ”

“ On this river are canoes, which are hollowed out of a single tree: they have sharp bottoms, not rounded. They are numerous, and serve equally well for fishing, and for ferry-boats from shore to shore.
From Kashna to Kattagum (which again appears east-north-east on the road to Bornou) south-east is ten days. This river is [134] at all times large; but after the rains it overflows the country. During the inundation the natives use rafts floated on gourds, which grow to an extraordinary size. A quantity of these are scooped out, and lashed together ”

“ The united stream then forces its way down a gorge in a north-west direction, and enters the sea at Artousi, probably the ancient Orthosia.149 The length of the river from its remotest fountain to its mouth is about twenty miles.
The Kadisha or “Holy River” has its source in the deep basin already described, round which rise in a semicircle the loftiest peaks of the range, and on the edge of which stand “the Cedars.” ”

“ Now, what man does here in a small way, and with infinite labour and pains, Nature has been doing on a grand scale for unnumbered centuries. Let us, for instance, take the Fraser River and its tributary the Thompson, which is again made up of the North and South Forks, which unite at Kamloops, as the main rivers do at Lytton. The whole of the vast extent of mountainous country drained by these streams is known to be more or less auriferous. Many places, such as Cariboo, are, or were, richly so ”

“ Soon after our arrival at Kayaye, we paid a visit to the chief, or, as he is there called, the king of Katoba. He resides at a town of that name distant from Kayaye about twenty miles north. The road or path to it lies over a flat uncultivated country thinly covered with brush [57] wood and stunted trees. The soil, for the most part, is an ocre-coloured clay intermixed here and there with small fragments of ferruginous stone, which, in several places, makes its appearance above the surface in the form of large rocks. ”

“ As the system became developed, similar dams might be constructed at convenient intervals that would not only bring into cultivation the neighbouring deserts, but would facilitate the navigation of the river, that is now impeded, and frequently closed, by the numerous cataracts. By raising the level of the Nile sixty feet at every dam, the cataracts would no longer exist, as the rocks which at present form the obstructions would be buried in the depths of the river. ”

“ During the north-east monsoon we are all right, and can drop our anchors a mile or so in front of the city the same as we do at Batavia; but when the south-west monsoon is blowing, and in all the time of the change of monsoons, the roadstead is dangerous. Then we go to Cavite, a naval port seven miles down the coast, and all our cargo must be landed there or brought to Manilla in lighters. No ship of more than 400 tons can enter the river at Manilla safely, as there is not sufficient water on the bar. We shall anchor in front of the town, and you will go on shore in a small boat. ”

“ By degrees some portions of the bottom come in this way to be filled up to the surface of the river, and wide flat marshy spaces are formed on either side of the main stream. During floods these spaces are overflowed with muddy water, in the same way as in the case of the valley plains just described, and a coating of mud or sand is laid down on them until they slowly rise above the ordinary level of the river, which winds about among them in endless branching streams. Vegetation springs up on these flat swampy lands; animals, too, find food and shelter there ”

“ The Rock River is nearly a quarter of a mile wide at this point, and comes down with a majestic sweep from the north, having its chief source in the gloomily picturesque Lake Koshkonong. The banks of the river at and below the mouth of the Catfish, are quite imposing, rising into a succession of graceful, round-topped mounds, from fifty to one hundred feet high, and finely wooded except where cleared for pasture or as the site of farm-buildings. ”

“ These constant crossings of the river cause one to lose much ground, as in mid-stream the current always takes one a considerable distance down stream, and it requires very strong pulling even in a small canoe to cross from bank to bank in a straight line. After coasting round the islands we finally went over to the right bank again, and ascended the rapid by one rope’s length of hauling for about eighty feet, so that this cachuela was, in the then state of the river, passed very easily. ”

“ The Cauca, a swift, muddy stream four or five hundred feet wide at this point, is hemmed in on both sides by the steep slopes of the Western and Central Andean Ranges, the forest extending down to the water. It is navigable from here on down to a small settlement called Cáceres, but rafts and canoes only are employed in making this journey, which requires half a day going down and two days coming up. The natives are a careless lot while on the water, and numbers of lives are lost annually. About the first thing we saw was the body of a man floating down the river, with a vulture perched on it. ”

“ The majority of the board, 8 to 5, opposed the idea of a dam and locks at Gatun on two grounds: first, that the introduction of locks in a treatment of the question was objectionable from many points of view; and, second, that the maintenance of a summit by means of an earth dam of immense magnitude to control the flood waters of this river introduced an element of great danger since the dam, without sheet piling, was proposed to be founded on the alluvial-filled gorges of the Chagres River, where the depth at one point extended 258 feet below the level of the sea. ”

“ The two rivers, meeting at a right angle, there unite to form the Great Kanawha, which plunges over a ledge of rocks a mile below and winds its way among the hills, some thirty miles, before it becomes a navigable stream even for the lightest class of steamboats. From Gauley Bridge a road runs up the Gauley River to Cross Lanes and Carnifex Ferry, something over twenty miles, and continuing northward reaches Summersville, Sutton, and Weston, making almost the only line of communication between the posts then occupied by our troops in northwestern Virginia and the head of the Kanawha valley. ”

“ At 2,500 miles from its sources at the equator the Nile emerges from the long rapids of the Second Cataract and passes Wadi Haifa, the terminus of the Soudan Railway. In its course from Khartoum to this point the fall in the bed-levels has been as much as 850 feet. From Wadi Haifa to the First Cataract, a distance of 200 miles, the river is open, and navigable throughout the year. This region is that of Nubia proper—a country of rocky hills and golden-coloured sand, with occasional stretches of cultivation, and many date-palms. ”

“ From Kibuga the Arabs have heard that between fifteen and twenty marches lead to the Kivira River, a larger and swifter stream than the Katonga, which forms the northern limit of Uganda, and the southern frontier of Unyoro. They are unable to give the names of stations. South of Kivira is Usoga, a low alluvial land, cut by a multitude of creeks, islets, and lagoons; in their thick vegetation the people take refuge from the plundering parties of the Waganda, whose chief built, as has been told, large boats to dislodge them. ”

“ We first doubled the upper end of the island of Catuá, and then struck off for the right bank of the Solimoens. The river was here of immense width, and the current was so strong in the middle that it required the most strenuous exertions on the part of our paddlers to prevent us from being carried miles away down the stream. At night we reached Juteca, a small river which enters the Solimoens by a channel so narrow that a man might almost jump across it, but a furlong inwards expands into a very pretty lake several miles in circumference. ”

“ The Aguaytia and Pishqui are also small streams, where the Indians have to wade and drag the canoes.
October 16.—Started at 6 a. m.; stopped at half-past five opposite the mouth of the river Catalina. It seemed thirty yards wide, and had a small island in front.
The ascent of the river is very tedious; we barely creep along against the force of the current, and day after day "wearies by" in the most monotonous routine. I frequently land, and with gun on shoulder, and clad only in shirt and drawers, walk for miles along the beaches. ”

“ The Catawba tribe, once so powerful, have dwindled down to the merest remnant. For their general adherence to the patriots during the Revolution, they have always received the fostering care of the state. Their number now does not exceed one hundred, and in a few years that once great rival tribe of the Five Nations will be extinct. * So the aborigines pass away, and the few survivors in our land may chant in sorrow,
* The Catawbas spoke a language different from any of the surrounding tribes. They inhabited the country south of the Tuscaroras, and adjoining the Cherokees. ”