Tugela River

“ The Tugela would be the natural line of defence, but even that could be turned by troops from the Transvaal going through Zululand, and the line of the river would be very difficult to defend by a force of less than twenty thousand men. However, we shall see how the thing works out—how enterprising the Boers are, and how warmly the Free Staters throw themselves into the work. ”

“ The Tugalo is one of the most beautiful streams I ever beheld. Its banks are finely diversified with mountain scenery, generally in the distance; while the bottoms are in the highest state of cultivation—indeed, some of the finest plantations, and best built mansions in all the southern country, are on this river. At times, the water, which is always clear, runs smooth and deep, for some distance, when suddenly it is broken by shoals, miles and miles in length ”

“ When the Tanganika has risen three feet higher there will be no surf at the mouth of the Lukuga, no sill of sand, no oozing mud-banks, no rush-covered old river-course, but the accumulated waters of over a hundred rivers will sweep through the ancient gap with the force of a cataclysm, bearing away on its flood all the deposits of organic débris at present in the Lukuga Creek down the steep incline to swell the tribute due to the mighty Livingstone. ”

“ Our first camp on Tchitagama was at the sunrise end of the lake, in a bay paved with small round stones, laid close together and beaten firmly down by the waves. There, and along the shores below, at the mouth of a little river that foamed in over a ledge of granite, and in the shadow of cliffs of limestone and feldspar, we trolled and took many fish: pike of enormous size, fresh-water sharks, devourers of nobler game, fit only to kill and throw away; huge old trout of six or seven pounds, with broad tails and hooked jaws, fine fighters and poor food ”

“ Flat slabs of schist, branches, and roots have been inserted into cracks and fissures of the precipice 120 feet above the river, and on these planks, poles, and stones are laid forming a gutter a foot broad, without a scrap of railing, where one must even keep one’s tongue in one’s mouth lest one should lose one’s balance. Of course we traverse this stretch of road, called Tigu-tang, on foot, leaning inwards and supporting ourselves by the rock. We breathe freely again when we are safely over, and the great basin lies before us where, at Linga, two important valleys converge. ”

“ During the floods, however, this cheval-de-frise of boulders must all be under water, and probably impassable. Tuckey supposes that the inundation must produce a spectacle which justifies the high- flown description of the people. I should imagine the reverse to be the case; and Dr. Livingstone justly remarked 30 that, when the river was full, the Yellala rapids would become comparatively smooth, as he had found those of the Zambeze; and that therefore a voyage pittoresque up the Congo should be made at that season. ”

“ On thinking it over I am sure I should have liked the canal much better had it really been a river.
Cocoanut palms as well as mangoes and other shady trees line its banks, which, turfed with beautifully green grass, slope gently down to the water, and are sprinkled over with sensitive plants in flower. Here and there are screwpine groves, and through gaps in the border of trees glimpses can be caught of endless fields, stretching away into the distance, their crops so soft and velvety after the rains that the eye seems to sink into their depths. ”

“ After advancing about ten miles in a south-east direction from Berberah, we entered rough and broken ground, and suddenly came upon a Fiumara about 250 yards broad. The banks were fringed with Brab and Tamarisk, the Daum palm and green rushes: a clear sparkling and shallow stream bisected the sandy bed, and smaller branches wandered over the surface. This river, the main drain of the Ghauts and Sub-Ghauts, derives its name from the increased volume of the waters during night: evaporation by day causes the absorption of about a hundred yards. ”

“ After the Tugalo makes its junction with the Seneca, the stream takes the name of Savannah, or as the mountaineers call it—the Sav-a-naw. Below the mouth of the Seneca, the river rapidly widens, and the water assumes a yellowish or muddy color, and it is full of wild and dangerous shoals. The bottoms, on either side, are wide and well cultivated; but on account of the fearful freshets, caused by the rising of the mountain streams [344] above, there are no houses built near the river—they generally being from two to three miles back, and sometimes even farther than that ”

“ This people, I was told, are so fierce in war that no other tribe can stand against them, though they only fight with short spears. When this discourse was ended, ever perplexed about the Tanganyika being a still lake, I enquired of Mohinna and other old friends what they thought about the Marungu river: did it run into or out of the lake? and they all still adhered to its running into the lake—which, after all, in my mind, is the most conclusive argument that it does run out of the lake, making it one of a chain of lakes leading to the N'yanza, and through it by the Zambezi into the sea ”

“ From the said rivulet to the latitude of Nokki, thence east along107 that parallel to the Kwa river, thence up the Kwa to S. Lat. 6°, thence up the affluent of the Kwa, Lubilash, to the water-shed between the Congo and Zambesi, which it follows to Lake Bangweola.
From the eastern side of Bangweola the line runs north to Lake Tanganyika, and follows its western shore to the Rusizi affluent, then up this affluent to E. long. 30°, as far as the water-shed, between the Congo and Nile. ”

“ This valley, or line of drainage, while it does not receive the Kassai and the Kwango, receives rivers flowing from a great distance west, for instance, the important tributaries Lufira and Lomami, and large rivers from the east, such as the Lindi and Luamo; and, while the most intelligent Portuguese travellers and traders state that the Kassai, the Kwango, and Lubilash are the head waters of the Congo River, no one has yet started the supposition that the grand river flowing north, and known by the natives as the Lualaba, is the Congo. ”

“ Finally, Captain Speke made his own lake a physical impossibility. Within little more than 60 miles from east to west he has given it three main effluents, the Mwerango, the Luajerri, and the Nile or Napoleon channel, to say nothing of the Myo Myanza, the Murchison Creek, the Usoga stream, together with the Asúa river from the Baringo. ”

“ At a point possibly a mile or more down the stream from the place in which it is decided to cast the poison, the women and girls, aided by a few men, fix their conical traps across the stream so that no large fish may escape. When all is ready the túba is thrown into the river, and everyone dashes downstream with loud exclamations, some in boats, some on rafts, or; where the water is shallow, wading or jumping from rock to rock. ”

“ The basin is comparatively narrow, and the Tagus, like the other rivers of the Iberian tableland, generally flows in a rather confined valley, often at the bottom of a rocky gorge at a considerable depth below the general level of the adjacent country. The source of the river is at the height of 5225 feet above sea-level, on the western slope of the Muela de San Juan, in the south-west of the province of Teruel. ”

“ Reeds and water-plants grew on its margin, and its smooth surface reflected the rugged outline of the hills beyond. The Waterless River is about two miles in breadth, and appears to have been at one time the bed of a large stream. [179] It crosses all the caravan routes in the desert, and is supposed to extend from the Nile to the Red Sea. It may have been the outlet for the river, before its waters forced a passage through the primitive chains which cross its bed at Assouan and Kalabshee. A geological exploration of this part of Africa could not fail to produce very interesting results. ”

“ All the other rivers which we call great, though some of them are insignificant as compared with the Amazons,—the Mississippi, the Nile, the Ganges, and the Danube,—deposit extensive deltas, and the smaller rivers also, with few exceptions, are constantly building up the land at their mouths by the materials they bring along with them. Even the little river Kander, emptying into the Lake of Thun, is not without its delta. ”

“ From the first branch on the north to the last of the south it is at least 100 leagues, so as the river's mouth is 300 miles wide at his entrance into the sea, which I take to be far bigger than that of Amazons. All those that inhabit in the mouth of this river upon the several north branches are these Tivitivas, of which there are two chief lords which have continual wars one with the other. The islands which lie on the right hand are called Pallamos, and the land on the left, Hororotomaka; and the river by which John Douglas returned within the land from Amana to Capuri they call Macuri. ”

“ Ascending by the dry bed of a torrent on the south side of the river, we skirted the eastern end of Jibel Teluet, which forms the southern boundary of the valley, and descended some four miles farther on to the larger stream of the Wad Unila. The ascent and descent we had crossed forms a small watershed for the tributaries of the two rivers, though apparently these mountain torrents only flow in the wet season. At one spot, rather more than half-way, we passed extensive salt-mines, where quite a number of natives were engaged in working rock-salt. ”

“ The wonder is where all the water comes from. But the river is fed by more than six thousand square miles of territory. From both sides the little brooks come dashing in with their supply. At intervals a larger stream, reaching away back among the mountains like a hand with many fingers to gather
“The filtered tribute of the rough woodland,” delivers its generous offering to the main current.
The names of the chief tributaries of the Ristigouche are curious. There is the headstrong Metapedia, and the crooked Upsalquitch, and the Patapedia, and the Quatawamkedgwick. ”

“ Another tug or wady, which takes its origin to the south of the Berbcra hills, runs out in the country of the Mijertin Somalis, more than IJO miles from the sea. The last of these wadys comprised within the oceanic area of drainage is the Tug Darror, or "River of Fogs," whose valley lies between the Ras Haf un and Cape Guardafui. On the slopes draining to the Gulf of Aden, the beds of the torrents are nothing more than short ravines excavated in the thickness of the escarpment. Hero running waters are as scarce as in the corresponding gorges on tie opposite coast of Arabia. Climate. ”

“ The backbone of the district is a high and dry tract known as the Ganjí or Bald Bár. The advent of the Lower Bárí Doáb Canal will entirely change the character of this desert. Its south-eastern boundary is a high bank marking the course of the old bed of the Biás. Below this is the wide Sutlej valley. The part beyond the influence of river floods depends largely on the Khánwáh and Sohág Pára inundation Canals. The Ráví valley to the north-west of the Bár is naturally fertile and has good well irrigation. But it has suffered much by the failure of the Ráví floods. ”

“ Between the rapids named and 7° 40′ S. its valley is studded with a chain of small lakes and backwaters. The largest—Upemba—has channels communicating both with the Lualaba and the Lufira. In the rainy season the whole region becomes a marsh; various grasses, especially papyrus, form floating islands, and the conditions generally recall the sudd region of the Nile. In about 8° 20′ S. the Lualaba and Lufira unite in one of these marshy lakes—Kisale—through which there is a navigable channel. The river issuing from Lake Kisale is called Kamolondo; it has a width varying from 300 to 1000 ft. ”

“ Above Tukeit the river is a series of racing cataracts, curiously broken by deep, still pools, where the main current would appear to flow beneath the surface. It is, of course, an entirely unnavigable piece of water, and to pursue the valley on foot to the base of the mighty Kaietuk precipice is an enterprise of extreme difficulty, not to say danger. Masses of giant boulders make progress all but impossible ”

“ There are no mountains.
Drainage.—The drainage of the country is carried on by the Gumti and Sai rivers, which in their turn receive small tributary streams. The chief of these is the Bạita, a small perennial stream, which, rising in the Hardoi district, passes through the Malihabad pargana in a south-easterly direction, and falls into the Gumti at a point on its right bank near Kánkrábad. "The Loni, another stream having its source in the Mohanlalganj pargana, passes through it, and joins the river near Salempur on its right bank. ”

“ I found we were on a great decline of the country draining to the westward; the soil was deeper and richer, and the vegetation proportionately richer as we went on with the journey. Shortly we crossed the Malagarazi river in a bark canoe at the Mpété ferry, and found that, after having travelled along this decline from Kazé about one hundred and fifty miles, we began to ascend at the eastern horn of a large crescent-shaped mass of mountains overhanging the northern half of the Tanganyika Lake, which I am now about to describe. ”