Zab River

“ It is navigable for steamers to a point a little above the mouth of the Great Zab, about 30 m. south of Mosul, at which point navigation is blocked by two ancient dams, erected, apparently, to control the river for the Assyrian city of Calah, the ruins of which are called Nimrud by the natives after these dams, which they conceive to be the work of that mythical hero. ”

“ It is to be expected that the natural features of a land where so primitive a state of things prevails will be rugged; and those of Hakkiari are wild and strange enough to merit a special description. The mountains are in fact a section of that great Taurus range, which extends in a curve from the shores of the Mediterranean to somewhere south of Baghdad. At this point they are pierced by a large river, the Zab, which rises well to the north of them on the Armenian plateau ”

“ From it spring the others, the two Zab rivers, Lesser and Greater, running up at an angle to meet the Zagros range, which, parallel to the Tigris, makes a fourth boundary. Within these limits lies a land, part plain, part hill, well watered, and of a pleasant climate and extreme fertility, and this was Assyria proper, and the later kingdom and province of Adiabene, whose eastern border, the Zagros Mountains, harboured then, as now, hordes of savage hill people, and formed at once a barrier and a menace, even to the kings of Assyria. ”

“ Some fifty miles down-stream of Lake No the Bahr-el-Zaraf rejoins the White Nile, and at 1,060 miles from Lake Victoria its largest and most important tributary, the Sobat, enters it on the eastern bank. This stream largely influences the discharge of the main river, and from May to the end of November brings a larger volume of water into the Nile than ever succeeds in passing through the southern marshes from the equatorial lakes. The colour of the Sobat water, when rising, is a creamy white, changing, when in full flood, to a brick-red. ”

“ In less than an hour we left the Zab, and commenced the toilsome ascent of the precipice before us. Arrived at the summit, a spectacle of imposing grandeur burst upon our view. Behind us through the gorge of the Zab, we saw the village of Leezan, smiling in all the freshness of spring; beneath us a deep valley clothed with forest wood; and all around mountains upon mountains reared their towering and snowy heads, seeming to claim kindred with the sky. ”

“ When about half a mile from the Falls, I left the canoe and embarked in a lighter one with men well acquainted with the rapids, who brought me to an island in the middle of the river and on the edge of the lip over which the water rolls. Creeping with care to the verge, I peered down into a large rent which had been made from bank to bank of the broad Zambesi. In looking down into the fissure one sees nothing but a dense white cloud ”

“ Many of the African women are particular about the water they use for drinking and cooking, and prefer that which is filtered through sand. To secure this, they scrape holes in the sandbanks beside the stream, and scoop up the water, which slowly filters through, rather than take it from the equally clear and limpid river. This practice is common in the Zambesi, the Rovuma, and Lake Nyassa; and some of the Portuguese at Tette have adopted the native custom, and send canoes to a low island in the middle of the river for water. ”

“ Southwards also tho Zambese communicates during the inundations with several streams traversing the Gaza territory. Here the junction is effected by a lagoon belonging to the Zangwe tributary to its lower course, and by a succession of channels and backwaters extending as fur as the River Pungwe, on the Sofala coast. 254 SOUTH AND EAST Af'EICA. Climate of the Zambese Basin. In such a vast area of drainage as that of the Ku-Bango and Zambese river Bystems, the climate naturally presents many contrasts according to the aspect of the laud, its general relief and distance from the sea. ”

“ Mount Zomba, which is twenty miles long, and from 7000 to 8000 feet high, has a beautiful stream flowing through a verdant valley on its summit, and running away down into Lake Shirwa. The highlands are well wooded, and many trees, admirable for their height and timber, grow on the various watercourses. "Is this country good for cattle?" ”

“ The country north of the Zambese river, already spoken of, is one of the most valuable portions of South Central Africa, intersected by large rivers, tributaries of the Zambese, the elevation being nearly 3000 feet above sea-level, with splendid open and extensive grass plains, most valuable for grazing all kinds of stock. It is also a fine corn-growing country. With a railway to the Zambese river, it would be easy for settlers to reach it, and a road for an outlet for their produce. ”

“ Another proposal, which is really independent of the Reservoir question, is to use the Bahr el Zeraf to carry the extra summer supply at present wasted in the marshes. The Bahr el Zeraf is a branch of the Nile, taking off near Shambe, and entering the river again below Lake No before the junction of the Sobat. The cost of preparing the Bahr el Zeraf channel by means of dredging and embanking is estimated at £1,250,000, and in addition certain supplementary works would be required. ”

“ It frequently sends down a greater volume than the main stream, whose waters during the floods are stemmed and driven back by its current. To judge from its whitish fluid contents, in which the blackish Nile water disappears, the Sobat has the best claim to the title of Bahr-el-Abiad, or "White River." Some of its affluents rise on the low-lying plains stretching east of the Nile; but the most important has its source much farther east, in the upland valleys of the Ghesha range, which forms the water-parting between the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean basins. ”

“ The country along the Zouga river is very level. This river enters, or, I may say, empties Lake N’gami, the altitude being 2813 feet, and flows to the great pan above-named in April and May, and in June and July flows into the lake. The only outlet for the surplus water of the Zouga is the Mababe river to the Chobe, one of the main streams of the Zambese, and the water in the Mababe flows either way according to the rainfall, showing the perfect level of the country. Gigantic trees grow along these rivers and the region adjoining ”

“ The whole drainage of the country, tends to the east, and accordingly flows into the Sobat.
The range of mountains running south from Ellyria is the watershed between the east and west drainage; the Sobat receiving it on the one hand, and the White Nile on the other, while the Nile eventually receives the entire flow by the Sobat, as previously mentioned, in lat. 9 degrees 22 minutes. Having scrambled up the steep bank of the Kanieti river, we crossed a large field of dhurra, and arrived at the village of Wakkala. ”

“ The spurs of the Zawa Ghar Range are steep and rugged for about six to seven miles; as they run southward they fall away, and form a succession of small plateaux, intersected by ravines, 4000 to 5000 feet in elevation. Across these runs the route from Torawari, in Upper Miranzai, to Balish Khel, near the junction of the Kharmana River with the Kurram—a route formerly used by kafilas. The drainage divides into three parts—one running westward into the Kharmana and Kurram, near Balish Khel and Sadda; a second, collecting below Chinarak, forms the Sangroba, which falls into the Kurram near Thal ”

“ 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. ”

“ Azolta retired, as also did Quibibio, leaving his son, Zolca, to entertain us. This he did by smilingly inviting us to walk out. We took our way down a beaten track by the side of the river, which was a broad, sandy stream, with long reaches of water. We soon reached a gorge through which the{43} river descended, or at least the small stream it then was, in a series of cascades. Zolca led us up an easy ascent by the side of this gorge, and we suddenly found ourselves within sight of the ocean. ”

“ But the same vague distance receives the Zanga, diffused into many channels, and lost beneath luxuriant foliage. For over a quarter of an hour after leaving Erivan we pass at a rapid trot between the walls of orchards; and in places the water gushes from the conduits across the road. Once outside this intricate zone the track wanders over the idle soil, skirting the stony slopes in the north. In the opposite direction the plain blooms with fields of cotton and rice, sustained by a small canal which pursues a westerly course before it falls into the Araxes, if indeed it flow so far. ”

“ At times, it is true, the nature of their locality befriended them, and the advantages of position helped to compensate for their paucity of numbers.
Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph by M. Binder.
Sometimes they were entrenched behind one of those rapid watercourses like the Radanu, the Zab, or the Turnat, which are winter torrents rather than streams, and are overhung by steep banks, precipitous as a wall above a moat; sometimes they took refuge upon some wooded height and awaited attack amid its rocks and pine woods. ”

“ On the Zambesi, the Bō-tlét-lē River near Lake Ngami, and in North Australia, the natives are very ingenious in the construction of dams or weirs; and creels or trap baskets are skilfully placed at the outlets. Some of these are of stiff reeds or osiers; others, of rushes so flexible as to be merely a bag or net. Long semicircular pounds are, by the natives of some countries, constructed of sticks and twigs between high and low water marks. The fish, getting embayed within these, are left high and dry as the tide falls, and are gathered up before the return of the waves. ”

“ No part of the world in this latitude is fuller of streams and torrents, but three only attain to any geographical dignity—the Zainderud, or river of Isfahan, which after a course full of promise loses itself ignominiously in a partially-explored swamp; the Karun, with its Bakhtiari tributaries of the Ab-i-Bazuft, the Darkash Warkash, the Ab-i-Sabzu, and the Dinarud ”

“ Media is, on the whole, but scantily provided with fish. Lake Urumiyeh produces none, as its waters are so salt that they even destroy all the river-fish which enter them. Salt streams, like the Aji Su, are equally unproductive, and the fresh-water rivers of the plateau fall so low in summer that fish cannot become numerous in them. Thus it is only in Zagros, in Azerbijan, and in the Elburz, that the streams furnish any considerable quantity. ”

“ If then we suppose that the bank c B d and the regulator B only existed to collect the flood waters, and turn them into the lake, and that a regulator at Hawârah at F also existed to keep excess water out of the lake, such an arrangement would agree with Strabo’s statement that “when the river falls, the lake again discharges the water by a canal at both orifices, and it is available for irrigation. There are regulators at both ends of the canal for regulating the inflow and outflow.” ”

“ Towards the end of the rainy season, however, the water rises from forty to fifty feet above low-water mark. Sometimes it rises considerably higher. In 1891 the flood was so high that the stores and dwellings of the part of the city fronting the river were inundated to a height of several feet. Then the inhabitants were obliged to have recourse to canoes in passing from house to house. Then, too, stray alligators were seen in the streets and it was possible to catch enough fish for a meal in the patio—court-yard—of one’s residence. ”

“ After following Zamia Creek for some miles, I turned to the left, and travelled about north-north-west, when the scrub opened, and we came upon open ridges, and, at about a mile and a half from the river, found some fine lagoons. The ridges, which are spurs of Aldis's Peak and Expedition Range, disappear in the level country to the north-east. Farther on to the north-north-west, I passed some fine plains, having the black soil, the vegetation, the dry creeks and watercourses, of Darling Downs. Thick scrub seems to extend all along the foot of the range, from Aldis's Peak to Mount Nicholson. ”

“ The land is high in the north, and has a general declination, as may be seen by the river system, to the south and eastward, but with less easting as we come westward.
It is separated from the main body of Africa by the river Jub, a large and fertilising stream, which, rising in the mountains of southern Abyssinia, passes between the territories of the Gallas on the west and the Somali on the east, and debouches in the Indian Ocean at the northern extremity of the Zanzibar coast. ”

“ 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. Our attention was in the mean time turned to the exploration of the river Shire, a northern tributary of the Zambesi, which joins it about a hundred miles from the sea. We could learn nothing satisfactory from the Portuguese regarding this affluent ”

“ Now, a great part of the valley of Seba Biar is lower than the level of the Nile at the height of the inundation, this was easily done. A canal from the eastern branch of the river, near Bubastes, did not require to be cut to a greater distance than seven miles, in order to allow the waters to fill the valley. By this operation, the irrigation could have been carried as far as the northern boundary of the bitter lakes, between Suez and the Mediterranean; and at least 20,000 acres of land gained for agricultural purposes. ”