The round green top of the stately palm-tree looks at a
distance, when its grey trunk cannot be seen, as though hung
in mid-air. Many flocks of busy sandmartins, which here,
and as far south as the Orange-River, do not migrate, have
perforated the banks two or three feet horizontally, in order
to place their nests at the ends, and are now chasing on rest- '
less wing the myriads of tropical insects. The broad river
has many low islands, on which are seen various kinds of
waterfowl, such as geese, spoonbills, herons, and flamingoes.
Repulsive crocodiles, as with open jaws they sleep and hask
in the. sun on the low banks, soon catch the sound of the
revolving paddles and glide quietly into the stream. The
hippopotamus, having selected some still reach of the river
to spend the day, rises from the bottom, where he has been
enjoying his morning bath after the labours of the night on
shore, blows a puff of spray out of his nostrils, shakes the
water out of his ears, puts his enormous snout up straight
and yawns, sounding a loud alarm to the rest of the herd,
with notes as of a monster bassoon.
As we approach Mazaro the scenery improves. We see
the well-wooded Shupanga ridge stretching to the left, and
in front blue bills rise dimly far in the distance. There is no
trade whatever on the Zambesi below Mazaro.’ All the
merchandise of Senna and Tette is brought to that point in
large canoes, and thence carried six miles across the country
on men’s heads to be reshipped on a small stream that
flows into the Kwakwa, or Quillimane river, which is entirely
distinct from the Zambesi. Only on rare occasions and
during the highest floods can canoes pass from the Zambesi
i to the Quillimane river through the narrow natural canal
Mutu. The natives of Maruru or the country around Mazaro,
the word Mazaro meaning the “ mouth of the creek”