Part 310

Both the Lekone and Unguesi flow back toward the centre of the country, and in an opposite direction to that of the main stream. It was plain, then, that we were ascending the farther we went eastward. The level of the lower portion of the Lekone is about two hundred feet above that of the Zambesi at the falls, and considerably more than the altitude of Linyanti; consequently, when the river flowed along this ancient bed instead of through the rent, the whole country between this and the ridge beyond Libebe westward, Lake Ngami and the Zouga southward, and eastward beyond Nchokotsa, was one large fresh-water lake. There is abundant evidence of the existence and extent of this vast lake in the longitudes indicated, and stretching from 17 Deg. to 21 Deg. south latitude. The whole of this space is paved with a bed of tufa, more or less soft, according as it is covered with soil, or left exposed to atmospheric influences. Wherever ant-eaters make deep holes in this ancient bottom, fresh-water shells are thrown out, identical with those now existing in the Lake Ngami and the Zambesi. The Barotse valley was another lake of a similar nature; and one existed beyond Masiko, and a fourth near the Orange River. The whole of these lakes were let out by means of cracks or fissures made in the subtending sides by the upheaval of the country. The fissure made at the Victoria Falls let out the water of this great valley, and left a small patch in what was probably its deepest portion, and is now called Lake Ngami. The Falls of Gonye furnished an outlet to the lake of the Barotse valley, and so of the other great lakes of remote times. The Congo also finds its way to the sea through a narrow fissure, and so does the Orange River in the west; while other rents made in the eastern ridge, as the Victoria Falls and those to the east of Tanganyenka, allowed the central waters to drain eastward. All the African lakes hitherto discovered are shallow, in consequence of being the mere 'residua' of very much larger ancient bodies of water. There can be no doubt that this continent was, in former times, very much more copiously supplied with water than at present, but a natural process of drainage has been going on for ages. Deep fissures are made, probably by the elevation of the land, proofs of which are seen in modern shells imbedded in marly tufa all round the coast-line. Whether this process of desiccation is as rapid throughout the continent as, in a letter to the late Dean Buckland, in 1843, I showed to have been the case in the Bechuana country, it is not for me to say; but, though there is a slight tradition of the waters having burst through the low hills south of the Barotse, there is none of a sudden upheaval accompanied by an earthquake. The formation of the crack of Mosioatunya is perhaps too ancient for that; yet, although information of any remarkable event is often transmitted in the native names, and they even retain a tradition which looks like the story of Solomon and the harlots, there is not a name like Tom Earthquake or Sam Shake-the-ground in the whole country. They have a tradition which may refer to the building of the Tower of Babel, but it ends in the bold builders getting their crowns cracked by the fall of the scaffolding; and that they came out of a cave called "Loey" (Noe?) in company with the beasts, and all point to it in one direction, viz., the N.N.E. Loey, too, is an exception in the language, as they use masculine instead of neuter pronouns to it.