Missionary Travels and Researches in South AfricaLivingstone, David
Religion
Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa
Livingstone, David
Missions -- South Africa; South Africa -- Description and travel
The water of the lake is perfectly fresh when full, but brackish when
low; and that coming down the Tamunak'le we found to be so clear, cold,
and soft, the higher we ascended, that the idea of melting snow was
suggested to our minds. We found this region, with regard to that from
which we had come, to be clearly a hollow, the lowest point being
Lake Kumadau; the point of the ebullition of water, as shown by one of
Newman's barometric thermometers, was only between 207-1/2 Deg. and 206
Deg., giving an elevation of not much more than two thousand feet above
the level of the sea. We had descended above two thousand feet in coming
to it from Kolobeng. It is the southern and lowest part of the great
river system beyond, in which large tracts of country are inundated
annually by tropical rains, hereafter to be described. A little of that
water, which in the countries farther north produces inundation, comes
as far south as 20d 20', the latitude of the upper end of the lake,
and instead of flooding the country, falls into the lake as into a
reservoir. It begins to flow down the Embarrah, which divides into the
rivers Tzo and Teoughe. The Tzo divides into the Tamunak'le and Mababe;
the Tamunak'le discharges itself into the Zouga, and the Teoughe into
the lake. The flow begins either in March or April, and the descending
waters find the channels of all these rivers dried out, except in
certain pools in their beds, which have long dry spaces between them.
The lake itself is very low. The Zouga is but a prolongation of the
Tamunak'le, and an arm of the lake reaches up to the point where the
one ends and the other begins. The last is narrow and shallow, while the
Zouga is broad and deep. The narrow arm of the lake, which on the map
looks like a continuation of the Zouga, has never been observed to flow
either way. It is as stagnant as the lake itself.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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