Stanley in Africa: The Wonderful Discoveries and Thrilling Adventures of the Great African Explorer, and Other Travelers, Pioneers and MissionariesBoyd, James P. (James Penny)
History
Stanley in Africa: The Wonderful Discoveries and Thrilling Adventures of the Great African Explorer, and Other Travelers, Pioneers and Missionaries
Boyd, James P. (James Penny)
Africa, Central -- Description and travel; Stanley, Henry M. (Henry Morton), 1841-1904
“These falls,” says Pinto, “can be neither properly depicted nor
described. The pencil and the pen are alike at fault, and in fact, save
at their western extremity, the whole are enveloped in a cloud of vapor
which, perhaps fortunately, hides half the awfulness of the scene. It is
not possible to survey this wonder of nature without a feeling of terror
and of sadness creeping over the mind. Up at the Gonye Falls everything
is smiling and beautiful, here at Mozi-oa-tunia everything is frowning,
and awful.”
Pinto’s journey was now southward across the great Kalihari Desert, and
thence to the eastern coast. We must go with him to the centre of this
desert, for he unravels a secret there in the shape of “The Great Salt
Pan.”
We remember Livingstone’s discovery of Lake Ngami, into which and out
of which pours the Cubango river, to be afterwards lost in the central
Salt Pan of the desert. Pinto discovered that this “Salt Pan” received,
in the rainy season, many other large tributaries, and then became an
immense lake, or rather system of pans or lakes, ten to fifteen feet deep
and from 50 to 150 miles long. This vast system, he says, communicates
with Lake Ngami by means of the Cubango, or Zonga River, on nearly the
same level. If Ngami rises by means of its inflow, the current is down
the Cubango toward the “Salt Pans.” If however the “Pans” overflow, by
means of their other tributaries, the current is up the Cubango toward
Lake Ngami. So that among the other natural wonders of Africa we have not
only a system of great rivers pouring themselves into an inland sea with
no outlet except the clouds, but also a great river actually flowing two
ways for a distance of over a hundred miles, as the one or the other lake
on its course happens to be fullest.
THE CONGO.
Lake Tanganyika had been known to the Arab slave hunters of the east
coast of Africa long before the white man gazed upon its bright blue
waters. These cunning, cruel people had good reasons for guarding well
the secret of its existence. Yet popular report of it gave it many an
imaginary location and dimension. What is remarkable about it is that
since it has been discovered and located, it has taken various lengths
and shapes under the eye of different observers, and though it has been
circumnavigated, throughout its 1200 miles of coast, no one can yet be
quite positive whether it has an outlet or not.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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