The Zambesi is the great river of Eastern Africa, and, after the Congo, the Nile, and the Niger, the most important on the continent. Rising in the far interior among the marshes of Lake Dilolo, and, gathering volume from the streams which flow from the high lands connecting the north of Lake Nyassa with Inner Angola, it curves across the country for over a thousand miles like an attenuated letter S, and before its four great mouths empty the far-travelled waters into the Indian Ocean, drains an area of more than half a million square miles. As it cuts its way down the successive steps of the central plateaux its usually placid current is interrupted by rapids, narrows, cascades, and cataracts, corresponding to the plateau edges, so that like all the rivers of Africa it is only navigable in stretches of one or two hundred miles at a time. From the coast the Zambesi might be stemmed by steam-power to the rapids of Kebrabasa; and from above that point intermittently, as far as the impassable barrier of the Victoria Falls. Above this, for some distance, again follow rapids and waterfalls, but these are at length succeeded by an unbroken chain of tributaries which together form an inland waterway of a thousand miles in length. The broad lands along the banks of this noble river are subject to annual inundations like the region of the Nile, and hence their agricultural possibilities are unlimited. On the lower Zambesi, indigo, the orchila weed, and caluraba-root abound, and oil-seeds and sugar-cane could be produced in quantity to supply the whole of Europe. At present, owing to apathy and indifferent government, these magnificent resources are almost wholly undeveloped.