Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/244

 of Marburg. It lies within six miles of the little port of Shepstone, which is formed by the estuary of the Um-Zimkulu, but which is often almost inaccessible to shipping. Other so-called "ports," carefully avoided, however, by skippers, follow northwards along this exposed seaboard, which runs in nearly a straight line from the Kafirland frontier to the capital. Such are Port Harding at the mouth of the Um-Zumbi, and Port Scott in the Um-Pambynioni estuary. But the only pare of the whole coast which is sufficiently indented to offer a large basin to shipping is the inlet of Port Natal, sighted by Vasco de Gama in the yest 1497. At ea point a ridge of rocks with an average height of 200 feet, then, parallel with tho original coastline and afterwards connected by upheaval with the mainland,

terminates at its northern extremity in a bluff or steep headland completely sheltering from the winds and surf a spacious inlet, which is all that remains of the ancient channel between the ridge and the true shore line. At the entrance of this inlet the action of the waves has gradually developed a spit of sand which has its root on the northern shore, whence it projects in a south-easterly direction towards the bluff. Thus is left to shipping only a narrow passage, the sill of which changes in position and depth with the tides and storms. Formerly the depth varied at low water from six or seven to sixteen feet, and vessels drawing over ten feet seldom ventured to cross the bar. But a breakwater running from the spit of sand towards the north-east has had the result of increasing the scour