Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/283





PORTUGUESE POSSESSIONS NORTH OF THE LIMPOPO.

Inhambane — Sofala — Gazaland.

HE basins of the coast streams following northward between the Limpopo and Zambese estuaries are all of comparatively small extent. Nevertheless that of the Sabi, which is the largest, penetrates over 300 miles into the interior of the continent. But farther inland the whole of the plateau drains either to the Limpopo or to the Zambese, whose numerous affluents here intermingle their waters. The divide between these two great hydrographic systems, and those of the smaller rivers flowing in independent channels seaward, is partly indicated by an irregular mountain range forming the escarpment of the plateau. The zone of coastlands thus roughly limited westwards by the Matebele and Mashona highlands may be approximately estimated at about 112,000 square miles. On no very solid grounds, most travellers agree in giving a population of about half a million to this region, which comprises the south-eastern section of the long-dismembered empire of Monomotapa.

Apart from the Portuguese officials and traders who visited the inland districts before the present century, this territory of Gaza, with the surrounding lands, has been explored and described chiefly by the travellers Mauch, Erskine, Wood, Kuss, Cardozo, Paiva d'Andrada, d'Almeida, Browne, O'Donnel, and Kerr. But these daring pioneers have been followed by numerous other visitors, and expeditions organised in the mining towns of the Transvaal are at present traversing Gazaland and studying its mountains and rivers, in order to discover traces of gold in its quartzose rocks and alluvial deposits, with the view of determining once for all the value of the Portuguese traditions regarding the mineral treasures of this region.

The mountains which in Natal, Zululand, and the Portuguese enclave of Delagoa Bay form the escarpment of the plateau west of the coastlands, do not continue to form north of the Limpopo a regular, well-defined orographic system. Here the ascent from the seaboard towards the elevated uplands of the interior is