Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/299





ZAMBESE AND KU-BANGO BASINS.

N length, the extent of its basin and volume, the Zambese ranks as the fourth river in Africa, being surpassed in these respects only by the Congo, the Nile, and the Niger. But however important it still is, this great artery appears to have formerly drained even a far larger area than at present. Several copious streams which at one time joined it from the west and south-west, have ceased to reach its banks; various waterpartings have been upheaved between the central and the secondary basins, and many of these have become isolated marshy or flooded depressions, which have no longer any outflow, and whose surplus waters are carried off by evaporation alone. From the geological standpoint, the unity of the whole basin still remains evident enough; but it has ceased to constitute a single hydrographic system. Although they no longer intermingle their currents, the Ku-Bango and Zambese clearly belong to the same original area of drainage, as had in fact long been shown by the Portuguese explorations previous to the time of Livingstone.

But these explorations had been entirely overlooked by most geographers outside of Portugal, and for the scientific world Livingstone must be regarded as the true discover of the Upper Zambese. Numerous travellers have followed in his footsteps, notably the Portuguese Serpa Pinto, Brito Capello and Ivens, Hermenegildo Capello, who have specially undertaken the survey of this region, which in the recent general distribution of Africa has been assigned to their nation "from ocean to ocean," that is, from the Atlantic to the Indian waters. On their maps it already figures, perhaps on a somewhat too extensive scale, as a future African Portugal.

The scientific exploration of these lands, in anticipation of their political annexation, has been undertaken partly from the direction of the Lower Zambese. But this river being shallower and narrower than the Congo, and especially more obstructed by falls and rapids along its middle course, can be utilised only for a comparatively short distance by travellers seeking to penetrate into the heart of the