Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/343

 TOPOGRAPHY OF MATE BELF:L AND. 871 Further auriferous deposite were brought to light by Mr. F. C. Selous during an exploring expedition to the Miuhona country, from which he retunicd in Junuary, 1888. A considerable tract of uUuviul gold-fields was discovered, besides a very remarkublc excavation in solid rock, which Mr. Selous believes to be a mine of very ancient date. On this subject he writes : " At Sinoia, near the river Angwa (a tributary of the Munyame), there is an immense circular hole about a hundred feet or more in depth and sixty feet or more in diameter, at the Ixjttom of which is a pool of water which extends some hundred and eighty feet into a vast cavern in the rock. The water is of the most wonderful colour — a deep cobalt blue — and very clear, as pebbles are visible at a great depth on the bottom. There is a slanting shaft or tunnel running at an angle of about forty- five degrees from a point about u hundred yards distant from the top of the hole, which strikes the bottom of the latter just at the edge of the water. We are inclined to think that all these excavations are the result of old gold-workings, and that a vein of quartz has been worked out down the tunnel, and that eventually a spring was tupiK?d, the water of which, welling up from below, has formed the subterranean lake. If the whole thing is the work of man, a truly extraordinary amount of labour must have been expended in this place. The natives have built a stockaded town round the old gold mine, or whatever it is, and go down the tunnel to draw water. We bathed in it and swam up the cavern to the other end of the pool ; the water was quite warm. The rock on each side is covered with innumerable scorings, which look as if they had been done with some kind of iron instrument." * Senna, or Sao-Margal, the "moribund," which lies on the right bank of the 2^mbese, at the foot of a high blutf, and over against the navigable Ziu-Ziu branch communicating with the Shire, is even a more decayed place than Tete. It has often had to pay tribute to its Umgoni (Angoni Zulu) neighbours, and even to barricade itself at night against the lions. The climate also is unhealthy, the atmosphere being charged with malarious vapours rising from the stagnant waters left by the river, which is here gradually shifting its bed in the direction of the north. Hence it has been proposed to remove the town to the left or north aide of the Zambese, which is swept by the current, without leaving any lagoons or sluggish backwaters. Iniiahitaxts of the Nvassa and Shire Basins. South of the Zambese the military empires of Gazaland and ^latebeleland were founded by warlike Zulu conquerors, advancing from the south. North of the river vast territories have also been occupied by invaders of the same martial race. But being here divided into independent bunds, without any national cohesion, they have been unable to found any powerful states. These Kafirs, variously known as Mavitis (Ma-Viti) and Mazitus (Ma-Zitu), are the Munhaes of Gamitto, and are also called Mangones (Ma-Ngone), a name almost identical with that of the Umgoni invaders and conquerors of the region comprised between the
 * PncMdittft of the Royal Otograpkieal Soeiety, March, 1888, p. 164