The process by which a delta, extending eighty or one hundred miles from the sea, has been formed may be seen going on at the present day--the coarser particles of sand are driven out into the ocean, just in the same way as we see they are over banks in the beds of torrents.The finer portions are caught by the returning tide, and, accumulating by successive ebbs and flows, become, with the decaying vegetation, arrested by the mangrove roots.The influence of the tide in bringing back the finer particles gives the sea near the mouth of the Zambesi a clean and sandy bottom.This process has been going on for ages, and as the delta has enlarged eastwards, the river has always kept a channel for itself behind.Wherever we see an island all sand, or with only one layer of mud in it, we know it is one of recent formation, and that it may be swept away at any time by a flood; while those islands which are all of mud are the more ancient, having in fact existed ever since the time when the ebbing and flowing tides originally formed them as parts of the delta.This mud resists the action of the river wonderfully.It is a kind of clay on which the eroding power of water has little effect.Were maps made, showing which banks and which islands are liable to erosion, it would go far to settle where the annual change of the channel would take place; and, were a few stakes driven in year by year to guide the water in its course, the river might be made of considerable commercial value in the hands of any energetic European nation.No canal or railway would ever be thought of for this part of Africa.A few improvements would make the Zambesi a ready means of transit for all the trade that, with a population thinned by Portuguese slaving, will ever be developed in our day.Here there is no instance on record of the natives flocking in thousands to the colony, as they did at Natal, and even to the Arabs on Lake Nyassa.
This keeping aloof renders it unlikely that in Portuguese hands the Zambesi will ever be of any more value to the world than it has been.
After a hurried visit to Senna, in order to settle with Major Sicard and Senhor Ferrao for supplies we had drawn thence after the depopulation of the Shire, we proceeded down to the Zambesi's mouth, and were fortunate in meeting, on the 13th February, with H.M.S.
"Orestes."She was joined next day by H.M.S. "Ariel."The "Orestes"took the "Pioneer," and the "Ariel" the "Lady Nyassa" in tow, for Mosambique.On the 16th a circular storm proved the sea-going qualities of the "Lady of the Lake;" for on this day a hurricane struck the "Ariel," and drove her nearly backwards at a rate of six knots.The towing hawser wound round her screw and stopped her engines.No sooner had she recovered from this shock than she was again taken aback on the other tack, and driven stem on towards the "Lady Nyassa's" broadside.We who were on board the little vessel saw no chance of escape unless the crew of the "Ariel" should think of heaving ropes when the big ship went over us; but she glided past our bow, and we breathed freely again.We had now an opportunity of witnessing man-of-war seamanship.Captain Chapman, though his engines were disabled, did not think of abandoning us in the heavy gale, but crossed the bows of the "Lady Nyassa" again and again, dropping a cask with a line by which to give us another hawser.We might never have picked it up, had not a Krooman jumped overboard and fastened a second line to the cask; and then we drew the hawser on board, and were again in tow.During the whole time of the hurricane the little vessel behaved admirably, and never shipped a single green sea.When the "Ariel" pitched forwards we could see a large part of her bottom, and when her stern went down we could see all her deck.
A boat, hung at her stern davits, was stove in by the waves.The officers on board the "Ariel" thought that it was all over with us:we imagined that they were suffering more than we were.Nautical men may suppose that this was a serious storm only to landsmen; but the "Orestes," which was once in sight, and at another time forty miles off during the same gale, split eighteen sails; and the "Pioneer" had to be lightened of parts of a sugar-mill she was carrying; her round-
house was washed away, and the cabin was frequently knee-deep in water.When the "Orestes" came into Mosambique harbour nine days after our arrival there, our vessel, not being anchored close to the "Ariel," for we had run in under the lee of the fort, led to the surmise on board the "Orestes" that we had gone to the bottom.
Captain Chapman and his officers pronounced the "Lady Nyassa" to be the finest little sea-boat they had ever seen.She certainly was a contrast to the "Ma-Robert," and did great credit to her builders, Ted and Macgregor of Glasgow.We can but regret that she was not employed on the Lake after which she was named, and for which she was intended and was so well adapted.
What struck us most, during the trip from the Zambesi to Mosambique, was the admirable way in which Captain Chapman handled the "Ariel" in the heavy sea of the hurricane; the promptitude and skill with which, when we had broken three hawsers, others were passed to us by the rapid evolutions of a big ship round a little one; and the ready appliance of means shown in cutting the hawser off the screw nine feet under water with long chisels made for the occasion; a task which it took three days to accomplish.Captain Chapman very kindly invited us on board the "Ariel," and we accepted his hospitality after the weather had moderated.
