came blistered. Around, and up and down, the
party clambered among these heated blocks, at a pace not exceeding a mile
an hour; the strain upon the muscles in jumping from crag to boulder, and
wriggling round projections, took an enormous deal out of them, and they
were often glad to cower in the shadow formed by one rock overhanging and
resting on another; the shelter induced the peculiarly strong and
overpowering inclination to sleep, which too much sun sometimes causes.
This sleep is curative of what may be incipient sunstroke: in its first
gentle touches, it caused the dream to flit over the boiling brain, that
they had become lunatics and had been sworn in as members of the Alpine
club; and then it became so heavy that it made them feel as if a portion
of existence had been cut out from their lives. The sun is excessively
hot, and feels sharp in Africa; but, probably from the greater dryness of
the atmosphere, we never heard of a single case of sunstroke, so common
in India. The Makololo told Dr. Livingstone they "always thought he had
a heart, but now they believed he had none," and tried to persuade Dr.
Kirk to return, on the ground that it must be evident that, in attempting
to go where no living foot could tread, his leader had given
unmistakeable signs of having gone mad. All their efforts of persuasion,
however, were lost upon Dr. Kirk, as he had not yet learned their
language, and his leader, knowing his companion to be equally anxious
with himself to solve the problem of the navigableness of Kebrabasa, was
not at pains to enlighten him. At one part a bare mountain spur barred
the way, and had to be surmounted by a perilous and circuitous route,
along which the crags were so hot that it was scarcely possible for the
hand to hold on long enough to ensure safety in the passage; and had the
foremost of the party lost his hold, he would have hurled all behind him
into the river at the foot of the promontory; yet in this wild hot
region, as they descended again to the river, they met a fisherman
casting his hand-net into the boiling eddies, and he pointed out the
cataract of Morumbwa; within an hour they were trying to measure it from
an overhanging rock, at a height of about one hundred feet. When you
stand facing the cataract, on the north bank, you see that it is situated
in a sudden bend of the river, which is flowing in a short curve; the
river above it is jammed between two mountains in a channel with
p