and beneath our feet in a second
or two, and we were all sinking by that means so deep that we were glad
to relinquish the attempt to ford it before we got half way over; the
oxen were carried away down into the Zambesi. These sand-rivers remove
vast masses of disintegrated rock before it is fine enough to form soil.
The man who preceded me was only thigh-deep, but the disturbance caused
by his feet made it breast-deep for me. The shower of particles and
gravel which struck against my legs gave me the idea that the amount of
matter removed by every freshet must be very great. In most rivers
where much wearing is going on, a person diving to the bottom may
hear literally thousands of stones knocking against each other. This
attrition, being carried on for hundreds of miles in different rivers,
must have an effect greater than if all the pestles and mortars and
mills of the world were grinding and wearing away the rocks. The
pounding to which I refer may be heard most distinctly in the Vaal
River, when that is slightly in flood. It was there I first heard it.
In the Leeambye, in the middle of the country, where there is no
discoloration, and little carried along but sand, it is not to be heard.

While opposite the village of a head man called Mosusa, a number of
elephants took refuge on an island in the river. There were two males,
and a third not full grown; indeed, scarcely the size of a female. This
was the first instance I had ever seen of a comparatively young one with
the males, for they usually remain with the female herd till as large as
their dams. The inhabitants were very anxious that my men should attack
them, as they go into the gardens on the islands, and do much damage.
The men went, but the elephants ran about half a mile to the opposite
end of the island, and swam to the main land with their probosces above
the water, and, no canoe being near, they escaped. They swim strongly,
with the proboscis erect in the air. I was not very desirous to have one
of these animals killed, for we understood that when we passed Mpende we
came into a country where the game-laws are strictly enforced. The lands
of each chief are very well defined, the boundaries being usually marked
by rivulets, great numbers of which flow into the Zambesi from both
banks, and, if an elephant is wounded on one man's land and dies on that
of another, the under half of the carcass is claimed by the lord of the
soil; and so stringent is the law,