These cracks afford a good idea of the effect of the rains: the partial thunder-showers of October, November, December, and even January, produce no effect on them; it is only when the sun begins to return from his greatest southern declination that the cracks close their large lips.

The whole sponge is borne up, and covers an enormous mass of water, oozing forth in March and April forming the inundations.

These floods in the Congo, Zambesi, and Nile require different times to reach the sea.

The bulk of the Zambesi is further augmented by the greater rains finding many pools in the beds of its feeders filled in February, as soon as the sun comes north.
_Mem._--In apparent contradiction of the foregoing, so far as touches the sources of the Zambesi, Syde bin Habib informed me a few days ago that he visited the sources of the Liambai and of the Lufira.

Each comes out of a fountain; the Lufira one is called Changozi, and is small, and in a wood of large trees S.W.of Katanga; the fountain of the Liambai is so large that one cannot call to a person on the other side, and he appears also very small there--the two fountains are just five hours distant from each other.