CHAPTER II.
Kebrabasa Rapids--Tette--African fever--Exploration of the Shire--Discovery of Lake Shirwa.
Our curiosity had been so much excited by the reports we had heard of the Kebrabasa rapids, that we resolved to make a short examination of them, and seized the opportunity of the Zambesi being unusually low, to endeavour to ascertain their character while uncovered by the water.

We reached them on the 9th of November.

The country between Tette and Panda Mokua, where navigation ends, is well wooded and hilly on both banks.
Panda Mokua is a hill two miles below the rapids, capped with dolomite containing copper ore.
Conspicuous among the trees, for its gigantic size, and bark coloured exactly like Egyptian syenite, is the burly Baobab.

It often makes the other trees of the forest look like mere bushes in comparison.

A hollow one, already mentioned, is 74 feet in circumference, another was 84, and some have been found on the West Coast which measure 100 feet.