“On these banks there is a break at all times, but in fine weather, at high water, a boat may cross near the east point.  There is very little water, and, in places, a nasty race and bubble, so that caution is requisite.  The best directions for going in over the regular bar passage, according to my experience, are as follows:  Steer down well to the eastward of the bar passage, so as to avoid the outer part of the western shoals, on which there is usually a bad sea.  When you get near the cross-bar, keep along it till the bluff of trees on the west side of the entrance bears N.E.; you may then steer straight for it.  This will clear the end of the cross-bar, and, directly you are within that, the water is smooth.  The worst sea is generally just without the bar passage.

“Within the points the river widens at first and then contracts again.  About three miles from the Tree Bluff is an island; the passage up the river is the right-hand side of it, and deep.  The plan will best explain it.  The rise and fall of the tide at the entrance of the river being at springs twenty feet, any vessel can get in at that time, but, with all these conveniences for traffic, there is none here at present.  The water in the river is fresh down to the bar with the ebb tide, and in the rainy season it is fresh at the surface quite outside.  In the rainy season, at the full and change of the moon, the Zambesi frequently overflows its banks, making the country for an immense distance one great lake, with only a few small eminences above the water.  On the banks of the river the huts are built on piles, and at these times the communication is only in canoes; but the waters do not remain up more than three or four days at a time.  The first village is about eight miles up the river, on the western bank, and is opposite to another branch of the river called ‘Muselo’, which discharges itself into the sea about five miles to the eastward.

“The village is extensive, and about it there is a very large quantity of land in cultivation; calavances, or beans, of different sorts, rice, and pumpkins, are the principal things.  I saw also about here some wild cotton, apparently of very good quality, but none is cultivated.  The land is so fertile as to produce almost any (thing?) without much trouble.

“At this village is a very large house, mud-built, with a court-yard.  I believe it to have been used as a barracoon for slaves, several large cargoes having been exported from this river.  I proceeded up the river as far as its junction with the Quilimane River, called ’Boca do Rio’, by my computation between 70 and 80 miles from the entrance.  The influence of the tides is felt about 25 or 30 miles up the river.  Above that, the stream, in the dry season, runs from 1-1/2 to 2-1/2 miles an hour, but in the rains much stronger.  The banks of the river, for the first 30 miles, are generally thickly clothed with trees, with occasional open glades.