Quathlamba
“Listen to the streams as they gurgle from their cradles
and you will hear the story of the mountains. You will hear fascinating tales
if only you listen! Lie next to a stream and listen to the song of the
mountains. The smiling faces of the flowers, dancing in the wind. Venture into
the remote valleys or stand on a peak at sunrise or sunset, after snow has fallen,
and you will hear a song that you will never forget - the Song of the High
Mountain".
DRAKENSBERG WILDERNESS PHOTOS ©
WILLEM PELSER
“THE
WILDERNESS IS WHERE I FOUND MY IDENTITY AND EVENTUALLY INTIMACY.”
UNKNOWN
RIVERS OF FIRE
In
the center of South Africa, like a dark island in a sea of grass-covered
planes, there lies a gaunt, steep-sided mass of basalt, the country’s principal
watershed, and its rainy roof.
The coming
of this basalt was in comparatively recent geological times, about 150 million
years ago. It was as though nature suddenly became a little bored, after taking
so many millions of years to lay down the sedimentary rocks of the Karoo
Systems. A change was indicated – something really spectacular to mark the
ending of the age of monstrous reptiles, swamps and interminable rains.
The change
took the form of a prodigious fireworks display. Volcanic fissure after fissure
erupted, pouring out lava until at last a large area of Southern Africa was
covered to a thickness of about 1500 m. This mass of basalt, known as the
Drakensberg Volcanics, flowed from the ruptures in the earth’s mantle like
rivers of fire. One flow cooled, and was followed by another, producing
distinct layers varying in thickness from 1 m to over 50 m and of considerable
difference in hardness and character.
These basalts
are interesting rocks to examine. In the molten state they were full of bubbles
of gas. As the basalt cooled, the gas bubbles filled with minerals which
crystallized into the cavities. A lump of basalt resembles a dark-colored fruit
cake. Imprisoned in the rock are agates; rose-pink amethysts; calcite;
chalcedony; quarts; zeolites of lovely green shades; a great variety of agate
pebbles formed in steam holes in the upper levels; and pencil-like pipe
amygdales which formed in the lower levels, in escape tunnels made by gas
rising from below.
The basalt
is soft and crumbly. To provide it with some backbone, nature thoughtfully
squeezed up from the depths a succession of intrusive flows of hard dolerite.
This rock worked its way between the basalt layers to form horizontal sills, or
up the original feeder channels of the basalt flows, solidifying in them to
form supporting skeletons of dolerite dykes.
This whole
mass of basalt was then left by nature to the weather. Clouds blown in from the
warm Mozambique Current in the east brought rain to this high roof. The run-off
water was a cutting tool that carved a masterpiece. Deep valleys, ravines and
gorges were cut, full of rapids, cascades, waterfalls, caves and pools. The
face of the rock island was worn back, leaving spectacular pinnacles, buttresses,
and precipices. Landslides littered the approaches with giant boulders; wild
valleys were deeply eroded into the roof of the basalt island.
As it
remains today, this mass of basalt covers basically the whole of Lesotho, an
area of 30 344 square km. On all sides, its aspect is of a range of gaunt
mountains, known to the Zulus o the eastern side as Quathlamba (the barrier);
to the Sotho’s as Maluti (the heights), or, when they talk of the eastern
precipices, as Dilomo tsa Natala (the
cliffs of Natal). Europeans refer to these same eastern cliffs, and the whole
escarpment of South Africa, as the Drakensberg
(mountains of the dragons), from an old legend of the sighting there of
monstrous flying lizards, breathing fire.
The End.
Safe Hiking.
References and Acknowledgements
From the book – Southern
Africa – Land of Beauty and Splendour – Readers Digest
Photos: ©Willem Pelser
Compiled by: Willem Pelser
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