heat by the time they stood once again above the falls where the
Dandera. river plunged into the mouth of the chasm, and began its last
lap in the race to join the Nile.
'If Taita. had thrown a dam across here - ' Nicholas made a sweep of his
arms across the mouth of the gorge, he could have diverted the river
down the side valley here.'
'It looks possible,' she laughed. Tamre giggled in sympathy, not
understanding a word of what they were saying, but enjoying himself
immensely.
'I would need a dumpy level to take some shots of the actual fall of the
land. It can be very deceptive, but with the naked eye it does look
possible, as you say.' He shaded his eyes and looked up the bluffs on
each side of the waterfall. They formed two craggy portals of limestone,
between which the river roared as it plunged over the lip.
'I would like to climb up there to get a clearer picture of the layout
of the terrain. Are you game?'
'Try and stop me,', she challenged him, and led the climb. It was a
heavy scramble, and in some places the limestone was rotten and
crumbling dangerously. However, when they came out on the summit of the
eastern portal they were rewarded with a splendid overall view of the
ground below.
Directly to the north, the escarpment rose like a sheer wall with its
battlements crenellated and serrated. Above and beyond it there was a
dream of further mountains, the high peaks of the Choke, blue as a
heron's plumage against the clearer distant blue of the African sky.
All around them were the badlands of the gorge, a vast confusion of
ridges and spines and reefs of rock of fifty different hues, some
ash-grey and white, others black as the hide of a bull buffalo, or red
as his heart blood. The river in bush was green, the poisonous vivid
green of the mamba in the treetop, while further from the water the
scrub was grey and sear, and along the spines of the broken kopjes stood
the stark outlines of ancient drought-struck trees, their tortured limbs
twisted and black against the sky.
'The picture of devastation,' Royan whispered as she looked around her,
'untamed and untaniable. No wonder Taita chose this place. It repels all
intruders.'
They were both silent for a while, awed by the wild grandeur of the
scene, but as soon as they had recovered from the exertion of the climb
their enthusiasm resurfaced.
'Now you can get a good picture of it.' Nicholas pointed down into the
valley below them. 'There is a clear divide at the fork of the valley.
You can see the natural fall of the ground. There, from that side of the
gorge to that point below us, is the narrowest part. It is a neck where
the river squeezes through - the natural site for a dam.' He swivelled
and pointed down to the left of where they sat.
'it would not take much to spill the river into the valley.
Once he had finished whatever he was up to in the chasm, it would taken
even less to break down the wall of the dam and let the river resume its
natural course again.'
