The river is spread out more than a mile, and the water flows rapidly over the rocky bottom.

The portions only three hundred yards wide are very deep, and contain large volumes of flowing water in narrow compass, which, when spread over the much larger surface at the rapids, must be shallow.

Still, remembering that this was the end of the dry season, when such rivers as the Orange do not even contain a fifth part of the water of the Chobe, the difference between the rivers of the north and south must be sufficiently obvious.
The rapids are caused by rocks of dark brown trap, or of hardened sandstone, stretching across the stream.

In some places they form miles of flat rocky bottom, with islets covered with trees.

At the cataracts noted in the map, the fall is from four to six feet, and, in guiding up the canoe, the stem goes under the water, and takes in a quantity before it can attain the higher level.