Komati River

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The Komati River is a river in South Africa, Swaziland and Mozambique (where it is called Incomati). The Maguga Dam is going to be constructed on the river. It rises at an elevation of about 5000 ft. in the Ermelo district of the Transvaal. It flows in a general North and East direction and reaches the Indian Ocean at Delagoa Bay, after a course of some 800 kilometres. The Komati Gorge is situated in the upper reaches of the Komati River and is the location of habitat of many endangered species such as the Southern Bald Ibis.

In its upper valley near Steynsdorp are gold-fields, but the reefs are almost entirely of low grade ore. The river descends the Drakensberg by a pass 30 m. S. of Barberton, and at the eastern border of Swaziland is deflected northward, keeping a course parallel to the Lebombo mountains. Just W. of 32 E. and in 25 25 S. it is joined by one of the many rivers of South Africa named Crocodile. This tributary rises, as the Elands River, in the Bergendal (1961m.) near the upper waters of the Komati, and flows E. across the high veld, being turned northward as it reaches the Drakensberg escarpment. The fall to the low veld is over 600 m. in 30 m., and across the country between the Drakensberg and the Lebombo (100 m.) there is a further fall of 900 m. Just over a kilometre below the junction of the Crocodile and Komati, the united stream, which from this point is also known as the Manhissa, passes to the coast plain through a cleft 190 m. high in the Lebombo known as Komati Poort, where there are some picturesque falls. At Komati Poort, which marks the frontier between South Africa and Mozambique, the river is less than 60 m. from its mouth in a direct line, but in crossing the plain it makes a wide sweep of 200 m., first N. and then S., forming lagoon-like expanses and backwaters and receiving from the north several tributaries. In flood time there is a connection northward through the swamps with the basin of the Limpopo. The Komati enters the sea 15 m. N. of Maputo. It is navigable from its mouth, where the water is up to 5 m. deep, to the foot of the Lebombo.

[edit] Railway

The railway from Maputo to Pretoria traverses the plain in a direct line, and at seventy-two kilometres, reaches the Komati. It follows the south bank of the river and enters the high country at Komati Poort. From the Poort westward the railway skirts the south bank of the Crocodile River throughout its length.

[edit] History

At a small town with the same name (Komati Poort), on the September 23, 1900, during the Second Boer War, 3000 Boers crossed the frontier and surrendered to the Portuguese authorities. On November 7, 1900 the banks of the Komati was the sight of a battle between the British Commonwealth and the Boers. The Battle of Leliefontein, was a retreat by the British, harassed by the Boers, who were threatening to capture the British Artillery. The British guns were saved by the Royal Canadian Dragoons, who charged the Boers, and thus saving the guns.