What is the importance of the Zambezi River in the novel, The Old Drift?

The Zambezi River is a mighty force of its own and the site of massive political crises throughout the novel. The novel begins with Victoria Falls and colonial settlement along the Zambezi River, leading to the dramatic and often lethal construction of the Kariba Dam on the river, and finally with the destruction of the Kariba Dam by the children. Throughout the novel, the Zambezi thus acts as the site of the novel’s most intensive colonial activities and resistance movements, from the Tonga people all the way to SOTP.