I Would Have Returned In Order To Examine More Carefully
This Most Interesting Point, But, Having Had My Lower Extremities
Chilled
in crossing the Northern Lotembwa, I was seized with vomiting of blood,
and, besides, saw no reason to doubt
The native testimony.
The distance between Dilolo and the valleys leading to that of the Kasai
is not more than fifteen miles, and the plains between are perfectly level;
and, had I returned, I should only have found that this little lake Dilolo,
by giving a portion to the Kasai and another to the Zambesi,
distributes its waters to the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. I state the fact
exactly as it opened to my own mind, for it was only now that I apprehended
the true form of the river systems and continent. I had seen the various
rivers of this country on the western side flowing from the subtending ridges
into the centre, and had received information from natives and Arabs
that most of the rivers on the eastern side of the same great region
took a somewhat similar course from an elevated ridge there,
and that all united in two main drains, the one flowing to the north
and the other to the south, and that the northern drain found its way out
by the Congo to the west, and the southern by the Zambesi to the east.
I was thus on the watershed, or highest point of these two great systems,
but still not more than 4000 feet above the level of the sea,
and 1000 feet lower than the top of the western ridge we had already crossed;
yet, instead of lofty snow-clad mountains appearing to verify
the conjectures of the speculative, we had extensive plains,
over which one may travel a month without seeing any thing higher
than an ant-hill or a tree.
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