The Inhabitants Of Its Southern Coast
Are Named Shiva; Those On The North, Mujao; And They Call The Lake
Nyanja
Or Nyanje, which simply means a large water, or bed of a large river.
A high mountain stands in the
Middle of it, called Murombo or Murombola,
which is inhabited by people who have much cattle. He stated that
he crossed the Nyanja at a narrow part, and was 36 hours in the passage.
The canoes were punted the whole way, and, if we take the rate
about two miles per hour, it may be sixty or seventy miles in breadth.
The country all round was composed of level plains covered with grass,
and, indeed, in going thither they traveled seven or eight days without wood,
and cooked their food with grass and stalks of native corn alone.
The people sold their cattle at a very cheap rate. From the southern
extremity of the lake two rivers issue forth: one, named after itself,
the Nyanja, which passes into the sea on the east coast under another name;
and the Shire, which flows into the Zambesi a little below Senna.
The Shire is named Shirwa at its point of departure from the lake,
and Senhor Candido was informed, when there, that the lake was simply
an expansion of the River Nyanja, which comes from the north and encircles
the mountain Murombo, the meaning of which is junction or union,
in reference to the water having parted at its northern extremity,
and united again at its southern.
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