Here, With
Many Other Wild-Fowls, They Find Subsistence On The Smooth Water By
Night, And Sit Sleepily On Trees And In The Reeds By Day.
Many
hippopotami were seen in the river, and one of them stretched its
wide jaws, as if to swallow
The whole stern of the boat, close to Dr.
Kirk's back; the animal was so near that, in opening its mouth, it
lashed a quantity of water on to the stern-sheets, but did no damage.
To avoid large marauding parties of Ajawa, on the left bank of the
Shire, we continued on the right, or western side, with our land
party, along the shore of the small lake Pamalombe. This lakelet is
ten or twelve miles in length, and five or six broad. It is nearly
surrounded by a broad belt of papyrus, so dense that we could
scarcely find an opening to the shore. The plants, ten or twelve
feet high, grew so closely together that air was excluded, and so
much sulphuretted hydrogen gas evolved that by one night's exposure
the bottom of the boat was blackened. Myriads of mosquitoes showed,
as probably they always do, the presence of malaria.
We hastened from this sickly spot, trying to take the attentions of
the mosquitoes as hints to seek more pleasant quarters on the healthy
shores of Lake Nyassa; and when we sailed into it, on the 2nd
September, we felt refreshed by the greater coolness of the air off
this large body of water. The depth was the first point of interest.
This is indicated by the colour of the water, which, on a belt along
the shore, varying from a quarter to half a mile in breadth, is light
green, and this is met by the deep blue or indigo tint of the Indian
Ocean, which is the colour of the great body of Nyassa. We found the
Upper Shire from nine to fifteen feet in depth; but skirting the
western side of the lake about a mile from the shore the water
deepened from nine to fifteen fathoms; then, as we rounded the grand
mountainous promontory, which we named Cape Maclear, after our
excellent friend the Astronomer Royal at the Cape of Good Hope, we
could get no bottom with our lead-line of thirty-five fathoms. We
pulled along the western shore, which was a succession of bays, and
found that where the bottom was sandy near the beach, and to a mile
out, the depth varied from six to fourteen fathoms. In a rocky bay
about latitude 11 degrees 40 minutes we had soundings at 100 fathoms,
though outside the same bay we found none with a fishing-line of 116
fathoms; but this cast was unsatisfactory, as the line broke in
coming up. According to our present knowledge, a ship could anchor
only near the shore.
Looking back to the southern end of Lake Nyassa, the arm from which
the Shire flows was found to be about thirty miles long and from ten
to twelve broad.
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