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. Rounding Cape Maclear, and looking to the south-
west, we have another arm, which stretches some eighteen miles
southward, and is from six to twelve miles in breadth. These arms
give the southern end a forked appearance, and with the help of a
little imagination it may be likened to the "boot-shape" of Italy.
The narrowest part is about the ankle, eighteen or twenty miles.
From this it widens to the north, and in the upper third or fourth it
is fifty or sixty miles broad.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 313 of 505
Words from 84487 to 84768
of 136856
