The Cataracts Of Other Rivers Occur In Mountains, Those Of
The Rovuma Are Found In A Level Part, With Hills Only In The
Distance.
Far away in the west and north we could see high blue
heights, probably of igneous origin from their forms, rising out of a
plain.
The distance from Ngomano, a spot thirty miles further up, to the
Arab crossing-places of Lake Nyassa Tsenga or Kotakota was said to be
twelve days. The way we had discovered to Lake Nyassa by Murchison's
Cataracts had so much less land carriage, that we considered it best
to take our steamer thither, by the route in which we were well
known, instead of working where we were strangers; and accordingly we
made up our minds to return.
The natives reported a worse place above our turning-point - the
passage being still narrower than this. An Arab, they said, once
built a boat above the rapids, and sent it down full of slaves; but
it was broken to pieces in these upper narrows. Many still
maintained that the Rovuma came from Nyassa, and that it is very
narrow as it issues out of the lake. One man declared that he had
seen it with his own eyes as it left the lake, and seemed displeased
at being cross-questioned, as if we doubted his veracity.
More satisfactory information, as it appeared to us, was obtained
from others. Two days, or thirty miles, beyond where we turned back,
the Rovuma is joined by the Liende, which, coming from the south-
west, rises in the mountains on the east side of Nyassa.
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