The Natives Regarded The Upper Shire As A
Prolongation Of Lake Nyassa; For Where What We Called The River
Approaches Lake Shirwa, A Little North Of The Mountains, They Said
That The Hippopotami, "Which Are Great Night Travellers," Pass From
ONE LAKE INTO THE OTHER.
There the land is flat, and only a short
land journey would be necessary.
Seldom does the current here exceed
a knot an hour, while that of the Lower Shire is from two to two-and-
a-half knots. Our land party of Makololo accompanied us along the
right bank, and passed thousands of Manganja fugitives living in
temporary huts on that side, who had recently been driven from their
villages on the opposite hills by the Ajawa.
The soil was dry and hard, and covered with mopane-trees; but some of
the Manganja were busy hoeing the ground and planting the little corn
they had brought with them. The effects of hunger were already
visible on those whose food had been seized or burned by the Ajawa
and Portuguese slave-traders. The spokesman or prime minister of one
of the chiefs, named Kalonjere, was a humpbacked dwarf, a fluent
speaker, who tried hard to make us go over and drive off the Ajawa;
but he could not deny that by selling people Kalonjere had invited
these slave-hunters to the country. This is the second humpbacked
dwarf we have found occupying the like important post, the other was
the prime minister of a Batonga chief on the Zambesi.
As we sailed along, we disturbed many white-breasted cormorants; we
had seen the same species fishing between the cataracts. 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. 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. The length is over 200 miles. The
direction in which it lies is as near as possible due north and
south. Nothing of the great bend to the west, shown in all the
previous maps, could be detected by either compass or chronometer,
and the watch we used was an excellent one. The season of the year
was very unfavourable. The "smokes" filled the air with an
impenetrable haze, and the equinoctial gales made it impossible for
us to cross to the eastern side. When we caught a glimpse of the sun
rising from behind the mountains to the east, we made sketches and
bearings of them at different latitudes, which enabled us to secure
approximate measurements of the width. These agreed with the times
taken by the natives at the different crossing-places - as Tsenga and
Molamba.
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