I asked about the waters, questioned and
cross-questioned, until I was almost afraid of being set down as
afflicted with hydrocephalus.
My last work, in which I have been greatly hindered from want of
suitable attendants, was following the central line of drainage
down through the country of the cannibals, called Manyuema, or,
shortly Manyema. This line of drainage has four large lakes in
it. The fourth I was near when obliged to turn. It is from one
to three miles broad, and never can be reached at any point, or
at any time of the year. Two western drains, the Lufira, or Bartle
Frere's River, flow into it at Lake Kamolondo. Then the great
River Lomame flows through Lake Lincoln into it too, and seems
to form the western arm of the Nile, on which Petherick traded.
Now, I knew about six hundred miles of the watershed, and
unfortunately the seventh hundred is the most interesting of the
whole; for in it, if I am not mistaken, four fountains arise from
an earthen mound, and the last of the four becomes, at no great
distance off, a large river.
Two of these run north to Egypt, Lufira and Lomame, and two run
south into inner Ethiopia, as the Leambaye, or Upper Zambezi, and
the Kaful.
Are not these the sources of the Nile mentioned by the Secretary
of Minerva, in the city of Sais, to Herodotus?
