One Day A Tremendous Gale Of Wind And
Heavy Sea Broke Off Large Portions, And The Wind Acting Upon The Rushes
Like Sails, Carried Floating Islands Of Some Acres About The Lake To Be
Deposited Wherever They Might Chance To Hitch.
On the thirteenth day we found ourselves at the end of our lake voyage.
The lake at this point was between fifteen and twenty miles across, and
the appearance of the country to the north was that of a delta.
The
shores upon either side were choked with vast banks of reeds, and as the
canoe skirted the edge of that upon the east coast, we could find no
bottom with a bamboo of twenty-five feet in length, although the
floating mass appeared like terra forma. We were in a perfect wilderness
of vegetation: On the west were mountains of about 4,000 feet above the
lake level, a continuation of the chain that formed the western shore
from the south: these mountains decreased in height towards the north,
in which direction the lake terminated in a broad valley of reeds.
We were told that we had arrived at Magungo, and that this was the spot
where the boats invariably crossed from Malegga on the western shore to
Kamrasi's country. The boatmen proposed that we should land upon the
floating vegetation, as that would be a short cut to the village or town
of Magungo; but as the swell of the water against the abrupt raft of
reeds threatened to swamp the canoe, I preferred coasting until we
should discover a good landing place. After skirting the floating reeds
for about a mile, we turned sharp to the east, and entered a broad
channel of water bounded on either side by the everlasting reeds. This
we were informed was the embouchure of the Somerset river from the
Victoria N'yanza. The same river that we had crossed at Karuma, boiling
and tearing along its rocky course, now entered the Albert N'yanza as
dead water! I could not understand this; there was not the slightest
current; the channel was about half a mile wide, and I could hardly
convince myself that this was not an arm of the lake branching to the
east. After searching for some time for a landing place among the
wonderful banks of reeds, we discovered a passage that had evidently
been used as an approach by canoes, but so narrow that our large canoe
could with difficulty be dragged through - all the men walking through
the mud and reeds, and towing with their utmost strength. Several
hundred paces of this tedious work brought us through the rushes into
open water, about eight feet deep, opposite to a clean rocky shore. We
had heard voices for some time while obscured on the other side of the
rushes, and we now found a number of natives, who had arrived to meet
us, with the chief of Magungo and our guide Rabonga, whom we had sent in
advance with the riding oxen from Vacovia.
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