April, 1874It was with pleasure that I learnt on leaving Kasangalowa on the 19th of April - for the purpose of crossing the lake and working northwards along the other shore - that there was no camping-place within an easy distance. The men would therefore be obliged to do a good day's pulling whether they wished it or not.

There was trouble in getting away on account of tingi-tingi, the boats being jammed one hundred yards from land and the water deep. We had to go backwards and forwards in small canoes - several of which were capsized causing more amusement than harm - and then to pole out for some distance.

The mountains on the south-west were so precipitous as almost to be cliffs; and many gorges formed by landslips and waterfalls were amongst the hills.

We camped on very rough ground evidently overflowed by streams when in flood; but a place where hippopotami had been rolling afforded a smooth spot for my ent. The cliffs were red sandstone on the top and light-coloured granite towards the base.

The rains now appeared to be passing although I still saw showers amongst the hills and heard occasional thunder, and the nights were cloudy for sights.

I was much interested at Kisungi by watching a potter at her work. She first pounded with a pestle, such as they use in beating corn, enough earth and water for making one pot, until it formed a perfectly homogeneous mass. Then putting it on a flat stone she gave it a blow with her fist to form a hollow in the middle, and worked it roughly into a shape with her hands, keeping them constantly wet. She then smoothed out the fingers-marks with a corn cob and polished the pot with pieces of gourd and wood - the gourd giving it the proper curves - finally ornamenting it with a sharp-pointed stick.

I went to examine this work, wondering how it would be taken off the stone and the bottom shaped, and found that no botton had yet been formed. But after the vessel had been drying four or five hours in a shady place it was sufficiently stiff to be handled carefully, and a bottom was then worked in.

From beginning to pound the clay till the pot - holding about three gallons - was put aside to dry, occupied thirty-five minutes and providing it with a bottom might take ten minutes more.

The shapes are very graceful and wonderfully truly formed, many being like the amphora in Villa Diomed at Pompeii.

Soon after leaving camp we passed the mouth of the Luguvu, a considerable stream with a good current discoloring the water a considerable distance from its mouth; and there were numerous small landslips and water oozing from the sides of the hills.

This exceptional day's work had, according to the men's statement, quite exhausted them; so I camped early at a spot evidently much resorted to by the elephants, some of the trees being quite polished from their rubbing themselves against them after bathing.

And while running along under sail close to the shore we sighted an elephant on the beach, having evidently come down to bathe. I loaded my rifle with hardened bullets and ordered all the men to get below the gunwale and keep silence, leaving a man asleep on the forecastle because I was afraid he would make some noise if aroused. But before we got within range this fellow most provokingly awoke, and catching sight of the elephant yelled out at the top of his voice, "Tembo Bwana" (Elephant, master), and away went the tembo into the jungle flapping his big ears like a rabbit bolting into his burrow.

There was very heavy thunder during the night and the echoes exceeded anything I have ever heard.

I managed to make a move for Kipimbwé although there was a heavier sea and surf than I had previously seen, for it blew hard right on the shore - an open beach with no grass. Happily the men no longer heeded that which would have given them a terrible fright at starting.

On visiting Alakunga I found it one of the largest villages I had seen in Africa. The chief, Miriro, was a very old man with a large white beard, but whiskers and moustaches shaved. A number of Arab slaves and Wangwana were here for trade; also one Mrima man who left Bagamoyo soon after us and Unyanyembé at the same time. He came direct here by crossing the lake at Makakomo's and had arrived about a month.

Many of the women dressed in the same fashion as at Kasangalowa, but the traders import a quantity of cloth. Some of the people wore small skull caps made od beads.

Old Miriro paid me a visit, putting on a fez cap instead of the greasy handkerchief he usually wore, and a robe of red and black Joho. He was much astonished at the breech-loaders and revolvers, and wanted me to present him with a gun and to remain to mend a musical box.

Although a king he did not act royally, and made no return for a very good cloth I sent him. However, he seemed friendly and assured me that the year in which the first white man had come there would always be remembered as a great year.

Food for the men was plentiful, but I could obtain no eggs, fowls, milk, or ripe bananas, the latter being cooked and eaten when green.

One of the Wayamwési began talking of the Portuguese, saying they were a people like the Wazungu and lived on the coast and had two kings. The chief one was a woman called "Maria," - evidently the Blessed Virgin - and they had houses with her figure in it. The other king was Moeneputo, the African name for the King of Portugal.

The granaries of these parts deserve notice. They are built on posts raising the floors about three feet from the ground, and are from four to twelve feet in diameter, while some of the larger may be twenty feet high exclusive of the conical roof. Those for old corn are plastered and have under the eaves a small hole for access, reached by a notched trunk used as a ladder. Those for fresh corn are made of canes about eleven feet long and two inches apart with hoops of the same material at every two or three feet, thus allowing the air to pass through freely and prevent heating.

Many of the women here and at Kasangalowa had not even the usual negro apology for a nipple to their breasts, but only a hole. I was rather astonished and was told that they scar themselves thus for ornament. I should have thought it too painful to willingly mutilate themselves in this manner, and had supposed that it might be a punishment and still have my doubts on the subject. I may remark that it was usually the best-looking that were thus deformed.

Pretty little ivory combs are made here for the small price of four string of beads, and when not in use are worn in the hair as an ornament and look rather well.

Solid bracelets and anklets of iron and brass like the Indian bangle are common, besides the ordinary beads and sambo; and the majority band the leg below the knee with small circles of plaited grass which take the place of wires and other ornaments with those who cannot afford the latter. The ropes for suspending the loin cloth are often covered with beads of various colours instead of wire, and many men wear broad leather belts.

As a fair wind favoured us the next day we made sail, the Pickle using a mat and loin cloths.

I went into the stream of the Luwaziwa to determine its course, and found that it flowed into the lake. It is said to have its source in the country of Manbembé and to wind very much, caravans from Kasengé having to cross it three times on their way to Akalunga. I at first thought that it ran out of the lake, it looked so like a clear entrance, but when we opened it properly there was the regular grass mouth and sand-banks.

I believe the lake to be fed by springs in its bed in addition to the numerous rivers and torrents; as in several places where landslips had occurred the water was bursting out between the stones and trickling down into the lake. The country was like a huge sponge full of water.

Game was very plentiful; but I was so lame as to be obliged to be carried to and from the boat and consequently could not go out shooting. The boil which lamed me on the road to Ujiji had formed a large sluggish sore, and in addition I had prickly heat rather badly.

Numerous small streams and torrents were to be seen as we came along and the hills were bold but not very high - from four hundred to six hundred feet. No villages were in sight, as all the people lived inland behind he hills; but some canoes were hauled up in one or two places and their owners could not have been far off.

On the 24th of April good breeze again helped us along, though it was rather puffy in the vicinity of the hills. An hour was lost through the men stopping to land, when they looted a fisherman's hut and I had the greatest trouble to get the things returned. Bombay was amongst them eating the stolen fish.

Passed Runangwa Ras and river of the same name - much smaller than the Malagarazi - flowing into the lake; very rocky, high hills, a thousand feet and more, covered with trees to their summits. The rocks were granite, and light-coloured soft sandstone.

Here I saw some gorillas (Soko), black fellows looking larger than men. Before I could get a shot the boat slipped round a point which covered them, and on putting back to have another look at them they had vanished. They are said by the natives to build a fresh house every day.

For three hours we were searching for a camping-place, but with a multiplicity of rocks and no beach or place where it was possible to lay up the boats, we met with constant disappointments. I was greatly consoled at knowing that we were getting over the ground more quickly than if camps were easily found, although an hour's daylight would have been valuable to me for working at my map after lying up for the night.

The next day we camped at Katupi village where ivory was ten doti a frasilah and good slaves five doti each. A Mngwana trading there told me that from Chakuola they get to Unyanyembé in about twenty days.

From this place we passed many small villages and shambas with cultivation on the sides of the hills as steep as Swiss terraces; only instead of being regularly terraced, there were irregular retaining walls of loose stones at intervals, and the soil was left nearly at its natural slope. The people working there looked like flies on a wall.

Five large canoes from Ujiji were reported to be in front, and the people seemed less afraid than formerly to hold intercourse with us. A large and crowded canoe came off to look at us, and some man of importance going the other way in a canoe with twelve paddlers was also brave enough to venture a few hundred yards from the shore in order to have a stare.

Much cultivation and small villages without stockades and huts being seen in all directions, I inferred that we were entering a more peaceful country.

As we slipped along before a good south-easterly breeze I took in a reef by twisting the tack of the sail into a rope for a couple of feet and lashing it, and a second reef by a lashing round the yard-arm. With a food sea running and the wind aft, the boat rolled about like a porpoise and prevented my getting bearings.

Indeed, I became rather anxious to find a good camping-place, for which such a breeze and sea the boats would have come to grief at once had they touched the rocks. We therefore pulled in close to Kanenda and settled down for the night near the village Mona Kalumwe.

A great disturbance was caused during the night by some natives quarelling with my men about a stolen cloth which was now claimed by the rightful owner. On being found it was returned, but the thief had bolted into the jungle. Still that did not save him, for I had punishment parade in the morning and gave him a trashing, and young Bilâl, who was mixed up with the affair, received the same.

I was unable to make any reparation to the man from whom the cloth was stolen for the trouble and annoyance he had suffered, as he did not wait for the small present I intended to have made him, but disappeared from the camp immediately he recovered his property.

The breeze now seemed inclined to fall light although there was a considerable sea; but we rounded Ras Mirrumbi and passed several torrents and villages.

I here noticed enormous spiders' webs on some of the trees, a few being almost covered with them.

The Pickle did not come up with us that evening and I became rather anxious about her safety; and, on nothing being seen of her the next morning (April 28th), began to think of turning back in search of her. But in the afternoon she hove in sight, and it appeared that her crew being frightened at the sea had camped before Kapoppo.

In a deep inlet near the mouth of Lovuma river I found the remains of a large Arab camp, and also two very large boats - one pulling twenty and the other eighteen oars and fitted with masts - hauled up under a shed. They were the property of Jumah Merikani, who had gone into Msama's country to trade.

Jumah Merikani first began trading past here when Burton was at Ujiji, and had now been fifteen years at it. He is said to keep a permanent gang of Wanyamwési porters, and only to stay at Ujiji long enough to sell and despatch his ivory and lay in a fresh-stock of trade goods.

The people seemed very friendly, and one jolly-looking old fellow who was doing duty as chief while the latter was away on a tour of inspection came and salaamed most profoundly to me and rubbled dust on his chest and arms, that being the customary way of paying homage.

Heads and tails were adorned here much the same as before.

Large mosquitoes were constantly biting in the daytime and my back was covered with boils. I could neither sit nor lie down in comfort, and the soreness of my feet prevented my making much use of them. My stay was not altogether enjoyable.

I should mention that I met wild grapes here for the first time on my journey.

The night of the 29th ofApril promised to be so fine that I decided to sleep in the boat in a little land-locked bay, instead of under canvas, and the men lay out in the open-air without building any huts. A sudden change to rain consequently brought with it some hours of discomfort and misery. The boats were half-filled with water and the men's spare gear was all swamped.

I gave them two hours to dry their clothing and do their cooking, and seeing no signs of a move at the expiration of that time I sung out, "Paka, paka" (Pack up). The reply I received was, "Kesho" (To-morrow). On looking for Bombay to ascertain what this meant I found him quietly sitting in the other boat under an awning, doing nothing.

He excused himself by saying, "What can I do? The men say they won't go; they are afraid." I replied, "Bring me one who says no, and I'll punish him;" but his answer was, "I can't; they all say they won't."

This was too much to bear, so, bad legs or not, I was quickly out of the boat, and picking up the first bit of wood I saw told the men to pack. They began while I stood by them, but immediately I went to others stopped again. It was evidently time for action, so I struck out right and left and soon made them clear out. Bombay was of no more service than a log of wood; indeed, not half so useful as the persuasive piece I had just fisted.

After getting away the men seemed in a very good-humour and much more jolly than usual and I began to think they enjoyed their trashing although one or two got some very shrewd knocks.

Later in the day I ascertained the reason of the men not wishing to move. They had heard of a trading party on the other side of the neck of land between Ras Tembwé and the main and wanted to exchange visits. We saw the canoe of the traders, and also a small party who had been away from Ujiji for about six months to shoot elephants.

The land about here was low, and the bearings I took were not of much value.

My expectations and hopes were now greatly raised by the guides promising to show me the outlet of the lake on the following day.

It appears that Speke did not get quite far enough down; and Livingstone, coming from Ma Kazembé's town, passed its mouth in a canoe without noticing it and on going to Manyuéma did not come sufficiently far south.

No Arabs at Ujiji seemed to have any knowledge of this outlet, which appears to lie just between two of their routes and out of both. I thought, however, that the Wajiji had made no mistake about my questions, for they had noticed how particular I was in ascertaining the direction in which a stream flowed whenever there was any doubt on the matter.

We now passed Ras Kalomwe, and the river Kavagwé, two hundred yards wide and two fathoms deep in the middle, having an almost imperceptible outward current.

May, 1874May-day broke upon us most gloriously. The surrounding country was also very beautiful, with small cliffs and some open park-like spaces with clumps of fine trees.

On rounding Ras Niongo, we shortened sail and went on shore to look at a reported hot-water spring. After half an hour's tramp through very long thick grass - which to me was pain and grief - we arrived at the swampy edge of the lake, where a few bubbles were rising.

The thermometer showed the same temperature in this water as in the shade -96° - and I arrived at the conclusion that the hot spring had only a slight foundation in fact. But I afterwards heard from others who had visited it, that when in full activity the spring had been sufficiently hot to scald one. It had, perhaps, a slight flavour as of soda-water.

The man who conducted us to this bubbling water, asked for some beads that he might make an offering to the spirit of the place. He evidently thought the spirit was easily satisfied, for he only threw a bead or two into the water and retained the remainder as his own reward.

No reliance whaatever could be placed in the guides, for having heard from the people that a large river called Lukuga flows into the lake near Kasengé they at once said the same, though they had hitherto declared that it was an outflow. The chief, Luliki - who, by the way, was so excessively fat that at the first glance I thought he was of the other sex owing to his pendent breasts - cheered me on my visiting him by asserting that the Lukuga ran out of the lake.

The Waguhha dress their heads very elaborately, dividing their hair into four parts, drawing it over pads, and making the ends into four plaits with the assistance of false hair when necessary. These plaits are disposed in a cross, and numerous skewers or pins of polished iron are thrust into the hair, and some wear a double row of cowries.

They also carry in their hair the knives used for tattooing and wear polished iron strips, crossed to form an arch as in a royal crown. Little extinguisher-shaped ornaments are attached to the ends of the plaits; and flat-headed iron, ivory, and shell-headed pins are used.

These plaits are plastered and smoothed with red earth and oil, and although the effect is striking the fashion is dirty. Some twist their hair into the form of four ram's horns, the one in front being turned backwards.

This was the first place where I had seen any likeness to idols. And here several men wore round their necks a little figure with a carved head - the body being a sort of cone with rings and two or three feet - and a hole through the neck for the string by which it was hung.

On the 3rd of May there was a slashing breeze freshening up from the eastward, and I made sail with many a hope that I might in a few hours find myself in the outflowing Lukuga.

Shortly before noon I arrived at its entrance, more than a mile across but closed by a grass-grown sand-bank, with the exception of a channel three hundred or four hundred yards wide. Across this there is a sill where the surf breaks heavily at times, although there is more than a fathom of water at its most shallow part.

The chief visited me and informed me that the river was well known to his people, who often travelled for more than a month along its banks, until it fell into a larger river, the Lualaba; and that in its course it received the Lulumbiji and many small streams. No Arab, the chief said, had been down the river, and traders did not visit this place, all beads and cloth required being obtained by sending to Ujiji.

It rained very hard in the morning, but, in company with the chief I went four or five milles down the river until navigation was rendered impossible owing to the masses of floating vegetation. It might be possible, however, to cut passages for canoes.

Here the depth was three fathoms; breadth, six hundred yards; current, one knot and a half, and sufficiently strong to drive us well into the edge of the vegetation.

The first block was said to continue for four or five milles, when an open channel of about the same length would be found; and that for a very great distance alternate choked and clear portions existed.

I observed that the embouchures of some small streams flowing into the river were unmistakably turned from the lake, and that the weed set in the same direction. Wild date-palms grew thickly down the river.

Early the following day I continued my observations of the entrance of the river. Inside the bar or sill already mentioned there were three, four, and five fathoms obtained; and three fathoms close alongside the grass which barred our progress.

I wanted the chief to commence cutting a passage through the grass, offering to leave beads to pay the men. He did not wish to have anything left with him, for he remarked his people would say, "You take all these things from the white man and only give us a little and make us work for it."

His proposal was that when I returned I should pay the people who worked, daily, and then they would understand. He said he wished a trade road passed by his village to bring traders there.

After pulling an hour and a half the breeze freshened up almost in our teeth, so I put into a convenient little inlet, which I discovered to be part of the river. It was all swamp, marsh, or low flat plains inside a long bank with some small openings; deep water in places, shoals, sand-banks, long grass, &c.

I suppose the drift matter of the lake which gravitates towards this outlet forms the banks and morass owing to the want of a passage for it.

A fair instance of this was given during the seven or eight hours we were here; a large quantity of drift-wood having come in and worked away into the grass without leaving any sign of its passage. The inlet in which we lay was only a break in the bank, and the water works through the grass into the Lukuga.

I entertained strong hopes of being enabled to undertake the work I so much desired, of tracing the course of the Lukuga. But at Ujiji not a guide or interpreter could be obtained for that route, and not a man would follow me alone.

And when I began to estimate the cost of cutting a channel through the grass and of buying canoes, I found the necessary expenditure so heavy that I confess I did not feel myself justified in incurring it. For I strongly believed that the stream was too considerable to be lost in marshes or be merely a backwater. I had also the word of the chief who accompanied me on entering the river that his people had travelled for months along its banks.

The entrance is situated in the only break in the hills that surround the lake, the mountains of Ugoma ending abruptly ten or twelve miles north of Kasengé, whilst those that encircle the southern end trend away to the westward from Ras Mirumbi, leaving a large undulating valley between the two ranges.

When passing down south on the eastern shore of the lake, near Ras Kungwé, the guides pointed to this gap in the mountains and asserted that there the outlet of the lake was to be found.

At various points on my journey afterwards I obtained corroborative evidence - to which I shall make further allusion - of the river joining the Lualaba from people who asserted they had travelled great distances along its banks.

Leaving the inlet we made for Ras Mulango and camped there, touching the following day at Kassengé on the mainland. We then went on to a deep inlet in the eastern side of Kivira island to prepare for crossing the lake, which we did the next day and arrived at Machachézi, where we found a large party bound for Manyuéma, under charge of Muinyi Hassani, a Mrima and a slave of Syde ibn Habib's.

Another day took us beyond Jumah Merikani's settlement, and the next, May 9th, to Ujiji.

On arrival I was gladdened by the receipt of letters from home, nearly a year old; and the packet having been opened by Murphy at Mpanga Sanga on January 12th, he enclosed a message that he was getting on well.

These letters had a curious escape. The caravan by which they were forwarded from Unyanyembé by Said ibn Salim was dispersed by a party of robbers who afterwards attacked another and stronger caravan and were beaten off with the loss of some of their numbers. On the body of one of the killed this packet of letters was found and brought on to me at Ujiji.

All hands managed to get drunk on their return, and a complaint reached me that they entered a woman's house and appropriated her pombé. Bilâl the younger made himself particularly offensive outside my verandah. And when I sent for Bombay in the morning he replied that he was sick; the truth being that he had a terribly bad head from over-indulgence in pombé. How they made themselves drunk on that liquor I could never understand.

Amongst the news which reached me was that the men I sent to Unyanyembé were in the vicinity of Uvinza in company with an Arab caravan. They had been attacked by Mirambo's men (or heard of them) on their way to Unyanyembé, and went round by Kawendi instead of taking the direct route.

The donkeys had reduced themselves to four during my absence, my riding donkey being unfortunately amongst the defunct ones.

I had many long yarns with the Arabs who knew these parts - Mohammed ibn Salib, Mohammed ibn Gharib, Syde Mezrui, Abdallah ibn Habib, and Hassan ibn Gharib - and learned that in their opinion the Lualaba is the Kongo, though whence they got this idea I could not ascertain.

One man said he went due north (!) fifty-five marches and came to where the water was salt and ships came from the sea, and white men lived there who traded much in palm oil and had large houses.

Fifty-five marches, say five hundred miles + three hundred to Nyangwé = eight hundred, gives about the distance to the Yellala cataracts.

This looks something like the Kongo and West Coast merchants, although the direction is evidently wrong.

Abdallah ibn Habib and Syde Mezrui said palm oil and cowries were mentioned as being amongst the trade articles, with ivory, brass wire and beads.

I tried to get a map drawn amongst them, but north and south, east and west, and all distances were irretrievably lost in a couple of minutes.

The Lukuga tastes the same as the Tanganyika, not salt, but peculiar, and not sweet and light like the other rivers; but the further I enquired the more contradictory the answers became.

I expect that in the dry season, or when the lake is at its lowest level, very little water leaves by the Lukuga. Some Arabs said it joined the Lualaba between Moero and Kamalondo. Below Nyangwé the Lualaba is called Ugarowwa, and is said to be in places "aw wide as the Tanganyika," and full of islands, some having five hundred or six hundred men living together with their wives and families.

They said they did not wish to give information about it here, and that which I had received was wrong and intended to mislead; for finding I had some defined ideas on the subject they were anxious I should not know too much.

They promised to tell everything when on the road, but they are afraid of opposition traders making an appearance. Already it is getting too crowded and they know not where to make fresh openings. The Egyptians to the north, or as they call them, Toorkis, are known to them and they wish to avoid clashing with them.

Hassan ibn Gharib said he offered to take Livingstone from Nyangwé to the place where ships come - as he was about to make the journey - for one thousand dollars, but he refused.

They also told me that a large canoe moght be obtained near Nyangwé to go the whole way from there by water. It was enough to puzzle the clearest mind.

As Bombay and my servant could never agree the latter now wanted to leave me on that account. Bombay was very well in his peculiar way, but neither the "Angel" of Colonel Grant nor the "Devil" of Mr. Stanley. I generally found after yielding to him that I should have done far better to have adhered to my first intention. He did not like any one to have my ear but himself; and was jealous as the green-eyed monster itself. He slandered Issa, and made accusations against Mohammed Malim which I found to be false. However, I was compelled to put up with his failings, for I should have lost a number of men if I had sent him away.

In that part of the lake explored by me I found ninety-six rivers flowing in besides torrents and springs, and one, the Lukuga, going out.

The more I enquired about the matter the more laborious and costly the work of cutting away the vegetation on the Lukuga was represented to be; for in some parts the floating sod is said to be six feet thick, and no sooner is the surface cut away than a further quantity floats up from underneath the adjoining grass.

I was now only waiting for the men from Unyanyembé; and each evening I spent some hours reading "Suahili Tales" to the Arabs - having shown the book to Syde Mezrui in a thoughtless moment. A large audience always awaited me, and as they enjoyed it thoroughly I felt it repaid them somewhat for the kindness they had shown me, and I was therefore please to do it though it was very tiring work.

On the 15th of May some people - by way of amusement or more probably with the object of thieving in the confusion caused - set fire to Bilâl's house during the night. Worse still the door was fastened outside; but fortunately the men who usually slept in the house were not there on this occasion. I was not able to discover the perpetrators of this outrage.

The next day I held a sale of my Joho and large cloths, and the commoner kinds went very well. To provide my men with some clothes I then purchased fifteen pieces of other cloth of nine doti each, at twenty-eight dollars apiece. And to prevent the certainty of starving and to pay Wajiji for bringing back canoes from the other side I bought twenty frasilah of beads at fifty dollars a frasilah - a large price, but it was a cause of "give it, or give up the work."

If I had not been robbed these purchases might have been avoided; but theft and the non-arrival of stores left behind compelled me to make them.

When on the other side I intended - metaphorically speaking - to "burn my boats," so that there should be no retreating or looking back.

Several men pretended to be too ill to start, the fact being that they were afraid, so I gave these timid ones their discharge.

All my men seemed inclined to celebrate their lasts days at Ujiji by a series of drunken orgies, and Bombay being annoyed, on returning home one night from some festivities, at finding that Mrs. Bombay had only just arrived from a tea party tried to "reorganize her", but with much the same result as befell to Artemus Ward.

During the domestic struggle they upset a box of singo-mazzi beads - made of opal-glass and the size of pigeons' eggs - and rendered the greater portion of them worthless by cracks and stars.

Some other drunken rascals ripped all the caulking out of the canoes to occasion delay, and four days were wasted in re-caulking them although the work might have been completed in a day. And when the canoes were ready the Wajiji who were to bring them back from Kasengé were not forthcoming.

Thus it was the 22nd of May before we made a move. Even then I was obliged to put in behind the first point and send back for several missing men and rifles, and to collect the return crew of Wajiji.

My servant Mohammed Malim and Bombay were so perpetually fighting that for the sake of peace I gave Mohammed charge of the box containing Livingstone's and my own journals, selecting Jumah Wadi Nassib for the office of valet and factotum. And most invaluable he proved.

The men were so fearfully lazy and shaky in consequence of their debauch at Ujiji that four days were occupied in getting to Bas Kabogo. They then complained that the sun was too powerful for the long pull across the lake in the daytime, and I had to wait until after sunset.

When day dawned we were a long way to leeward of the Kasengé islands, and it was blowing strong from the S.E., with a heavy sea running, but we reached Kivira in the Betsy during the forenoon. The Pickle, however, was not in sight, so I camped on the mainland the following morning to await her arrival.

There the Wajiji crew deserted with the Betsy and Syde's boat, and when the Pickle arrived on the envening of the 29th her return crew had also bolted, and I was obliged to engage a crew of Waguhha to take her back.

Absentees and making arrangements for serving out loads, &c., detained me here until Sunday, the 31st of May.