of 1845, Journal of the Royal Geographical Society.) The extracts from
Portuguese history in the text are entirely taken from that learned
paper, which in describing actualities wanted nothing but a solid
foundation of data. The geographer’s principal informant in 1834 was
one “Khamisi bin Tani,” civilised into “Khamis bin Osman,” a Msawahili
of Lamu who having visited the Nyassa, Maravi or Kilwa Lake, pretended
that he had travelled to the Tanganyika Lake. I cannot allow this
opportunity to pass without expressing my gratitude to Mr. Cooley for
his courtesy in supplying me with references and other information.
[7] In the ‘Westminster Review’ (New Series, No. XX.) occurs the
following passage, which sufficiently illustrates the assertion in the
text; the critic is discussing Mr. C. Andersson’s ‘Lake Ngami,’ &c.
&c. (London, 1856):--“African missionaries, penetrating some little
distance inland from the S.E., recently brought information, which
they received second-hand from Arab travellers, of a vast fresh-water
lake far in the interior, described as being of enormous
dimensions--as nothing less than a great inland sea. Frequenters of
the Geographical Society’s meetings in Whitehall-place have observed
in consequence, on the site which used to be marked in the maps as a
sandy desert, a blue spot, about the size of the Caspian, and the
shape of a hideous inflated leech. We trusted that a more accurate
survey would correct the extreme frightfulness of the supposed form.
Mr. Andersson has spared us further excitement. The lake turns out to
be a mirage--a mythus with the smallest conceivable nucleus of fact.
On the very spot occupied by this great blue leech--long. E. from
Greenwich 23° and lat. S. 20° 21′--he found a small speck of bitter
water, something more than twenty miles across, or the size of Lake
Corrib in Galway. So perishes a phantom which has excited London
geographers for a whole season.”
Had the learned reviewer used his eyes or his judgment in
Whitehall-place, he would not thus have confounded the hypothetic sea
of the ‘Mombas Mission Map’--a reservoir made to include the three
several waters of Nyanza, Tanganyika, and Nyassa--in E. long. 24°-29°,
and _S. lat._ 0° 13′--with the little Ngami explored by Dr.
Livingstone and a party of friends in August, 1849, and placed by him
in E. long. 23°, and in _S. lat._ 20° 20′ 21′. The nearest points of
the two waters are separated by an interval, in round numbers, of 700
miles.
The earliest name given by theoretical writers to the hypothetical
single lake appears to have been Zembére, Zémbere, Zambre, Zambri, or
Zembre, probably a corruption or dialectic variety of Zambesi, that
river being supposed, like the Nile, the Zaire, the Manisa, and others,
to be derived from it. The word Moravi or Maravi, which still deforms
our maps, is the name of a large tribe or a lordly race like the
Wahinda, dwelling to the south-east and south-west of the Nyassa. In the
seventeenth century Luigi Mariano, a missioner residing at the Rios de
Sena, calls the Central Sea the Lake of Hemosura; his description
however applies to the Nyassa, Maravi or Kilwa Lake, and the word is
probably a corruption of Rusuro or Lusuro, which in the language of
Uhiao signifies a river or flowing water. In the ‘Mombas Mission Map’
the lake is called “See von Uniamesi,” a mere misnomer, as it is
separated by hundreds of miles from the Land of the Moon: the northern
part is termed Ukerewe, by a confusion with the Nyanza Lake and the
southern N’hánjá, for Nyassa, the old Maravi water near Kilwa. It is not
a little curious, however, that Messrs. Cooley and Macqueen should both
have recorded the vernacular name of the northern Lake Tangenyika, so
unaccountably omitted from the ‘Mombas Mission Map.’ The words
Tanganyenka and Tanganyenko used by Dr. Livingstone, who in places
appears to confound the Lake with the Nyanza and the Nyassa, are
palpable mispronunciations.
The African name for the central lake is Tanganyika, signifying an
anastomosis, or a meeting place (sc. of waters,) from ku tanganyika, the
popular word, to join, or meet together: the initial t being changed to
ch--ku changanyika for ku tanganyika--in the lingua Franca of Zanzibar
doubtless gave rise to Mr. Cooley’s “Zanganyika.” The word Tanganyika is
universally used by the Wajiji and other tribes near and upon the Lake.
The Arabs and African strangers, when speaking loosely of it, call it
indifferently the Bahari or Sea, the Ziwa or Pond, and even the Mtoni or
River. The “Sea of Ujiji” would, after the fashion of Easterns, be
limited to the waters in the neighbourhood of that principal depot.
The Tanganyika occupies the centre of the length of the African
continent, which extends from 32° N. to 33° S. latitude, and it lies on
the western extremity of the eastern third of the breadth. Its general
direction is parallel to the inner African line of volcanic action drawn
from Gondar southwards through the regions about Kilima-ngáo
(Kilimanjáro) to Mount Njesa, the eastern wall of the Nyassa Lake. The
general formation suggests, as in the case of the Dead Sea, the idea of
a volcano of depression--not, like the Nyanza or Ukerewe, a vast
reservoir formed by the drainage of mountains. Judging from the eye, the
walls of this basin rise in an almost continuous curtain, rarely waving
and infracted to 2,000 or 3,000 feet above the water-level. The lower
slopes are well wooded: upon the higher summits large trees are said not
to grow; the deficiency of soil, and the prevalence of high fierce winds
would account for the phenomena. The lay is almost due north and south,
and the form a long oval, widening in the central portions and
contracting systematically at both extremities. The length of the bed
was thus calculated: From Ujiji (in S. lat. 4° 55′) to Uvira (in S. lat.
3° 25′), where the narrowing of the breadth evidences approach to the
northern head, was found by exploration a direct distance of 1° 30′ = 90
miles, which, allowing for the interval between Uvira and the river
Rusizi, that forms the northernmost limit, may be increased to 100
rectilinear geographical miles. According to the Arab voyagers, who have
frequently rounded the lake Ujiji in eight stages from the northern, and
twelve from the southern, end of the lake, the extent from Ujiji to the
Marungu River, therefore, is roughly computed at 150 miles. The total of
length, from Uvira, in S. lat. 30° 25′, to Marungu, in S. lat. 7° 20′,
would then be somewhat less than 250 rectilinear geographical miles.
About Ujiji the water appears to vary in breadth from 30 to 35 miles,
but the serpentine form of the banks, with a succession of serrations
and indentations of salient and re-entering angles--some jutting far and
irregularly into the bed--render the estimate of average difficult. The
Arabs agree in correctly stating, that opposite Ujiji the shortest
breadth of the lake is about equal to the channel which divides Zanzibar
from the mainland, or between 23 and 24 miles. At Uvira the breadth
narrows to eight miles. Assuming, therefore, the total length at 250,
and the main breadth at 20, geographical miles, the circumference of the
Tanganyika would represent, in round numbers, a total of 550 miles; the
superficial area, which seems to vary little, covers about 5,000 square
miles; and the drainage from the beginning of the great Central African
depression in Unyamwezi, in E. long. 33° 58′, numbers from the eastward
about 240 miles.
By B. P. thermometer the altitude of the Tanganyika is 1850 feet above
the sea-level, and about 2000 feet below the adjacent plateau of
Unyamwezi and the Nyanza, or northern lake. This difference of level,
even did not high-hill ranges intervene, would preclude the possibility
of that connection between the waters which the Arabs, by a conjecture
natural to inexpert geographers, have maintained to the confusion of the
learned. The topographical situation of the Tanganyika is thus the
centre of a deep synclical depression in the continent, a long
narrow trough in the southern spurs of Urundi, which, with its
mountain-neighbour Karagwah, situated upon the equator, represents the
Inner African portion of the Lunar Mountains. It may be observed that
the parallel of the northern extremity of the Tanganyika nearly
corresponds with the southern creek of the Nyanza, and that they are
separated by an arc of the meridian of about 343 miles.
The water of the Tanganyika appears deliciously sweet and pure after the
salt and bitter, the putrid and slimy produce of the wells, pits, and
pools on the line of march. The people, however, who drink it willingly
when afloat, prefer, when on shore, the little springs which bubble from
its banks. They complain that it does not satisfy thirst, and contrast
it unfavourably with the waters of its rival the Nyanza: it appears
moreover, to corrode metal and leather with exceptional power. The
colour of the pure and transparent mass has apparently two normal
varieties: a dull sea-green--never, however, verdigris-coloured, as in
the shoals of the Zanzibar seas, where the reflected blue of the
atmosphere blends with the yellow of the sandy bottom; the other, a
clear, soft blue--by day rarely deep and dark, like the ultramarine of
the Mediterranean, but resembling the light and milky tints of tropical
seas. Under a strong wind the waves soon rise in yeasty lines, foaming
up from a turbid greenish surface, and the aspect becomes menacing in
the extreme.
It was found impracticable to take soundings of the Tanganyika: the
Arabs, however, agreed in asserting that with lines of several fathoms
they found bottom only near the shores. The shingly sole shelves
rapidly, without steps or overfalls, into blue water. Judging from the
eye, the bottom is sandy and profusely strewn with worn pebbles. Reefs
and washes were observed near the shores; it is impossible to form an
idea of their position or extent, as the crews confine themselves to a
few well-known lines, from which they cannot be persuaded to diverge. No
shoals or shallows were seen at a distance from the coasts, and though
islets are not unfrequent upon the margin, only one was observed or
heard of near the centre.
The affluents of this lake are neither sufficiently numerous nor
considerable to alter by sedimentary deposit the depth or the shape of
the bed. The borders are generally low: a thick fringe of rush and reed,
obviating erosion by the element, conceals the watery margin. Where the
currents beat, they cut out a short and narrow strip of quartzose sand,
profusely strewn with large shingle, gravel, comminuted shells, and
marine exuviæ, with a fringe of drift formed by the joint action of wind
and wave. Beyond this is a shelving plain--the principal locality for
cultivation and settlements. In some parts it is a hard clay
conglomerate; in others, a rich red loam, apparently stained with oxide
of iron; and in others sandy, but everywhere coated with the thickest
vegetation extending up to the background of mountains. The coast is
here and there bluff, with miniature cliffs and headlands, whose
formation is of sandstone strata tilted, broken, and distorted, or small
blocks imbedded in indurated reddish earth. From the water appeared
piles of a dark stone resembling angular basalt, and amongst the
rock-crevices the people find the float-clay, or mountain meal, with
which they decorate their persons and the sterns of their canoes. The
uncultivated hill summits produce various cactaceæ; the sides are
clothed with giant trees, the mvule, the tamarind, and the bauhinia. On
the declines, more precipitous than the Swiss terraces, manioc and
cereals grow luxuriantly, whilst the lowest levels are dark with groves
of plantains and Guinea-palms.
A careful investigation and comparison of statements leads to the belief
that the Tanganyika receives and absorbs the whole river-system--the
net-work of streams, nullahs, and torrents--of that portion of the
Central African depression whose water-shed converges towards the great
reservoir. Geographers will doubt that such a mass, situated at so
considerable an altitude, can maintain its level without an effluent.
Moreover, the freshness of the water would, under normal circumstances,
argue the escape of saline matter washed down by the influents from the
area of drainage. But may not the Tanganyika, situated, like the Dead
Sea, as a reservoir for supplying with humidity the winds which have
parted with their moisture in the barren and arid regions of the south,
maintain its general level by the exact balance of supply and
evaporation? And may not the saline particles deposited in its waters be
wanting in some constituent which renders them evident to the taste? One
point concerning the versant has been proved by these pages, namely,
that the Tanganyika cannot be drained eastward by rents in a subtending
mountain ridge, as was supposed by Dr. Livingstone from an
indiscriminately applied analogy with the ancient head-basin of the
Zambezi. Dr. Livingstone (chap. xxiv. xxvi. et passim) informs his
readers, from report of the Arabs, that the Tanganyika is a large
shallow body of water; in fact, the residuum of a mass anciently much
more extensive. This, however, is not and cannot be the case. In
theorising upon the eastern versant and drainage of the Tanganyika, Dr.
Livingstone seems to have been misled by having observed that the vast
inland sea of geological ages, of which Lake Ngami and its neighbour
Kumadau are now the principal remains, had been desiccated by cracks and
fissures, caused in the subtending soils by earthquakes and sudden
upheavals, which thus opened for the waters an exit into the Indian
Ocean. This may have happened to the Nyassa, or Southern Lake; it must
not, however, be generalized and extended to the Nyanza and the
Tanganyika.
As in Zanzibar, there is little variety of temperature upon the
Tanganyika. The violent easterly gales, which, pouring down from the
cold heights of Usagara, acquire impetus sufficient to carry the current
over Ugogo, Unyamwezi, and Uvinza, are here less distinctly defined.
The periodical winds over the Lake--regular, but not permanent--are the
south-east and the south-west, which also bring up the foulest weather.
The land and sea breezes are felt almost as distinctly as upon the
shores of the Indian Ocean. The breath of the morning, called by the
Arabs El Barad, or the zephyr, sets in from the north. During the day
are light variable breezes, which often subside, when the weather is not
stormy, into calms. In the evenings a gentle afflatus comes up from the
waters. Throughout the dry season the Lake becomes a wind-trap, and a
heavy ground sea rolls towards the shore. In the rains there is less
sea, but accidents occur from sudden and violent storms. The mountainous
breakers of Arab and African informants were not seen; in fact, with a
depth of three feet from ridge to dell, a wave would swamp the largest
laden canoe. Wind-currents are common. Within a few hours a stream will
be traversed, setting strongly to the east, and crossed by a southerly
or south-westerly current. High gales, in certain localities where the
waves set upon a flush, flat shore, drive the waters fifteen to twenty
feet beyond the usual mark. This circumstance may partly explain the
Arab’s belief in a regular Madd wa Jarr--ebb and flow--which Eastern
travellers always declare to have observed upon the Tanganyika and
Nyassa Lakes, and which Mr. Anderson believes to exist in the little
Ngami. A mass of water so large must be, to a certain extent, subject to
tidal influences; but the narrowness of the bed from east to west would
render their effect almost unobservable. Mr. Francis Galton referred me
for the explanation of this phenomenon to a paper ‘On the Seiches of
Lakes,’ by Colonel J. R. Jackson, F.R.G.S., published in the ‘Journal of
the R. G. S.,’ vol. iii. of 1833, in which the learned author refers
the ebb and flow of the waters of Lake Leman, or of Geneva (and of the
lakes of Zurich, Annecy, and Constance), to “an unequal pressure of the
atmosphere on different parts of the lake at the same time; that is, to
the simultaneous effect of columns of air of different weight or
different elasticity, arising from temporary variations of temperature,
or from mechanical causes.”
The scenery and the navigation of the Tanganyika have been illustrated
in the last chapter. Remains only a succinct account of the physical and
ethnological features of its Periplus, carefully collected from
authorities on the spot.
According to the Wajiji, from their country to the Runangwa or Marungu
River, which enters the Lake at the southern point, there are twelve
stages; this Periplus numbers 120 khambi or stations, at most of which,
however, provisions are not procurable. An extended list of fifty-three
principal points was given by the guides; it is omitted, as it contains
nothing beyond mere names. There are, however, sixteen tribes and
districts which claim attention: of these, Ukaranga and Ujiji have
already been described.
The kingdom of Urundi, which lies north of Ujiji, has a sea-face of
about fifty miles; a low strip of exceeding fertility, backed at short
distances by a band of high green hill. This region, rising from the
Lake in a north-easterly direction, culminates into the equatorial mass
of highlands which, under the name of Karagwah, forms the western spinal
prolongation of the Lunar Mountains. The residence of the Mwami, or
chief sultan Mwezi, is near the headstream of the Kitangure (Kitangule),
or River of Karagwah, which rises at a place distant six days’ march
(sixty miles), and bearing north-east from, the Tanganyika. His
settlement, according to the Arabs, is of considerable extent; the huts
are built of rattan, and lions abound in the vicinity.
Urundi differs from the lake regions generally in being a strictly
monarchical country, locally governed by Watware or headmen, who
transmit the customs and collections at stated periods to their
suzerain. The Mwame, it is said, can gather in a short time a large host
of warriors who are the terror of the neighbouring tribes. The Warundi
are evidently natives of a high cold country; they are probably the
“white people resembling Abyssinians,” and dwelling near the Lake, of
whom European geographers have heard from Zanzibar. The complexion
varies from a tawny yellow, the colour of the women, to a clear dark
brown, which is so brightened by the daily use of ochre mixed with
palm-oil, that in few cases the real tint is discernible. The men tattoo
with circles and lines like cupping-cuts; some burn up alti rilievi of
large shining lumps an inch in diameter, a decoration not a little
resembling large boils; others chip the fore teeth like the Wanyamwezi.
Their limbs are stout and well proportioned, many stand upwards of six
feet high, and they bear the appearance of a manly and martial race.
Their dress is the mbugu, worn in the loosest way; their arms are heavy
spears, sime, and unusually strong arrows; their ornaments are beads,
brass wire, and streaks of a carmine-coloured substance, like the red
farinaceous powder called in India gulal, drawn across the head and
forehead. The Waganga, or priests of Urundi, wear a curious hood, a
thatch of long white grass or fibre, cut away at the face and allowed to
depend behind over the shoulders; their half-naked figures,
occasionally rattling wooden clappers, and capering causelessly like
madmen, present a savage and horrid appearance. Honourable women wear
long tobes of American domestics from below the arms to the ankles; they
are followed by hosts of female slaves, and preserve an exceptionally
modest and decorous demeanour. Their features are of the rounded African
type of beauty. Their necks and bosoms support a profusion of sofi and
other various-coloured beads; their foreheads are bound with frontlets,
fillet-like bands of white and coral porcelain, about three fingers
deep, a highly becoming ornament probably derived from Karagwah; and
those who were seen by the Expedition invariably walked about with thin
staves five or six feet long, pointed and knobbed as the walking-sticks
of ancient Egypt.
At the northern extremity of the Urundi sea-face, and at the head of the
Tanganyika, lies the land of Uzige; it is rarely visited except by the
Lakist traders. This people, who, like their neighbours, cannot exist
without some form of traffic, have, it is said, pursued the dows of the
earlier Arab explorers with a flotilla of small canoes; it is probable
that negro traders would be better received. In their country, according
to the guides, six rivers fall into the Tanganyika in due order from the
east: the Kuryamavenge, the Molongwe, the Karindira, the Kariba, the
Kibaiba, and westernmost the Rusizi or Lusizi. The latter is the main
drain of the northern countries, and the best authorities, that is to
say those nearest the spot, unanimously assert that it is an influent.
The races adjoining Uzige, namely, the Wavira on the north-western head
of the Tanganyika, and their southern neighbours, the Wabembe cannibals,
have already been mentioned. The Wasenze inhabit the hills within or
westwards of the Wabembe. Further southwards and opposite Kawele in
Ujiji are the Wagoma highlanders. The lower maritime lands belonging to
the Wagoma supply the gigantic mvule trees required for the largest
canoes. These patriarchs of the forest are felled and shaped with little
axes on the spot; when finished they are pushed and dragged down the
slopes by the workmen, and are launched and paddled over to the shores
of Ujiji.