p to show the
spaces annually flooded by a broad wavy band, twenty, thirty, and even,
forty miles out from the permanent banks of the Lake: it might be
coloured light green. The broad estuaries fifty or more miles, into
which the rivers form themselves, might be coloured blue, but it is
quite impossible at present to tell where land ends, and Lake begins; it
is all water, water everywhere, which seems to be kept from flowing
quickly off by the narrow bed of the Luapula, which has perpendicular
banks, worn deep down in new red sandstone. It is the Nile apparently
enacting its inundations, even at its sources. The amount of water
spread out over the country constantly excites my wonder; it is
prodigious. Many of the ant-hills are cultivated and covered with dura,
pumpkins, beans, maize, but the waters yield food plenteously in fish
and lotus-roots. A species of wild rice grows, but the people neither
need it nor know it. A party of fishermen fled from us, but by coaxing
we got them to show us deep water. They then showed us an islet, about
thirty yards square, without wood, and desired us to sleep there. We
went on, and then they decamped.

Pitiless pelting showers wetted everything; but near sunset we saw two
fishermen paddling quickly off from an ant-hill, where we found a hut,
plenty of fish, and some firewood. There we spent the night, and watched
by turns, lest thieves should come and haul away our canoes and
goods. Heavy rain. One canoe sank, wetting everything in her. The leaks
in her had been stopped with clay, and a man sleeping near the stern had
displaced this frail caulking. We did not touch the fish, and I cannot
conjecture who has inspired fear in all the inhabitants.

_7th April, 1873._--Went on S.W., and saw two men, who guided us to the
River Muanakazi, which forms a connecting link between the River
Lotingila and the Lolotikila, about the southern borders of the flood.
Men were hunting, and we passed near large herds of antelopes, which
made a rushing, plunging sound as they ran and sprang away among the
waters. A lion had wandered into this world of water and ant-hills, and
roared night and morning, as if very much disgusted: we could sympathise
with him! Near to the Muanakazi, at a broad bank in shallow water near
the river, we had to unload and haul. Our guides left us, well pleased
with the payment we had given them. The natives beating a drum on our
east made us believe them to be our party, and so