ooks
and torrents which give a good supply of water in the dry season; in
the wet season they are supplemented by a number of burns, which,
though flowing now, have their mouths blocked up with bars of sand,
and yield nothing except by percolation; the Lake rises at least four
feet perpendicularly in the wet season, and has enough during the year
from these perennial brooks to supply the Shire's continual flow.

[It will be remembered that the beautiful river Shire carries off the
waters of Lake Nyassa and joins the Zambesi near Mount Morambala,
about ninety miles from the sea. It is by this water-way that
Livingstone always hoped to find an easy access to Central Africa.
The only obstacles that exist are, first, the foolish policy of the
Portuguese with regard to Customs' duties at the mouth of the Zambesi;
and secondly, a succession of cataracts on the Shire, which impede
navigation for seventy miles. The first hindrance may give way under
more liberal views than those which prevail at present at the Court of
Lisbon, and then the remaining difficulty--accepted as a fact--will be
solved by the establishment of a boat service both above and below the
cataracts. Had Livingstone survived he would have been cheered by
hearing that already several schemes are afoot to plant Missions in
the vicinity of Lake Nyassa, and we may with confidence look to the
revival of the very enterprise which he presently so bitterly deplores
as a thing of the past, for Bishop Steere has fully determined to
re-occupy the district in which fell his predecessor, Bishop
Mackenzie, and others attached to the Universities Mission.]

In the course of this day's march we were pushed close to the Lake by
Mount Gome, and, being now within three miles of the end of the Lake,
we could see the whole plainly. There we first saw the Shire emerge,
and there also we first gazed on the broad waters of Nyassa.

Many hopes have been disappointed here. Far down on the right bank of
the Zambesi lies the dust of her whose death changed all my future
prospects; and now, instead of a check being given to the slave-trade
by lawful commerce on the Lake, slave-dhows prosper!

An Arab slave-party fled on hearing of us yesterday. It is impossible
not to regret the loss of good Bishop Mackenzie, who sleeps far down
the Shire, and with him all hope of the Gospel being introduced into
Central Africa. The silly abandonment of all the advantages of the
Shire route by the Bi