perfect garden; but it is now a vast
conglomeration of black volcanic rocks, with so little vegetation,
that, on seeing flocks of goats driven out, I thought of the Irish
cabman at an ascent slamming the door of his cab and whispering to his
fare, "Whish, it's to desave the baste: he thinks that you are out
walking." Gigantic tanks in great numbers and the ruins of aqueducts
appear as relics of the past, where no rain now falls for three or
more years at a time. They have all dried up by a change of climate,
possibly similar and cotemporaneous with that which has dried up the
Dead Sea.

The journey of Ezra was undertaken after a fast at the River Ahava.
With nearly 50,000 people he had only about 8000 beasts of burden. He
was ashamed to ask a band of soldiers and horsemen for protection in
the way. It took about four months to reach Jerusalem; this would give
five and a half or six miles a day, as the crow flies, which is equal
to twelve or fifteen miles of surface travelled over; this bespeaks a
country capable of yielding both provisions and water, such as cannot
now be found. Ezra would not have been ashamed to ask for camels to
carry provisions and water had the country been as dry as it is now.
The prophets, in telling all the woes and miseries of the captivities,
never allude to suffering or perishing by thirst in the way, or being
left to rot in the route as African slaves are now in a well-watered
country. Had the route to Assyria been then as it is now, they could
scarcely have avoided referring to the thirst of the way; but
everything else is mentioned except that.

Respecting this system of Lakes in the centre of Africa, it will
possibly occur to some that Lake Nyassa may give a portion of its
water off from its northern end to the Nile, but this would imply a
Lake giving off a river at both ends; the country, too, on the
north-north-west and north-east rises to from 4000 to 6000 feet above
the sea, and there is not the smallest indication that Nyassa and
Tanganyika were ever connected. Lake Liemba is the most southerly part
of Tanganyika; its latitude is 8 deg. 46' south; the most northerly point
of Lake Nyassa is probably 10 deg. 56'-8 deg. 46' = 2 deg. 10'. Longitude
of Liemba 34 deg. 57'-31 deg. 57' = 3 deg. 00' = 180' of longitude. Of
latitude 130' + 180' = 310', two-thirds of which is about 206', the
distance between two Lakes; and no evidence of fissure, rent, or channel
now appears on the highland