Quilimane, the region which lies about the mouth
of the Zambesi. Livingstone had brought out with him a small
steam-launch called by the natives the _Ma-Robert_ after Mrs.
Livingstone, the mother of Robert, their eldest child. In this little
steam-launch he made his way up the Shire River, which flows into the
Zambesi quite near its mouth. "The delight of threading out the
meanderings of upwards of two hundred miles of a hitherto unexplored
river must be felt to be appreciated," says Livingstone in his diary.
At the end of this two hundred miles further progress became impossible
because of rapids which no boat could pass. "These magnificent
cataracts we called the Murchison Cataracts, after one whose name has
already a world-wide fame," says Livingstone. Leaving their boat here,
they started on foot for the Great Lake described by the natives. It
took them a month of hard travelling to reach their goal. Their way
lay over the native tracks which run as a network over this part of
the world. "They are veritable footpaths, never over a foot in breadth,
beaten as hard as adamant by centuries of native traffic. Like the
roads of the old Romans, they run straight on over everything, ridge
and mountain and valley."

[Illustration: THE _MA-ROBERT_ ON THE ZAMBESI. After a drawing in
Livingstone's _Expedition to the Zambesi_.]

On 18th April, Lake Shirwa came into sight, "a considerable body of
bitter water, containing leeches, fish, crocodiles, and hippopotami.
The country around is very beautiful," adds Livingstone, "and clothed
with rich vegetation, and the waves breaking and foaming over a rock,
added to the beauty of the picture. Exceedingly lofty mountains stand
near the eastern shore."

No white man had gazed at the lake before. Though one of the smaller
African lakes, Shirwa is probably larger than all the lakes of Great
Britain put together. Returning to Tete, the explorer now prepared
for his journey to the farther Lake Nyassa. This was to be no new
discovery. The Portuguese knew the locality of Lake Shirwa, and at
the beginning of the seventeenth century Nyassa was familiar to them
under another name. Landing at the same spot on the Shire banks as
before, Livingstone, with thirty-six Makololo porters and two native
guides, ascended the beautiful Shire Highlands, some twelve hundred
feet above sea-level, and crossed the range on which Zomba, the
residence of the British Commissioner for Nyassaland, now stands. Whe