in the Mountains of the Moon. 233 



his work,* describes as " the deep bay, as it may be justly 

 termed, in which are situated the islands of Monfia, Zanzibar, 

 and Pemba," from which islands cowries still continue to be 

 exported to Bengal to serve there as a circulating medium.! 

 Cape Gardafui, on the contrary, lies quite away from this 

 bay, it being more than 17° of latitude to the north of Zan- 

 zibar. Further, the Nile of Makdashu (^ji^i Iji^ written Ma- 



gadoxo by the Portuguese) is the Wabbi, Doho, or Haines's 

 River, as will be more fully shown in the sequel ; and, as 

 this river, the mouth of which is now closed, appears to have 

 formerly discharged itself into the ocean in the Somdli terri- 

 tory, in about 2° N. lat., that is to say, 8° of latitude to the 

 north of the island of Zanzibar, it stands to reason that this 

 cannot be the stream which Ibn el Wardi describes as "going 

 towards the country of the Zindj." 



What other river is really intended by that geographer 

 may not be easy to determine at present-; but the greatest 

 probability is in favour of the Lufidji, one of the mouths of 

 which river is just behind the island of Monfia, in 8° S. lat. 

 This river is generally considered to flow out of N'yassi, the 

 great lake of Eastern Africa already adverted to. Khamis 

 bin Othman, an intelligent Sawahili, who was in London in 

 1835, stated that he had been frequently to the shores of this 

 lake ; and when questioned as to its outlets, he declared, at 

 first, that three rivers issue from it ; namely, the Livtima, of 

 which the mouth is in about 10° 20' S. lat., the Lufidji itself, 

 and the Ozi, which latter river enters the ocean in about 2° 40' 

 S. lat. Perceiving, however, that this statement was not 

 well received, he admitted that with regard to the Livuma 

 and Ozi, he spoke only from hearsay ; but as to the Lufidji, he 

 maintained that he had himself seen its first egress from the 

 lake. Mr Cooley, who reports this statement of Khami8,t 



* Page 89. 



t Cowries are mentioned by Captain Smee (Transactions of the Boinhay Geo- 

 grajjkical Society, 1841-44, p. GO) among the articles of export from Zanzibar 

 to Bengal. At a short distance to the north of Pemba, namely, in 2° 8' S. lat., is 

 the island of Patta, which Jjieutenant Hardy tells us (It/id., p. 37) was formerly 

 resorted to for cowries, but of lata years this trade has been discontinued. 



* Journ. Roy. fleoijr. Hoc, vol. xv., p. 203, et seq. 



