LIVINGSTONE'S LAST JOURNEY. 



209 



loosen their hold until it had yielded up its secrets. Tanganyika, 

 like the Albert Nyanza, is an enormous "trough" or crevasse, sunk 

 far below the level of the high table-land which occupies the whole 

 centre of Africa from the Abyssinian mountains on the east to the 

 Cameroons on the west coast, and terminating, towards the south 

 only with Table Mountain. Though its shores are not, perhaps, 

 generally so steep as those of other lakes, the surrounding mountain 

 walls are as high. 



Its length is greater than any of the others, being little short 

 of five hundred miles. Its waters are very deep, and sweet to the 



CURIOUri MODE OF SALUTING A iSTKANGER. 



taste, proving almost conclusively that it must have an outlet some- 

 where; for lakes which have no means of draining away their 

 waters, and sustain themselves by a balance of inflow and evapora- 

 tion, are salt or brackish. But while the Albert is undoubtedly part 

 of the Nile basin, to what great river does Tanganyika present its 

 surplus ? 



The first notion was that it was a far outlying branch of ancient 

 Nilus. Arm-chair geographers constructed a remarkable lake, in 

 shape like a Highland bagpipe. The swollen "bag" represented a 



II. B. G.— 14 



