218 ACROSS AFRICA. [Chap. 



May, ticularlj offensive outside my veranda. And when I sent for 



1874. Bombay in tlie morning, lie replied that he was sick ; the truth 



being that he had a terribly bad head from overindulgence in 



pombe. How they made themselves drunk on that liquor I 



could never understand. 



Among the news which reached me was that the men I had 

 sent to Unyanyembe were in the vicinity of Uvinza, in com- 

 pany with an Arab caravan. They had been attacked by Mi- 

 rambo's men (or heard of them) on their way to Unyanyembe, 

 and went round by Kawendi, instead of taking the direct route. 

 The donkeys had reduced themselves to four during my ab- 

 sence, my riding donkey being, unfortunately, among the de- 

 funct ones. 



I had many long yarns with the Arabs who knew these parts 

 — Mohammed ibn Salib, Mohammed ibn Gharib, Syde Mezrui, 

 Abdallah ibn Ilabib, and Hassan ibn Gharib — and learned that 

 in their opinion the Lualaba is the Kongo, though whence they 

 got this idea I could not ascertain. 



One man said he went due north (!) fifty-five marches, and 

 came to where the water was salt and shi^^s came from the sea, 

 and white men lived there who traded much in palm-oil and 

 had large houses. Fifty-five marches, say five hundred miles 

 -f three hundred to Nyangwe = eight hundred, gives about the 

 distance to the Yellala Cataracts. This looks something like 

 the Kongo and West -coast merchants, although the direction is 

 evidently wrong. 



Abdallah ibn Habib and Syde Mezrui said jjalm oil and cow- 

 ries were mentioned as being among the trade articles, with 

 ivory, brass-wire, and beads. I tried to get a map drawn among 

 them ; but north and south, east and west, and all distances, were 

 irretrievably lost in a couple of minutes. 



The Lukuga tastes the same as the Tanganyika; not salt, 

 but peculiar, and not sweet and light, like the other rivers ; but 

 the further I inquired, the more contradictory the answers be- 

 came. 



I expect that in the dry season, or when the lake is at its 

 lowest level, very little water leaves by the Lukuga. Some 

 Arabs said it joined the Lualaba between Moero and Kamalon- 

 do. Below Nyangwe the Lualaba is called Ugarowwa, and is 



