268 ACROSS AFRICA. [Chap. 



August, What further to do Tanganyika did not know, Ijut he as- 



1874. sured me I was welcome to tlie only one he possessed ; and he 

 held out, as some encouragement, the j^ossibility of my obtain- 

 ing canoes on the return of a large party then making war on 

 the natives on the other bank. They had canoes, and it was 

 likely that when the natives saw I had some, they would not 

 object to my getting more. 



Waiting M'as weary work, but I lived in hope, and spent 

 many tedious hours in talking with Tanganyika about his dif- 

 ferent journeys. From him I heard that the river flowed west- 

 south-west from Nyangwe, and fell into a great lake to which 

 men, bringing cowries and cloth for sale, came in large vessels 

 capable of containing two hundred peoj)le. 



Some distance west of ]N'yangwe was Meginna, and to that 

 place people owning boats traded, according to statements 

 made to me by Arabs who had been there. I tried to engage 

 guides and men to escort me to Meginna by land, our party be- 

 ing far too small, in the eyes of my people, to make the jour- 

 ney by itself, as the high-handed manner in which large armed 

 parties of traders traveled had set all the natives against them. 

 But the settlers at Nyangwe declared themselves to be too 

 short of powder and guns to sj^are a sufficient force to accom- 

 pany me and return safely by themselves, so no volunteers were 

 forthcoming. In addition to this, they were very mucli afraid 

 to travel by the roads north of the Lualaba ; for se\eral strong 

 and well-armed ])arties had been severely handled by the na- 

 tives in that direction, and had returned to Nyangwe with the 

 loss of more than lialf their numbers. 



One party, wlio had been a long way to north -north -east, 

 and reached Ulegga, had especially suffered, having lost over 

 two hundred out of their total strength of three hundred. 

 They described the natives as being very fierce and warlike, 

 and using })oisoned arrows, a mere scratch from which proved 

 fatal in four or five minutes, unless an antidote, known only to 

 the natives, was immediately applied. Ulegga was, they said, a 

 country of large mountains wooded to the summits, and valleys 

 filled with such dense forest that they traveled four and five 

 days in succession without seeing the sun. From the natives 

 they had heard that people wearing long white clothes and us- 



