650 MR. R. CRAWSHAY ON THE [DcC. 2, 



more enhanced by never-ending variety : swamps green and luxu- 

 riant with papyrus and reeds give way to open sandy plains sparsely 

 studded with borassus ; dry arid flats, relieved only by a few grotesque 

 baobabs or sprawling-limbed acacias are gradually changed for thickly 

 wooded undulating highlands ; and, in places, as for instance on the 

 E. coast of the Lake in the neighbourhood of Kalowilis, and again for 

 some 50 miles at the N.E. end, lofty mountains rise wall-like sheer 

 out of the water shutting out all beyond, while in others they 

 succeed one another, tier upon tier, till those in the background 

 resemble only blue hazy clouds. 



And yet the distinguished writer of ' Tropical Africa ' has it 

 that Nyasa scenery is not African, or, to use his own words, does 

 not " remind you where you are." But from what I have seen 

 of the country, I can only say no words could be more unhappily 

 chosen. Neither are the sentences " once a week you will see a 

 palm ; once in three weeks the monkey will cross your path," any 

 more appropriate, since palms are almost everywhere, while forest 

 and swamp are alive with animals and birds. 



But though to the human eye the country is surpassingly fair to 

 look upon, yet no part of it can be termed healthy, or even moderately 

 so, since everywhere malaria is jirevalent in a greater or less degree, 

 whether in sand, soil, swamp, or rock, though temperature is doubtless 

 a powerful agent in generating it. Still, on the highland plateaus, 

 where a height of from 2000 to -4000 feet or more can be attained, 

 the climate must be much better adapted to whites, though thechange 

 there from the enervating lowlands would at first prove trying, as the 

 malaria " works itself out." On the Lake itself the heat is never very 

 oppressive, and it is not so great as in the low country inland from 

 it, as there is almost always in the daytime a breeze which more often 

 than not partakes of the nature of a gale. There are two prevailing 

 winds: from sunrise till noon the "Mvmna" (east wind) blows; this, 

 as the sun reaches the meridian, gradually dies, and is then almost im- 

 mediately succeeded by the "Mwera" (south-easter), the most tearing 

 wind on Nyasa, which lasts till sunset, when it drops. During the 

 night, there is rarely any wind, and then, as the natives say, the 

 Nyanja " sleeps." The greatest heat I have experienced in the Nyasa 

 Country has been on the vast swampy plains round Kisako, in 

 Mapweri's country, close in under the Wa-kiuga Mountains. Here 

 about the middle of November when the rains there commence, the 

 temperature at noonday in the shade is seldom under 100°, often 

 considerably m.ore. This moist steamy heat it is that generates the 

 worst type of malaria, and terribly cruelly unhealthy are these 

 Awa-Nyakyusa plains. 



Many other topics there are still pressing for mention : one of the 

 foremost being that of the Nyasa tribes and their languages — a most 

 interesting study ; but the subject is too lengthy to deal with now 

 in my limited space, and I must leave it untouched, as also zoology 

 in general, ornithology, and entomology, all of which offer a new 

 and practically unlimited field to the naturalist. The future will, no 

 doubt, do much for Nyasa-land and all these sciences as well as open 



