Chap. IV. ABSURD ASSERTIONS OF THE PORTUGUESE. 91 



It is also named Nyanja Pangono (Little Lake), while the 

 elephant marsh goes by the name of Nyanja Mukulu (Great 

 Lake). It is evident from the shore line still to be observed 

 on the adjacent hills, that in ancient times these were really 

 lakes, and the traditional names thus preserved are only 

 another evidence of the general desiccation which Africa has 

 undergone. No one would believe that beyond these little 

 and great Nyanjas Portuguese geographical knowledge never 

 extended. But the Viscount Sa da Bandeira, in* an official 

 letter to the Governor-General of Mosambique, in his patriotic 

 anxiety to prove that we did not discover Lake Nyassa, 

 actually quotes as the only information the ancient archives 

 of Lisbon can disclose, that the people of Senna held com- 

 mercial intercourse with the people on Morambala, and of 

 course, as he avers, must have sailed into the little and great 

 marshes or Nyanjas referred to above. As if either of these 

 were Lake Nyassa ! The Shire cataracts are quite ignored. 

 The great Victoria Falls of Mosi-oa-tunya, we are aware, were 

 quite unknown to the Portuguese ; but, until we read his 

 Excellency's quotations from hearsay reports of some ancient 

 author, we believed that the five great Murchison Cataracts, 

 which form a descent of 1200 feet, only a hundred and fifty 

 miles from Senna, must have been known to the old Portuguese, 

 and we still incline to the belief that they must, have 

 been explored ; but, since the discovery was hidden from the 

 rest of the world, it takes rank with the explorations of illiterate 

 Africans. It is a pity, but the fact is, that the good Viscount 

 now feels the inconvenience which follows the short-sighted 

 policy of Iris ancestors in geographical matters, as much as his 

 descendants will feel and lament the present "dog in the 

 manger " commercial policy of his contemporaries. One of 

 the Jesuits formerly made a business-like proposal to explore 



