124 A SLAVE-PATH. Chap. V. 



himself, with the intention of publishing in Europe the whole 

 at once, in a splendid book of travels. Hence we can only- 

 conjecture that as he travelled on the Arab route from 

 Kilwa (Quiloa), he struck the lake at the Arab crossing-place 

 Ngombo, adjacent to Tsenga, or possibly opposite Kotakota 

 Bay.* The regular publication of our letters by the Koyal 

 Geographical Society we felt to be an inestimable benefit. 

 It fixed the date of, and perpetuated every discovery. 



The Chief of the village near the confluence of the Lake 

 and Eiver Shire, an old man, called Mosauka, hearing that 

 we were sitting under a tree, came and kindly invited us to his 

 village. He took us to a magnificent banyan-tree, of wdiick he 

 seemed proud. The roots had been trained down to the ground 

 into the form of a gigantic arm-chair, without the seat. Four 

 of us slept in the space betwixt its arms. Mosauka brought 

 us a present of a goat and basket of meal " to comfort our 

 hearts." He told us that a large slave-party, led by Arabs, 

 were encamped close by. They had been up to Cazembe's 

 country the past year, and were on their way back, with plenty 

 of slaves, ivory, and malachite. In a few minutes half a dozen 

 of the leaders came over to see us. They were armed with 

 long muskets, and, to our mind, were a villanous-looking lot. 

 They evidently thought the same of us, for they offered 

 several young children for sale, but, when told that we were 

 English, showed signs of fear, and decamped during the night. 

 On our return to the Kongone, we found that H.M.S. Lynx 

 had caught some of these very slaves in a dhow ; for a woman 

 told us she first saw us at Mosauka's, and that the Arabs had 

 fled for fear of an uncanny sort of Basungu. 



This is one of the great slave-paths from the inte- 

 rior, others cross the Shire a little below, and some on 



* See Appendix. 



