510 



LAKE NYASSA. 



Chap. XXIV. 



of the arts of life,* than to give credence to the theory that 

 untaught savage man subsisted in a state which would prove 

 fatal to all his descendants, and that in such helpless state 

 he made many inventions which most of his progeny retained, 

 but never improved upon during some thirty centuries. 



We crossed in canoes the arm of the Lake, which joins 

 Chia to Nyassa, and spent the night on its northern bank. 

 The whole country adjacent to the Lake, from this point up 

 to Kota-kota Bay, is densely peopled by thousands who have 

 fled from the forays of the Mazitu in hopes of protection from 

 the Arabs who live there. In three running rivulets we saw 

 the Shuare palm, and an oil palm which is much inferior to 

 that on the West Coast. Though somewhat similar in 

 appearance, the fruit is not much larger than hazel-nuts, and 

 the people do not use them, on account of the small quantity 

 of oil which they afford. 



The idea of using oil for light never seems to have entered 

 the African mind. Here a bundle of split and dried bamboo, 

 tied together with creeping plants, as thick as a man's body, 

 and about twenty feet in length, is employed in the canoes as 

 a torch to attract the fish at night. It would be considered a 

 piece of the most wasteful extravagance to burn the oil they 

 obtain from the castor-oil bean and other seeds, and also from 

 certain fish, or in fact to do anything with it but anoint 

 their heads and bodies. 



* Genesis, chap, iii., verses 21 and 

 23, " make coats of skins, and clothed 

 them " — " sent him forth from the 

 garden of Eden to till the ground " 



imply teaching. Vide Archbishop 

 Whately's ' History of Keligious Wor- 

 ship.' John W. Parker, West Strand, 

 London, 1849. 



