1868.] LAKE BANGWEOLO. 310 



the few beads left would all be required to buy food in the 

 way back, I might have got food by shooting buffaloes, but 

 that on foot and through grass, with stalks as thick as a 

 goose quill, is dreadfully hard work ; I had thus to return 

 to Masantu's, and trust to the distances as deduced from the 

 time taken by the natives in their canoes for the size of 

 the Lake. 



"We had come to Mpabala at the rate of six knots an hour, 

 and returned in the same time with six stout paddlers. The 

 latitude was 12' in a south-east course, which may give 24' 

 as the actual distance. To the sleeping-place, the Islet 

 Kasango, there was at least 28' more, and from thence to 

 the mainland " Manda," other 28'. This 24 + 28 + 28 = 80' 

 as the breadth from Masantu village, looking south-east. 

 It lies in 11° 0' S. If we add on the half distance to this 

 we have 11° 40' as the latitude of Manda. The mainland 

 to the south of Mpabala is called Kabende. The land's end 

 running south of Masantu's village is the entrance to the 

 Luapula : the clearest eye cannot see across it there. I 

 saw clouds as if of grass burning, but they were probably 

 " Kungu," an edible insect, whose masses have exactly the 

 same appearance as they float above and on the water. From 

 the time the canoes take to go to Kabende I believe the 

 southern shore to be a little into 12° of south latitude : the 

 length, as inferred from canoes taking ten days to go from 

 Mpabala to the Chambeze, I take to be 150 miles, probabh 7 

 more. No one gave a shorter time than that. The Luapula 

 is an arm of the Lake for some twenty miles, and beyond 

 that is never narrower than from 180 to 200 yards, generally 

 much broader, and may be compared with the Thames at 

 London Bridge : I think that I am considerably within the 

 mark in setting down Bangweolo as 150 miles long by 80 

 broad. 



AVhen told that it contained four large islands, I ima- 

 gined that these would considerably diminish the watery 



