292 LIVINGSTONE'S LAST JOURNALS. [Chap. XL 



body of our people had gone on, and so by this, our party got 

 separated,* and we pulled and punted six or seven hours 

 S.W. in great difficulty, as the fishermen we saw refused to 

 show us where the deep water lay. The whole country S. 

 of the Lake was covered with water, thickly dotted over 

 with lotus-leaves and rushes. It has a greenish appearance, 

 and it might be well on a map to show the spaces annually 

 flooded by a broad wavy band, twenty, thirty, and even 

 forty miles out from the permanent banks of the Lake : it 

 might be coloured light green. The broad estuaries fifty 

 or more miles, into which the rivers form themselves, might 

 be coloured blue, but it is quite impossible at present to 

 tell where land ends, and Lake begins ; it is all water, water 

 everywhere, which seems to be kept from flowing quickly 

 off by the narrow bed of the Luapula, which has perpendi- 

 cular banks, worn deep down in new red sandstone. It is 

 the Nile apparently enacting its inundations, even at its 

 sources. The amount of water spread out over the country 

 constantly excites my wonder; it is prodigious. Many of 

 the ant-hills are cultivated and covered with dura, pump- 

 kins, beans, maize, but the waters yield food plenteously in 

 fish and lotus-roots. A species of wild rice grows, but the 

 people neither need it nor know it. A party of fishermen 

 fled from us, but by coaxing we got them to show us deep 

 water. They then showed us an islet, about thirty yards 

 square, without wood, and desired us to sleep there. We 

 went on, and then they decamped. 



Pitiless pelting showers wetted everything ; but near sun- 

 set we saw two fishermen paddling quickly off from an ant- 

 hill, where we found a hut, plenty of fish, and some firewood. 

 There we spent the night, and watched by turns, lest 

 thieves should come and haul away our canoes and goods. 



* Dr. Livingstone's object was to keep the land party marching parallel 

 to hirn whilst he kept nearer to the Lake in a canoe. — Ed. 



