54 TREACHEROUS GUIDES. Chap. II. 



Livingstone and Kirk and a number of the Makololo 

 started on foot for Lake Shirwa. They travelled in a 

 northerly direction over a mountainous country. The 

 people were far from being well-disposed to them, and 

 some of their guides tried to mislead them, and could not 

 be trusted. Masakasa, a Makololo headman, overheard 

 some remarks which satisfied him that the guide was 

 leading them into trouble. He was quiet till they reached 

 a lonely spot, when he came up to Dr. Livingstone, and 

 said, " That fellow is bad, he is taking us into mischief; 

 my spear is sharp, and there is no one here ; shall I cast 

 him into the long grass ? " Had the Doctor given the 

 slightest token of assent, or even kept silence, never more 

 would any one have been led by that guide, for in a 

 twinkling he would have been where " the wicked cease 

 from troubling." It was afterwards found that in this 

 case there was no treachery at all, but a want of know- 

 ledge on their part of the language and of the country. 

 They asked to be led to " Nyanja Mukulu," or Great Lake, 

 meaning, by this, Lake Shirwa ; and the guide took them 

 round a terribly rough piece of mountainous country, 

 gradually edging away towards a long marsh, which from 

 the numbers of those animals we had seen there we had 

 called the Elephant Marsh, but which was really the place 

 known to him by the name "Nyanja Mukulu," or Great 

 Lake. Nyanja or Nyanza means, generally, a marsh, lake, 

 river, or even a mere rivulet. 



The party pushed on at last without guides, or only 

 with crazy ones ; for, oddly enough, they were often 

 under great obligations to the madmen of the different 

 villages : one of these honoured them, as they slept in 

 the open air, by dancing and singing at their feet the 

 whole night. These poor fellows sympathized with the 

 explorers, probably in the belief that they belonged to 

 their own class ; and, uninfluenced by the general opinion 



