CHAP. IX. LARGE WAVES ON THE LAKE. 259 



in seven fathoms. The furious surf on the "beach would 

 have shivered our boat to atoms, had we tried to land. 

 The waves most dreaded came rolling on in threes, with 

 their crests, driven into spray, streaming behind them. 

 A short lull followed each triple charge. Had one of 

 these seas struck our boat, nothing could have saved us ; 

 for they came on with resistless force ; seaward, in shore, 

 and on either side of us, they broke in foam, but we 

 escaped. For six weary hours we faced those terrible 

 trios. A low, dark, detached, oddly shaped cloud came 

 slowly from the mountains, and hung for hours directly 

 over our heads. A flock of night-jars (Cometornis vexil- 

 larius), which on no other occasion come out by day, 

 soared above us in the gale, like birds of evil omen. Our 

 black crew became sea-sick and unable to sit up or keep 

 the boat's head to the sea. The natives and our land 

 party stood on the high cliffs looking at us and exclaim- 

 ing, as the waves seemed to swallow up the boat, " They 

 are lost ! they are all dead ! " When at last the gale 

 moderated and we got safely ashore, they saluted us 

 warmly, as after a long absence. From this time we 

 trusted implicitly to the opinions of our seaman, John 

 Neil, who, having been a fisherman on the coast of Ireland, 

 understood boating on a stormy coast, and by his advice 

 we often sat cowering on the land for days together 

 waiting for the surf to go down. He had never seen such 

 waves before. We had to beach the boat every night to 

 save her from being swamped at anchor ; and, did we not 

 believe the gales to be peculiar to one season of the year, 

 would call Nyassa the " Lake of Storms." 



Distinct white marks on the rocks showed that, for 

 some time .during the rainy season, the water of the lake is 

 three feet above the point, to which it falls towards the close 

 of the dry period of the year. The rains begin here in 

 November, and the permanent rise of the Shire does not 



