Chap. XIII. LAKE NYASSA. 363 



derived from one Source. The African traditions, which 

 seem possessed of the same unchangeability as the arts to 

 which they relate, like those of all other nations refer 

 their origin to a superior Being. And it is much more 

 reasonable to receive the hints given in Genesis, con- 

 cerning direct instruction from God to our first parents or 

 their children in religious or moral duty, and probably in 

 the knowledge 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 pro- 

 tection 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 em- 

 ployed in the canoes as a torch to attract the fish at night. 

 It would be considered a piece of the most wasteful extra- 



* 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 Wkately's "His- 

 tory of Keligious Worship." John 

 W. Parker, West Strand, London, 

 1819. 



