380 IRREGULARITIES OF THE CONTINENT. CHAP. XIV. 



edge of the plateau to our furthest point west, of 170 feet ; 

 but this can only be considered as an approximation, and 

 no dependence could have been placed on it, had we not 

 had the courses of the streams to confirm this rather rough 

 mode of ascertaining altitudes. The slope, as shown by 

 the watershed, was to the " Loangwa of the Maravi," and 

 towards the Moitala, or south-west, west, and north-west. 

 After we leave the feeders of Lake Nyassa, the water 

 drains towards the centre of the continent. The course of 

 the Kasai, a river seen during Dr. Livingstone's journey 

 to the West Coast, and its feeders was to the north-east, or 

 somewhat in the same direction. Whether the water thus 

 drained off finds its way out by the Congo, or by the Nile, 

 has not yet been ascertained. Some parts of the continent 

 have been said to resemble an inverted dinner-plate. This 

 portion seems more of the shape, if shape it has, of a 

 wide-awake hat, with the crown a little depressed. The 

 altitude of the brim in some parts is considerable; in 

 others, as at Tette and the bottom of Murchison's Cataracts, 

 it is so small that it could be ascertained only by eliminat- 

 ing the daily variations of the barometer, by simultaneous 

 observations on the Coast, and at points some two or three 

 hundred miles inland. So long as African rivers remain 

 in what we may call the brim, they present no obstruc- 

 tions ; but no sooner do they emerge from the higher 

 lands than their utility is impaired by cataracts. The 

 low lying belt is very irregular. At times sloping up in 

 the manner of the rim of an inverted dinner-plate — while 

 in other cases, a high ridge rises near the sea, to be suc- 

 ceeded by a lower district inland before we reach the 

 central plateau. The breadth of the low lands is some- 

 times as much as three hundred miles, and that breadth 

 determines the limits of navigation from the seaward. 



We made three long marches beyond Muazi's in a 

 north-westerly direction ; the people were civil enough, 



