LAKE NYASSA. 333 



they -were the objects of untiring curiosity. The people are industrious 

 agriculturists and fishers, and appeared to enjoy plenty of everything. No 

 fines or dues were exacted from the explorers, nor presents demanded. The 

 northern dwellers on the lake during a portion of the year reap a singular 

 harvest. At the proper season clouds as of smoke from burning grass hang 

 over the lake and the adjacent country. These clouds are formed of countless 

 myriads of minute midges or gnats, and are called by the natives kungo, 

 which means a cloud or fog. The natives gather these insects by night, and 

 boil them into thick cakes, which they eat as a relish to their vegetable food. 

 " A kungo cake, an inch thick, and as large as the blue bonnet of a Scotch 

 ploughman, was offered to us; it was very dark in colour, and tasted not unlike 

 caviare, or salted locusts." 



The lake swarmed with fish, which the native fishermen catch in nets 

 and basket traps, with hook and line. The principal fish, called the sanjika, a 

 kind of carp, grows to a length of two feet. Its flesh was delicious, better 

 than that of any fish the party had tasted in Africa. Fine watermen as the 

 Makololo were, they frankly confessed that the lake fishermen were their 

 superiors in daring and skill. 



Their fishing nets were formed from the fibres of the buase, and their 

 clothes were manufactured from cotton grown by themselves, or from the 

 fibres of the bark of a tree which is abundant in the district. The fishermen 

 presented the party with fish, while the agricultural members of the com- 

 munity gave food freely. The chief of the northern parts, a tall, handsome 

 man named Marenga, gave them largely of food and beer. " Do they wear 

 such things in your country ?" he asked, pointing to his iron bracelet, which 

 was studded with copper and highly prized. The doctor said he had never 

 seen such in his country, whereupon Marenga instantly took it off and 

 presented it to him, and his wife also did the same with hers. On the return 

 of the party he tried to induce them to spend a day with him drinking beer, 

 and when they declined he loaded them with provisions. 



The following account of Lake Nyassa and the people on its shores and 

 their habits is extracted from a letter addressed by Mr. Charles Livingstone 

 to Sir Roderick Murchison in January, 1862 : — 



" The depth of the lake," he says, " is indicated by the different colour of 

 its waters. Near the land, and varying in width from a few yards to several 

 miles according to the nature of the coast, is a belt of light green, and to this 

 joined in a well-defined line the blue or indigo of the ocean, which is the colour 

 of the great body of Nyassa. 



"Not far from where we turned back, and about a mile from shore, we 

 could find no bottom with over a hundred fathoms of line out. The tempera- 

 ture of this mass of water, near the end of September, was 72°, and the air 

 was always cooler on the beach than farther inland. We visited the lake in 



