346 LIFE OF DA VID LIVINGSTONE, LL.D. 



ascended the plateau, the eastern side of which has the appearance of a range 

 of mountains. The long ascent, adorned with hill and dale and running 

 streams, fringed with evergreen trees, was very beautiful to the eye, but the 

 steep walk was toilsome, causing us to halt frequently to recover our breath. 

 The heights have a delicious but peculiarly piercing air : it seemed to go 

 through us. Five Shupanga men, who had been accustomed all their lives to 

 the malaria of the Zambesi Delta were quite prostrated by that which, to me, 

 was exhilarating and bracing. We travelled about 90 miles due west on the 

 great Babisa, Katanga, and Cazembe slave-route, and then turned to the 

 north-west. The country is level, but the boiling-point showed a slope in 

 the direction we were going. The edge of the plateau is 3,440 feet above the 

 sea-level. At the Loangwa end of the lake the height shown is 3,270 feet. The 

 direction of the streams verifies these approximate heights and your famous 

 hypothesis too ; for the Loangwa of the lake finds its way backwards to the 

 Nyassa, whilst another river of the same name, called the Loangwa of the 

 Maravi, here flows to the westward, and enters the Zambesi at Zumbo. The 

 feeders of these rivers are boggy valleys, with pools in their courses. We 

 were told we had crossed one branch of the Moitala, or Moitawa, which flows 

 N.N.W. into a small lake called Bemba.* The valleys in which the rivers rise 

 closely resemble those in Londa or Lunda ; but here each bank is dotted over 

 with villages, and a great deal of land is cultivated ; the vegetation is more 

 stunted, and the trees covered with flat lichens, like those on old apple-trees 

 in Scotland, besides a long thready kind similar to orchilla-weed ; the land on 

 which maize has been planted is raised into ridges instead of, as elsewhere, 

 formed into hollows — all which reveals a humid climate. 



" As we were travelling in the direction whence a great deal of ivory is 

 drawn by the traders on the slave-route, hindrances of various kinds were put 

 in our way. The European food we had brought with us was expended ; the 

 people refused to sell us food, and dysentery came back on us in force. 

 Moreover, our time was now expired. I was under explicit orders not to under- 

 take any long journey, but to have the Pioneer down to the sea by the earliest 

 flood. I might have speculated on a late rise in the Zambesi, but did not like 

 the idea of failing in my duty, and so gave up the attempt to penetrate farther 

 to the west. The temptation to go forward was very great ; for the lake 

 Bemba was said to be but ten days' journey distant ; and from this, according 

 to native report, issues the river Loapula (or Luapula), which flowing west- 

 ward, forms the lakes Mofu (or Mofue) and Moero, and then, passing the town 

 of Cazembe, turns round to the north and is lost in Tanganyika. Is there an 

 outlet to Tanganyika on the west into the Kasai, to the east of the point at 



* We were destined to become very familiar with this Lake in connection with Dr. Livingstone's 

 last journeyings in Central Africa. 



