CRUISE ON TANGANYIKA. 441 



" It took us," says Mr. Stanley, " ten days' hard pulling to reach the head 

 of the lake, a distance of nearly 100 geographical miles from Ujiji ; the 

 remaining eight we were coasting along the bold shores of Urundi, which 

 gradually inclined to the eastward ; the western ranges, ever bold and high, 

 looking like a huge blue-black barrier some thirty miles west of us, to all 

 appearance impenetrable and impassable. If the waters of the Tanganyika 

 could be drained out, and we were to stand upon the summit of those great 

 peaks which rise abruptly out of the lake, a most wonderful scene would be 

 presented to us We sbould see an extraordinary deep chasm from 5000 to 

 7000 feet deep, with the large island Ubwari rising like another Magdala from 

 the awful depths around it, for I think that the greatest depth of that lake is 

 nearly 3000 feet deep. . . . Only two miles from shore I sounded, and 

 although I let down 620 feet of line 1 found no bottom. Livingstone sounded 

 when crossing the Tanganyika from the westward, and found no bottom with 

 1800 feet of line. The mountains around the northern half of the Tanganyika 

 fold around so close, with no avenue whatever for the escape of waters, save 

 narrow valleys and ravines which admit rivers and streams into the lake, that 

 were it possible to force the water into a higher altitude of 500 feet above its 

 present level, its dimensions would not be increased considerably. The 

 valley of the Malagarazi would then be a narrow deep arm of the lake, and 

 the Rusizi would be a northern arm, crooked and tortuous, of sixty or seventy 

 miles in length. 



" The evening before we saw the Rusizi, a freed man of Zanzibar was 

 asked which way the river ran — out of the lake or into it ? The man swore 

 that he had been on the river but the day before, and that it ran out of the 

 lake. Here was an announcement calculated to shake the most sceptical. I 

 thought the news to good to be true. I should certainly have preferred that 

 the river ran out of the lake into either the Victoria or the Albert. The night 

 we heard this announcement made so earnestly, Livingstone and myself sat 

 up very late, speculating as to where it went. We resolved, if it flowed into 

 the Victoria Nyanza, to proceed with it to the lake, and then strike south to 

 Unyanyembe, and if it flowed into the Albert lake, to proceed into the Albert 

 lake and cruise all around it, in the hope of meeting Baker. 



" As there was war between the rival tribes inhabiting the banks of the 

 Rusizi, the King Mokamba advised us to proceed to his brother's village in 

 Mugihewa by night, which was situated about 800 yards from the river, on 

 the right bank. Just after dark we started, and in the morning we arrived at 

 Mugihewa. After a cup of coffee we manned our canoe, and having prepared 

 our guns we started for the mouth of the river. In about fifteen minutes we 

 were entering a little bay about a mile wide, and saw before us to the north 

 a dense brake of papyrus and match cane. 



" Until we were close to this brake we could not detect the slightest 



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