700 LIFE OF DA VID LI TING STONE, LL.D. 



were afloat was proved by the fact that the hippopotami could be heard pass- 

 ing underneath. 



After crossing the Malagarazi he came into the salt-producing district of 

 Uvinza. The peculiarity of this country was that the soil was so strongly 

 charged with salt that it was collected and yielded a large supply of that use- 

 ful article. Water was first poured on it and strained through a cloth, and 

 afterwards on this water being evaporated very good salt was got. And the 

 curious thing was, that running through this soil were large streams of per- 

 fectly fresh water. In February, 1874, he got his first sight of the great Lake 

 Tanganyika, fourteen years to a day from the time it was first seen by Euro- 

 peans — by Burton and Speke on the journey on which they discovered that 

 lake, as also the Lake Victoria Nyanza. The people of Ujiji, which was his next 

 halting place, had a bad character for drunkenness, but he could not say that 

 they were worse than their neighbours ; indeed, he very often saw a sober man 

 there. They were equally gifted, however, with those around them in the art 

 of fleecing the stranger. Going on to describe his voyage on the lake, he 

 said the cliffs which bordered it to the south of Ras Kungwe were as grand as 

 those of any sea-coast in the world, but at other places the hills ran back a long 

 way, showing beautiful valleys, covered with the palm tree and the feathery 

 wild date ; but nearly the whole of this lovely country had been depopulated 

 by the slave traders. On the west side of the lake were mountain ranges, and 

 in some parts of the mountain s he saw people working on terraces on the 

 sides of the hills, just like the natives of Switzerland, and looking from the 

 lake like flies on the side of a wall. As he approached the north end of Tan- 

 ganyika the mountains began to end ; and here he put into a bay, where he 

 found a hot spring, the waters of which where slightly charged with carbonic 

 acid gas. 



On his return to Ujiji he found letters from home — the only letters he 

 got during his journey. These letters had a curious history. They were 

 sent on from Unyanyembe by an Arab caravan. This caravan was attacked 

 and dispersed by Miramba's people and those who escaped abandoned every- 

 thing, his letters included. A short time after the same men attacked a larger 

 caravan, but they were beaten off, and on the body of one of them who was 

 shot his letters were found, and brought on to him at Ujiji. To the same 

 powerful caravan, on their return journey, he entrusted Livingstone's jour- 

 nal and a small botanical collection of his own. Then he started to work his 

 way westward. The manifold difficulties he encountered were briefly touched 

 on, and accounts given of the peculiarities of the tribes with whom he came 

 in contact in his journey to the coast. In addition to others spoken of in 

 former addresses, he told of a race he found in a second country of Uvinza, 

 who carried wood carving to higher perfection than any other tribe he saw 

 in Africa. On the walking sticks they carried were representations of the 



