792 LIFE OF DA VID LIVINGSTONE, LL.D. 



hobbies, and by showing excessive fondness for gold, horses, dogs, cats, 

 clothes, birds, etc., but the love which the Wasongora, Wanyankori, Wa- 

 Ruanda, Wa-Kishakka, "Wagafu, Wanyamba, and Watusi, exhibit for their 

 cattle is an extreme, eccentric, and miser-like affection. A stranger might 

 die in any of those countries for lack of one drop of milk. Generous and 

 sweet-tempered as Rumanika proved himself, he never offered me even one 

 teaspoonfnl during the time I was with him, and, had he given me a can, 

 his people would have torn him limb from limb. From this excessive love 

 for their cattle springs their hostility to strangers, which arises from a dread 

 of evil or fear of danger to the kine. By maintaining a strict quarantine, 

 and a system of exclusiveness, they hope to ward off all evil and sudden 

 disaster. 



" By comparing the information derived from natives of Ubimba, Ugufu, 

 Kishakka, Urundi, and Ruanda, I am able to give you additional details of 

 the source and course of the Kagera River, and I hold out to myself some 

 small hope that in a few months from the present date I may be able to 

 explore from another quarter a tract of country which, hypothetically, I 

 believe contains the fountain-head of this river. Until that period let the 

 following stand for the utmost of our knowledge of it. From a ridge near 

 Mlagata Hot Springs, having an altitude of six thousand five hundred feet 

 above the ocean, I obtained a view of the Ufuinbiro mountains, which have 

 a height of about twelve thousand feet. This group consists of two sugar- 

 loaf cones and a ridge-like mass, and is situated about forty geographical 

 miles W.N.W. from Mlagata, forming a barrier at that spot b^ween Mpororo 

 and Ruanda. 



" The course of all the main ridges and valleys from Ruanda to the Vic- 

 toria Nyanza appears to be south by west. Nay, you may say that from 

 Alexandria to the Nyassa Lake, the central portion of Africa seems to be formed 

 into ridges, deep troughs, basins, or valleys, the length of which is from north- 

 east to south-west. Regard the course of the Nile from Lake Albert to Alex- 

 andria, the positions of Lakes Albert, Tanganyika, and Nyassa, as well as 

 the Victoria Lake. Follow the course of the Mokattam range of mountains 

 through Nubia, Abyssinia, Galla, Masai, and Usagara ; trace the plateaux of 

 Masai, Unyamwezi, Urori, Ubisa, south to the Bechuana country, and you 

 will perceive that the general trend of almost all the rivers, lakes, mountains, 

 basins, and plateaux, is from north-easterly to south-westerly. On a reduced 

 scale it is even so with all the mountain ridges and valleys between the Lakes 

 Victoria and Albert. 



" It seems as if the throes which Africa suffered — during that grand con- 

 vulsion which tore her asunder, heaved up these stupendous ridges, and sunk 

 those capacious basins now filled with lengthy and broad expanses of crystal- 

 clear water — were keenest and severest about these lake regions; for here the 



