ERRORS OF EXPLORERS. 903 



Where he cut across deep bays and finally traversed Tanganyika Lake with- 

 out reaching the south end by nineteen geographical miles, I diverged from his 

 track, and completed what he had left undone, in the hope, since I was on the 

 lake, and captain of my own boat, to correct or confirm him ; but after all my 

 trouble I only came to the Lukuga Creek to find that he is entitled to the 

 honour of the discovery of the future outlet of the Tanganyika, because 

 there is not at present what can be called an outflowing river at Lukuga 

 Creek. I followed Cameron as far as Kasenge, whence he returned to Ujiji, 

 leaving the northern half explored, but then I continued the exploration along 

 the coasts of Ugubba, Coma, Kavunvweh, Karamba, Ubwari, Masansi — all 

 new ground unvisited by any white man. Thus I came to the point where 

 Livingstone and myself left off in 1871 ; thence to Ujiji, after having ex- 

 plored every corner and river mouth, bay, and creek, in search of the real 

 outlet, or, if the Lukuga can be called one, in search of another. A distance 

 of over eight hundred geographical miles was so traversed by me ; but though 

 I have made several interesting discoveries during the long voyage, none of 

 them deserves our attention like the Lukuga Creek. 



"I hope none of Lieutenant Cameron's friends will take offence because 

 I have found errors in his statements. Differences do not always imply dis- 

 sensions. In this case his mistakes have arisen from haste and an imperfect 

 examination of the Lukuga Creek. He is not deprived of the glory of the 

 discovery of the Lukuga, nor of the credit of having gone through much trou- 

 ble and hardship in his Tanganyika voyage. It is difficult for any man to be 

 perfectly exact. One explorer loses a date, and having no means to right 

 his calendar or to take lunars, is corrected by the next ; one traveller regards 

 an object this way, another in quite an opposite aspect ; one man hears a 

 statement and obtains a version of a thing directly the reverse of what is re- 

 ported to his successor ; one person contents himself with merely hearing of 

 a fact, another is not content until he has realised it for himself, which makes 

 a vast difference. There are more errors in the English Admiralty chart of 

 the East African Coast than in all the maps of the Central African travellers' 

 routes. I have found no such absurd mistake in Burton's, Speke's, Grant's, 

 or Livingstone's maps, as I found in the Admiralty chart, where Kissomang 

 Point stands for Kisima Mafia (or Mafia's well). Let Cameron's friends, 

 then, rest content, for in this letter I shall have to correct myself, Livingstone, 

 and Burton. 



" I begin, after this lengthy preamble, with tradition, the mother of 

 history. The Wajiji, a tribe now occupying a small country near the centre 

 of the eastern coast of the Tanganyika — immigrants long since from Urimdi 

 — have two interesting legends respecting the origin of Lake Tanganyika. 



" The first relates that the portion of this continent now occupied by the 

 Great Lake was a plain ' years and years ago ;' that on this plain was a large 



