RESULT OF FOUR DA YS' EXPERIMENTS. 911 



yards further on we reached a point where this bed first became moist, with 

 a dense growth of water cane flourishing and checking all progress, except 

 by the well-trodden path, which ran through tunnels caused by the water 

 canes embracing above our heads. Our road lay now through what might be 

 called a swamp, now over a firm path of dark brown clayey mud, then 

 through shallow hollows, with water up to the ankles, which sometimes 

 deepened to the knees. Finally we arrived in the middle of the Mitwansi, 

 and Kawe-Nyange halted to point out triumphantly the water flowing indis- 

 putably westward. The stream was up to the knees and felt cold, and on 

 putting a thermometer into it I found it to be only 68° Fah., about 7° cooler 

 than the Lukuga Creek. By pressing the cane down with our feet to allow 

 a free passage for the water, the flow perceptibly quickened. Borne by two 

 men, I crossed over until I stood on the other bank, and observed that this 

 cane-choked bed was very uneven. Sometimes the water was so deep that 

 the men sank to their hips, but the average depth was about eighteen inches. 

 Trees, now dead, were seen in the centre of the bed, which proved the state- 

 ment of the natives true, that not long ago the Mitwansi tract was dry 

 enough to nourish tamarind groves. 



" This last rainy season has changed it now, for since its termination the 

 tract has become inundated, and a continual waterflow has been observable. 

 The name Lukuga clings to this bed until it passes the Kiyanja ridge, when 

 the channel becomes known as the Luindi (some call it the Luimbi), which, 

 flowing by Miketo's Land, passes through Kalumbi's in Rua, and empties into 

 the Kamalondo, a tributary of the Lualaba. This road or ford, as it must now 

 be called, is daily traversed by men, women, and children, who require to 

 cross from one bank to the other, and is about three miles north-west from 

 Lumba, or six miles from Mkampemba. 



" The result of four days' experiments, investigations and inquiries, proved 

 that, as far as the south-east end of the Mitwansi tract — which may be called 

 a marsh or an ooze, receiving and absorbing a large quantity of water pressed 

 against it by the daily south-east wind — there is no current, but that, on the 

 contrary, the surplus waters which cannot be absorbed by the already repleted 

 ooze, on the wind subsiding, return to the lake. That for the space of two 

 miles from the south-east end of the Mitwansi, the entire bed from bank to 

 bank is choked by immovable mudbanks enclosing stagnant pools and stream- 

 like expanses of water, edged round with impenetrable growths of papyrus 

 plants. That at the third mile, where the ancient lacustrine deposit is of a 

 firmer quality, and water cane replaces the papyrus, there first becomes dis- 

 cernible an ooze, a trickle, and a flow westward, which, proceeding in that 

 direction at the base of the Kiyanja ridge, is attracted to one proper channel 

 and presently approaches the dignity of a river, when it becomes known as 

 the Luindi. 



