918 LIFE OF DA VID LIVINGSTONE, LL.I). 



passed by water from Tanganyika until a very short time ago. The lake 

 drainage does but trickle slowly even now through the papyrus and dead 

 groves of the Mitwansi ; but in about five years from the present date Mr. 

 Stanley believes Tanganyika will for the first time be full to its brim since 

 it was excavated by the volcanic disruption of the great table land. Then 

 and not until then the mighty tarn will begin to pour its surplus waters 

 down the Luimbi into the valley of the Lualaba ; and what Cameron saw 

 was not the actual but the destined outlet of that vast inland sea, which, 

 when it once commences to overflow, will create an effluent worthy of its 

 volume. The ' waste-pipe ' of Tanganyika has been laid ready by nature 

 — Mr. Stanley says — in the depression between the Kikinga and Kiyanja 

 hills, which gap he believes marks the original course of an ancient river, 

 displaced by the telluric convulsion that formed the basin of the lake. The 

 outlet has never yet come into use, because, with all its tributaries, this vast 

 chasm has taken all these many years to fill. But Tanganyika has, season 

 by season, ' swallowed up more land,' until the beaches which Cameron saw 

 are covered, and surf rolls where he pitched his tent. The huge lake has 

 now at length — and for the first time — begun to cover the Mitwansi, and to 

 make its way into the Luimbi bed, which will thus soon discharge an im- 

 mense yearly tribute into the Kamolondo River — not lake — and finally add 

 largely to the already magnificent volume of the Lualaba. 



" Of course, we foresee and are well prepared for the vivacious discussion 

 to which this declaration will lead. Before it is commenced, however, geo- 

 graphers will do well to study the extremely careful observations of our 

 Commissioner, who evidently spared no pains to establish the correctness 

 of his researches, questioning the currents with ingenious contrivances, and 

 exhausting every inquiry and examination. It will appear strange, no doubt, 

 that any traveller can have surprised this vast lake in the act, as it were, of 

 reaching its watery majority : and many will say ' Tanganyika in the rainy 

 seasons must have flowed over this Mitwansi from time immemorial.' But 

 the well-grown tamarind trees on the neck of land ; the unanimous assertions 

 of the natives ; the gradual rising of the lake — which the Chief of Kara at- 

 tributed to the white men's visits — and the fact that the Luimbi alone could 

 never have excavated the depression in the hills — all these points tell strongly 

 the other way. And if it be asked what has become of the endless wealth of 

 water poured into the lake all round its shores every rainy season, the im- 

 mense evaporation must be borne in mind. 



" We witness in the Dead Sea the phenomenon of a large basin into which 

 the considerable stream of Jordan runs perpetually with a flood that — as 

 those know who have visited the scene — marks the surface for a long dis- 

 tance ; and yet the sun's heat sucks up so much of the fresh water as to keep 

 the lake always at a level, and always salt and bituminous. Tanganyika, 



