FIRST VIEW OF THE TANGANYIKA LAKE. 



43 



of the mountains, basking in the gorgeous tropical sun- 

 shine. Below and beyond a short foreground of rugged 

 and precipitous hill-fold, down which the foot-path 

 zigzags painfully, a narrow strip of emerald green, never 

 sere and marvellously fertile, shelves towards a ribbon 

 of glistening yellow sand, here bordered by sedgy rushes, 

 there cleanly and clearly cut by the breaking wavelets. 

 Further in front stretch the waters, an expanse of the 

 lightest and softest blue, in breadth varying from thirty 

 to thirty-five miles, and sprinkled by the crisp east- 

 wind with tiny crescents of snowy foam. The back- 

 ground in front is a high and broken wall of steel- 

 coloured mountain, here flecked and capped with pearly 

 mist, there standing sharply pencilled against the azure 

 air; its yawning chasms, marked by a deeper plum- 

 colour, fall towards dwarf hills of mound-like propor- 

 tions, which apparently dip their feet in the w^ave. 

 To the south, and opposite the long low point, behind 

 which the Malagarazi River discharges the red loam 

 suspended in its violent stream, lie the blutf headlands 

 and capes of Uguhha, and, as the eye dilates, it falls 

 upon a cluster of outlying islets, speckling a sea-horizon. 

 Tillages, cultivated lands, the frequent canoes of the 

 fishermen on the waters, and on a nearer approach the 

 murmurs of the waves breaking upon the shore, give a 

 something of variety, of movement, of life to the land- 

 scape, which, like all the fairest prospects in these re- 

 gions, wants but a little of the neatness and finish of Art, 

 — mosques and kiosks, palaces and villas, gardens and 

 orchards — contrasting with the profuse lavishness 

 and magnificence of nature, and diversifying the un- 

 broken coup oVoeil of excessive vegetation, to rival, if not 

 to excel, the most admired scenery of the classic 

 regions. The riant shores of this vast crevasse ap- 



