92 



THE LAKE REGIONS OF CENTRAL AFRICA. 



seriously to seek some means of exploring the northern 

 head of the Tanganyika. Hamid bin Sulayyam had 

 informed his late guest that he had visited the place, 

 where, although attacked by an armada of thirty or forty 

 hostile canoes, he had felt the influence of a large river, 

 which drains the water northwards : in fact, he told 

 the "lie with circumstance." By a curious coincidence, 

 Sayfu, the Mswahili of Chole, declared that he also 

 had sighted a stream issuing from the northern extre- 

 mity of the lake — this was the " lie direct " — and he 

 offered to accompany me as guide and interpreter. 

 When we compared statements, we saw what was before 

 us, — a prize for which wealth, health, and life, were to 

 be risked. 



It now became apparent that the Masika or rains, which 

 the Arabs, whose barbarous lunar year renders untrust- 

 worthy in measurements of time, had erroneously repre- 

 sented as synchronous with the wet monsoon of Zanzibar, 

 was drawing to a close, and that the season for navigation 

 was beginning.* After some preliminaries with Said bin 



their heads, or by rushing under bushes, into houses, or through any jungle 

 they could find. Indeed, I do not know which was worst off". The bees 

 killed some of them and this beetle nearly did for me. What to do I knew 

 not. Neither tobacco, oil, nor salt could be found : I therefore tried melted 

 butter ; that failing, I applied the point of a pen-knife to his back, which did 

 more harm than good ; for though a few thrusts kept him quiet, the point also 

 wounded my ear so badly, that inflammation set in, severe suppuration took 

 place, and all the facial glands extending from that point down to the point 

 of the shoulder became contorted and drawn aside, and a string of bubos de- 

 corated the whole length of that region. It was the most painful thing I ever 

 remember to have endured ; but, more annoying still, I could not open my 

 mouth for several days, and had to feed on broth alone. For many months 

 the tumour made me almost deaf, and ate a hole between that orifice and the 

 nose, so that when I blew it, my ear whistled so audibly that those who heard 

 it laughed. Six or seven months after this accident happened, bits of the 

 beetle, a leg, a wing, or parts of its body, came away in the wax." 



* Not unmindful of the instructions of the Bombay Geographical Society, 

 which called especial attention to the amount of rain -fall and evaporation in 



