100 THE LAKE REGIONS OF CENTRAL AFRICA. 



tent, whilst the Goanese were, or pretended to be, out of 

 hearing. I slept, however, comfortably enough upon the 

 crest of a sand -wave higher than the puddles around 

 it, and — blessings on the name of Mackintosh ! — 

 escaped the pitiless pelting of the rain. 



The next mOrning showed a calm sea, levelled by the 

 showers, and no pretext or desire for longer detention 

 lingered in the hearts of the crew. At 7*20 a.m., on 

 the 12th April, 1858, my canoe — bearing for the first 

 time on those dark waters — 



" The flag that braved a thousand years 

 The battle and the breeze," 



stood out of Bangwe Bay, and followed by my com- 

 panion's turned the landspit separating the bight from the 

 main, and made directly for the cloudy and storm-vexed 

 north. The eastern shore of the lake, along which we 

 coasted, was a bluff of red earth pudding' d with separate 

 blocks of sandstone. Beyond this headland the coast 

 dips, showing lines of shingle or golden-coloured 

 quartzose sand, and on the shelving plain appear the 

 little fishing-villages. They are usually built at the 

 mouths of the gaps, combes, and gullies, whose deep 

 gorges winding through the background of hill-curtain, 

 become, after rains, the beds of mountain-torrents. The 

 wretched settlements are placed between the tree clad 

 declivities and the shore on which the waves break. The 

 sites are far from comfortable : the ground is here veiled 

 with thick and fetid grass ; there it is a puddle of black 

 mud, and there a rivulet trickles through the villages. 

 The hamlet consists of half a dozen beehive-huts, foul, 

 flimsy, and leaky ; their only furniture is a hearth of 

 three clods or stones, with a few mats and fishing im- 

 plements. The settlements are distinguished from a 



