WE DO NOT EXPLOKE THE HEAD OF THE LAKE. 117 



ernmost station to which merchants have as yet been 

 admitted. The people are generally on bad terms with 

 the Wavira, and in these black regions a traveller coming 

 direct from an enemy's territory is always suspected of 

 hostile intentions, — no trifling bar to progress. Oppo- 

 site us still rose, in a high broken line, the mountains of 

 inhospitable Urundi, apparently prolonged beyond the 

 northern extremity of the waters. The head, which 

 was not visible from the plain, is said to turn N.N. 

 westwards, and to terminate after a voyage of two days, 

 which some informants, however, reduce to six hours. 

 The breadth of the Tanganyika is here between seven 

 and eight miles. On the 28th April, all my hopes— 

 which, however, I had hoped against hope — were rudely 

 dashed to the ground. I received a visit from the three 

 stalwart sons of the Sultan Maruta: they were the noblest 

 type of Negroid seen near the Lake, with symmetrical 

 heads, regular features and pleasing countenances ; their 

 well-made limbs and athletic frames of a shiny jet black, 

 were displayed to advantage by their loose aprons of 

 red and dark-striped bark- cloth, slung, like game-bags, 

 over their shoulders, and were set off by opal-coloured 

 eyeballs, teeth like pearls, and a profusion of broad 

 massive rings of snowy ivory round their arms, and coni- 

 cal ornaments like dwarf marling-spikes of hippopotamus 

 tooth suspended from their necks. The subject of the 

 mysterious river issuing from the Lake, was at once 

 brought forward. They all declared that they had 

 visited it, they offered to forward me, but they unani- 

 mously asserted, and every man in the host of bystanders 

 confirmed their words, that the " Rusizi " enters into, 

 and does not flow out of the Tanganyika. I felt sick at 

 heart. I' had not, it is true, undertaken to explore the 

 Coy Fountains by this route ; but the combined asser- 



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