170 THE LAKE REGIONS OF CENTRAL AFRICA. 



been absent. I felt the proud consciousness of having 

 done my best, under conditions from beginning to end 

 the worst and the most unpromising, and that whatever 

 future evils Fate might have in store for me, that it 

 could not rob me of the meed won by the hardships 

 and sufferings of the past. 



Several Arab merchants were preparing to return 

 coastwards for the " Mausim " (monsoon), or Indian 

 trading-season, which, at Zanzibar, includes the months 

 of December, January, and February, and they were 

 not unwilling to avail themselves of my escort. But 

 several reasons detained me at Kazeh. Some time was 

 required to make preparations for the long down march. 

 I had not given up the project of returning to the sea- 

 board via Kilwa. Moreover, it was judged advisable 

 to collect from the Arabs details concerning the inte- 

 resting countries lying to the north and south of the 

 line traversed by the Expedition. As has been men- 

 tioned in Chap. XL, the merchants had detailed to 

 me, during my first halt at Kazeh, their discovery of a 

 large Bahr — a sea or lake — lying fifteen or sixteen 

 marches to the north ; and from their descriptions and 

 bearings, my companion had laid down the water in 

 a hand-map forwarded to the Royal Geographical 

 Society. All agreed in claiming for it superiority of 

 size over the Tanganyika Lake. I saw at once that 

 the existence of this hitherto unknown basin would 

 explain many discrepancies promulgated by speculative 

 geographers, more especially the notable and deceptive 

 differences of distances, caused by the confusion of the 

 two waters.* llemained only to ascertain if the Arabs 



* Mr. Erhardt, for instance, " Memoir on the Chart of East and Central 

 Africa, compiled by J. Erhardt and J. Rebmann, London, 1856," announces 

 the " existence of a Great Lake, called in the south Niandsha (Nyassa), in 



