GEOGRAPHY OF NYANZA LAKE. 



209 



of How the caravan of Salim bin Eashid had been 

 attacked, beaten, captured, and detained at Ukerewe, by- 

 its sultan Machunda. The Arabs received the intelli- 

 gence with a smile of ridicule, and in a few days Salim 

 bin Eashid appeared in person to disprove the report. 

 These are but two cases of many. And what know- 

 ledge of Asiatic customs can be expected from the 

 writer of these lines ? " The Arabs at Unyanyembe 

 had advised my donning their habit for the trip in order 

 to attract less attention ; a vain precaution, which I 

 believe they suggested more to gratify their own 

 vanity in seeing an Englishman lower himself to their 

 position, than for any benefit that I might receive by 

 doing so." (Blackwood, loco cit.) This galamatias of 

 the Arabs ! — the haughtiest and the most clannish of 

 all Oriental peoples. 



But difference of opinion was allowed to alter com- 

 panionship. After a few days it became evident to me 

 that not a word could be uttered upon the subject of 

 the Lake, the Nile, and his trouvaille generally without 

 offence. By a tacit agreement it was, therefore, avoided, 

 and I should never have resumed it had my companion 

 not stultified the results of the Expedition by putting 

 forth a claim which no geographer can admit, and 

 which is at the same time so weak and flimsy, that no 

 geographer has yet taken the trouble to contradict it. 



I will here offer to the reader a few details con- 

 cerning the Lake in question, — they are principally 

 borrowed from my companion's diary, carefully cor- 

 rected, however, by Snay bin Amir, Salim bin Eashid*, 

 and other merchants at Kazeh. 



* When my companion returned to Kazeh, he represented Ukerewe and 

 Mazita to be islands, and, although in sight of them, he had heard nothing 

 concerning their connection with the coast. This error was corrected by 

 VOL. II. P 



