106 



THE LAKE REGIONS OF CENTRAL AFRICA. 



route whose several stations have been described is 

 one of the main lines running from Kaole and Baga- 

 moyo, in a general southwest direction, till it falls into 

 the great trunk road which leads directly west from 

 Mbuamaji. It is divided into thirteen caravan stages, 

 but a well-girt walker will accomplish the distance in 

 a week. 



No apology is offered for the lengthiness of the eth- 

 nographical descriptions contained in the following pages. 

 The ethnology of Africa is indeed its most interesting, 

 if not its only interesting feature. Everything con- 

 nected with the habits and customs, the moral and reli- 

 gious, the social and commercial state of these new races, 

 is worthy of diligent observation, careful description, and 

 minute illustration. There is indeed little in the physical 

 features of this portion of the great peninsula to excite 

 the attention of the reader beyond the satisfaction that 

 ever accompanies the victory of truth over fable, and a 

 certain importance which in these " travelling times," — 

 when man appears rapidly rising to the rank of a migra- 

 tory animal, — must attach to discovery. The subject, in- 

 deed, mostly banishes ornament. Lying under the same 

 parallels with a climate whose thermical variations know 

 no extremes, the succession of alluvial valley, ghaut, 

 table-land, and shelving plain is necessarily monotonous, 

 the soil is the same, the productions are similar, and the 

 rocks and trees resemble one another. Eastern and 

 central inter-tropical Africa also lacks antiquarian and 

 historic interest, it has few traditions, no annals, and no 

 ruins, the hoary remnants of past splendour so dear to 

 the traveller and to the reader of travels. It contains not 

 a single useful or ornamental work, a canal or a dam is, 

 and has ever been, beyond the narrow bounds of its 

 civilisation. It wants even the scenes of barbaric pomp 



