378 
AFRICA AND ITS EXPLORATION. 
side of tlie mouth, and there was a small fishing settle- 
ment on the one which projected from our side. As 
they were now covered up, lie entertained a suspicion 
that Cameron had dropped some powerful medicine, 
which had brought on this destruction. If one white 
man had brought so much mischief, what mi edit not 
two white men do ? “ Why,” said he, “ the whole 
country will be inundated, and nothing will be left 
except the tops of the great mountains ! ” 
We laughed at this, and, eventually joking him out 
of these ideas, succeeded in obtaining his guidance to 
explore the creek, and in eliciting the following items, 
which I jotted down in my journal the same evening : — 
“ July 15. — Opinion at the mouth of the Lukuga is 
much divided respecting this river, or creek, or inlet, or 
whatever it may be. The information, when compared 
with Cameron’s statement, is altogether incomprehen- 
sible. The old men and chiefs say that formerly the 
Luwegeri met the Lukuga, and that the meeting of the 
waters formed the lake. The result of this marriage of 
the Lukuga from the west, and the Luwegeri from the 
east, is the Tanganika, and a cordial understanding 
between the waters has been kept up until lately, when 
it appears that the Lukuga has begun to be restive and 
wayward, for it sometimes flows west, and sometimes 
east ; or, in other words, the Lukuga during the rainy 
season flows into the Tanganika, bearing with it an 
immense amount of water, grass, wood, and other 
matter ; but during the dry season, when the south- 
east monsoon prevails, the Lukuga is borne west, lifting 
its head clear of the dry ground and mud-banks, and 
flows down to the Kamalondo, near Kalumbi’s country, 
under the name of Ruindi or Luindi. Until this rainy 
season, or say March of this year, 1876, there stood a 
low bank of earth or mud, several hundred yards long, 
between the Luindi and Lukuga, but this year’s rainfall 
has united the two rivers, the Lukuga flowing over this 
by Miketo’s country into Rua. Kamalondo is a river, 
and not a lake, being another name for the Lualaba. 
“ When Cameron was here in 1874, there was a spit 
