382 
AFRICA AND ITS EXPLORATION. 
is used by people proceeding to Unguvwa, Luwelezi, or 
Marungu on the other side of the Lukuga. Two men 
from the village accompanied us to the Lukuga ford. 
When we reached the foot of the hill, we first came to 
the dry bed of the Kibamba. In the rainy season this 
stream drains the eastern slopes of the Ki-yanja ridge 
with a south-east trend. The grass-stalks, still lying 
down from the force of the water, lay with their tops 
pointing lake ward. 
From the dry mud-bed of the Kibamba to the cane- 
grass-choked bed of Lukuga was but a step. During 
the wet season the Kibamba evidently overflowed 
broadly, and made its way among the matete of the 
Lukuga. 
We tramped on along a path leading over prostrate 
reeds and cane, and came at length to where the ground 
began to be moist. The reeds on either side of it rose 
to the height of ten or twelve feet, their tops inter- 
lacing, and the stalks, therefore, forming the sides of a 
narrow tunnel. The path sank here and there into 
ditch-like hollows filled with cool water from nine inches 
to three feet deep, with transverse dykes of mud raised 
above it at intervals. 
Finally, after proceeding some two hundred yards, we 
came to the centre of this reed-covered depression — 
called by the natives “ Mitwanzi ” — and here the chief, 
trampling a wider space among the reeds, pointed out 
in triumph water indisputably flowing westward. 
The water felt cold, but it was only 68° Fahr., or 7° 
cooler than the Lukuga. I crossed over to the opposite 
or southern bank, on the shoulders of two of my men. 
The bed was uneven ; sometimes the men rose until the 
water was barely over their ankles, then again they 
sank to their hips. The trees I had noticed from the 
open creek stood on a point projecting from the 
southern bank across the Mitwanzi, but they were now 
dead, as the former dry tract had become quaggy. The 
name Lukuga clings to the bed until a few miles w T est 
of Miketo’s, when it becomes known as the Luindi, 
Ruindi, or Luimbi. 
