384 
AFRICA AND ITS EXPLORATION. 
gulf north, and left the channel of the Lukuga to be 
employed as the bed of the affluents Kibamba and 
Lumba, or the eastern slope of the Ki-yanja ridge, to 
feed the lake. But now that the extension of the 
profound bed — created by some great earthquake, which 
fractured and disparted the plateau of Uhha, Urundi, 
Ubembe, G-oma, &c. — is on the eve of being filled up, 
the ancient affluent is about to resume its old duties of 
conveying the surplus waters of the Tanganika down 
into the valley of the Livingstone, and thence, along 
its majestic winding course, to the Atlantic Ocean. 
I say this after having circumnavigated the lake and 
examined it most thoroughly. Underground caverns 
are myths, the fables of Wangwana and superstitious 
natives. The great deep lengthy canon occupied by 
the fathomless lake is not closed in by rocks of such a 
nature as to admit of the theory of underground 
passages. It is rimmed by mountains and hills — the 
least altitude is 600 feet, the highest 4000 feet, above 
the lake. But to those seeking an elucidation of the 
fact that an enormous fresh-water lake is without an 
outflowing river, are presented as rational solutions the 
stream-worn gap in the conglomerate of the ridges 
Kihunga and Ki-yanja, the wave- washed rocks and 
boulders of Mpembwe and all along the eastern coast 
down to Urungu, the bare headlands of Tembwe, and 
the naked steeps and cliffs of Kungwe and Karinzi. It 
is an undeniable fact that if the evaporation from a 
body of water be greater than the supply, that water 
must necessarily become saline from the particles washed 
into it from salt-beds and salinas. It is also as un- 
deniable that, if the supply to a body of water be 
greater than its evaporation, the quantity of the water 
must be increased until the receptacle— whether pool, 
pond, or lake — overflows and obtains an outlet. 
In the instance of the Tanganika we have a fresh- 
water lake, which — according to the evidence of native 
Arabs and the observation of several travellers — is 
steadily rising. We have also seen in the Lukuga the 
first symptoms of that overflowing which must come. 
