640 
GEOGEAPHICAL INFOEMATION. 
Chap. XXXI. 
killed four elephants in the course of two months after my 
departure. 
On the day of my arrival I was visited by all the gentlemen of 
the village, both white and coloured, including the padre. Not 
one of them had any idea as to where the source of the Zambesi 
lay. They sent for the best travelled natives, but none of them 
knew the river even as far as Kansala. The father of one of the 
rebels who had been fighting against them, had been a great 
traveller to the south-west, and had even heard of our visit to 
Lake Ngami; but he was equally ignorant with all the others 
that the Zambesi flowed in the centre of the country. They had, 
however, more knowledge of the country to the north of Tete 
than I had. One man, who had gone to Cazembe with Major 
Monteiro, stated that he had seen the Luapura or Loapula flowmg 
past the town of that chieftain into the Luameji or Leeambye, 
but imagined that it fomid its way, somehow or other, into An¬ 
gola. The fact that sometimes rivers were seen to flow like this 
towards the centre of the country, led geographers to the supposi¬ 
tion that inner Africa was composed of elevated sandy plains, into 
which rivers ran and were lost. One of the gentlemen present, 
Senhor Candido, had visited a lake 45 days to the N.N.W. of 
Tete, which is probably the Lake Maravi of geographers, as in 
going thither they pass through the people of that name. The 
inhabitants of its southern coast are named Shiva ; those on the 
north, Mujao; and they call the lake Nyanja or Nyanje, which 
simply means a large water, or bed of a large river. A high 
mountain stands in the middle of it, called Murombo or Murom- 
bola, which is inhabited by people who have much cattle. He 
stated that he crossed the Nyanja at a narrow part, and was 
36 hours in the passage. The canoes were punted the whole 
way, and, if we take the rate about two miles per hom^, it may be 
sixty or seventy miles in breadth. The country all round was 
composed of level plains covered with grass, and, indeed, in going 
thither they travelled seven or eight days without wood, and cooked 
their food with grass and stalks of native corn alone. The people 
sold their cattle at a very cheap rate. From the southern ex¬ 
tremity of the lake, two rivers issue forth: one, named after itself, 
the Nyanja, which passes into the sea on the east coast under 
another name; and the Shire, which flows into the Zambesi, a 
