The Upper Shire--Discovery of Lake Nyassa--Distressing exploration--
Return to Zambesi--Unpleasant visitors--Start for Sekeletu's Country in the interior.
Our path followed the Shire above the cataracts, which is now a broad deep river, with but little current.It expands in one place into a lakelet, called Pamalombe, full of fine fish, and ten or twelve miles long by five or six in breadth.Its banks are low, and a dense wall of papyrus encircles it.On its western shore rises a range of hills running north.On reaching the village of the chief Muana-Moesi, and about a day's march distant from Nyassa, we were told that no lake had ever been heard of there; that the River Shire stretched on as we saw it now to a distance of "two months," and then came out from between perpendicular rocks, which towered almost to the skies.Our men looked blank at this piece of news, and said, "Let us go back to the ship, it is of no use trying to find the lake.""We shall go and see those wonderful rocks at any rate," said the Doctor."And when you see them," replied Masakasa, "you will just want to see something else.But there IS a lake," rejoined Masakasa, "for all their denying it, for it is down in a book."Masakasa, having unbounded faith in whatever was in a book, went and scolded the natives for telling him an untruth."There is a lake," said he, "for how could the white men know about it in a book if it did not exist?"They then admitted that there was a lake a few miles off.Subsequent inquiries make it probable that the story of the "perpendicular rocks" may have had reference to a fissure, known to both natives and Arabs, in the north-eastern portion of the lake.The walls rise so high that the path along the bottom is said to be underground.It is probably a crack similar to that which made the Victoria Falls, and formed the Shire Valley.
The chief brought a small present of meal in the evening, and sat with us for a few minutes.On leaving us he said that he wished we might sleep well.Scarce had he gone, when a wild sad cry arose from the river, followed by the shrieking of women.A crocodile had carried off his principal wife, as she was bathing.The Makololo snatched up their arms, and rushed to the bank, but it was too late, she was gone.The wailing of the women continued all night, and next morning we met others coming to the village to join in the general mourning.Their grief was evidently heartfelt, as we saw the tears coursing down their cheeks.In reporting this misfortune to his neighbours, Muana-Moesi said, "that white men came to his village;
Washed themselves at the place where his wife drew water and bathed;
rubbed themselves with a white medicine (soap); and his wife, having gone to bathe afterwards, was taken by a crocodile; he did not know whether in consequence of the medicine used or not."This we could not find fault with.On our return we were viewed with awe, and all the men fled at our approach; the women remained; and this elicited the remark from our men, "The women have the advantage of men, in not needing to dread the spear."The practice of bathing, which our first contact with Chinsunse's people led us to believe was unknown to the natives, we afterwards found to be common in other parts of the Manganja country.
We discovered Lake Nyassa a little before noon of the 16th September, 1859.Its southern end is in 14 degrees 25 minutes S. Lat., and 35 degrees 30 minutes E. Long.At this point the valley is about twelve miles wide.There are hills on both sides of the lake, but the haze from burning grass prevented us at the time from seeing far.A long time after our return from Nyassa, we received a letter from Captain R. B. Oldfield, R.N., then commanding H.M.S. "Lyra," with the information that Dr. Roscher, an enterprising German who unfortunately lost his life in his zeal for exploration, had also reached the Lake, but on the 19th November following our discovery;
and on his arrival had been informed by the natives that a party of white men were at the southern extremity.On comparing dates (16th September and 19th November) we were about two months before Dr.
Roscher.
It is not known where Dr. Roscher first saw its waters; as the exact position of Nusseewa on the borders of the Lake, where he lived some time, is unknown.He was three days north-east of Nusseewa, and on the Arab road back to the usual crossing-place of the Rovuma, when he was murdered.The murderers were seized by one of the chiefs, sent to Zanzibar, and executed.He is said to have kept his discoveries to himself, with the intention of publishing in Europe the whole at once, in a splendid book of travels.
The chief of the village near the confluence of the Lake and River Shire, an old man, called Mosauka, hearing that we were sitting under a tree, came and kindly invited us to his village.He took us to a magnificent banyan-tree, of which he seemed proud.The roots had been trained down to the ground into the form of a gigantic arm-chair, without the seat.Four of us slept in the space betwixt its arms.Mosauka brought us a present of a goat and basket of meal "to comfort our hearts."He told us that a large slave party, led by Arabs, were encamped close by.They had been up to Cazembe's country the past year, and were on their way back, with plenty of slaves, ivory, and malachite.In a few minutes half a dozen of the leaders came over to see us.They were armed with long muskets, and, to our mind, were a villanous-looking lot.They evidently thought the same of us, for they offered several young children for sale, but, when told that we were English, showed signs of fear, and decamped during the night.On our return to the Kongone, we found that H.M.S. "Lynx"
had caught some of these very slaves in a dhow; for a woman told us she first saw us at Mosauka's, and that the Arabs had fled for fear of an UNCANNY sort of Basungu.
