on the 23rd, and reached the ruins of Nsama's large town in S. lat. 8° 59′ 35′′. The Mkubwe River, which runs into the Mweru Swamp from the south, is a similar river to the Choma, but larger, muddy, deep, and full of crocodiles. Nsama, the Chief of Itawa, who had his town fourteen miles west-south-west of Abdallah's town, gave me much assistance two years ago on my journey to Katanga, and supplied me with a few carriers. In 1891, however, he was attacked by Abdallah bin Suleiman. The siege of his town lasted for three months, and eventually, with the assistance of some of the Awemba tribes, Abdallah drove him out. Nsama was killed and his people scattered, many were captured and sold as slaves. Nsama had two sons, Chipim biri, who had a small town near the Mweru Swamp, and Mkula, who still holds a strong mud-walled town. Mkula is looked upon as the successor of Nsama. I reached Abdallah's on September 25th. His head men met me some distance from his town and escorted me in. He treated me hospitably. I left Abdallah's on September 27th, and reached Rhodesia again on October 2nd. On the way I caught a young elephant, but it was too young to rear; it died after two days. I endeavoured to rear it on tinned milk, but it did not take to it; it had got knocked about too much in the catching. I decided that Mr. Kydd should march by land with the caravan to Kazembe's, and that I would explore in the boat the northern, western, and southern shores of Lake Mweru, and meet him at Kazembe's town. I was anxious to ascertain the course of the Luapula River from its entrance into Mweru up to the highest point of navigation. I left there in a boat with six natives on October 4th. One day took me the length of the northern coast of the lake to the north-western corner, latitude 8° 31' 28". Mpueto's is a mile-and-a-half north from the lake shore. On October 5th I passed the exit of the Luapula River (which I visited in 1890)* and sailed down the west coast of Mweru to Chipungu's town. Thence, in three more days, to the southernmost corner of the lake. The northern half of Mweru's west shore is bounded by cliffs rising abruptly from the lake shore to 150 to 200 feet. Below these cliffs there is absolutely no level ground, nothing but a mass of broken rocks which have fallen from above. It is only here and there where small streams from the hills behind have broken gorges through the cliffs, and carried out deltas of rich loamy soil, that a landing can be safely effected or habitations met with. On each of these little deltas is a small village or collection of huts. The people were at first very timid, but when recognised (having travelled by land up this coast of Mweru two years ago) I was everywhere well received and supplied with quantities of food. In S. lat. 9° 5′ 10′′ the cliffs cease, and thence, * Sce Proceedings, R.G.S. January, 1892. going south, the lake is bordered by flat land and marshes. The southernmost portion of the lake (in lat. 9° 30′) is the south-west corner which ends in a large, shallow, weed-covered bay. All the southern end is very shallow, the depth 3 miles out from the shore being only from 8 to 12 feet. This end of Mweru is gradually filling, the Luapula is silting it up. Lions are very plentiful along the southern shore. I shot two and saw several more. One night my camp was fairly besieged by lions. Passing along the old southern shore, past the entrance of the Luapula River, I entered the inlet at the south-east corner, which on my visit to Kazembe's in 1890, I was told was Mofwe. I thought that by following this up in the boat I should reach near to Kazembe's, and I had on my previous visit been told that Mofwe communicated above with the Luapula River. On my first journey to Mweru and Kazembe in 1890, I had no sextant with me; on my present trip I found that all my estimated latitudes on the previous journey were much too far north. I now found that Mofwe did not communicate with the Luapula River. The inlet at the southeast corner of Mweru-which is called Chimbofuma-is merely a deep bay into the vast swamps which lie at the south end of the lake. It is separated at its south-east end from the Mofwe lagoon by 2 or 3 miles of dense swamp, impassable either by boat or on foot. After coasting round the Chimbofuma inlet, therefore, and ascertaining that there was no exit from it to the south, I sailed back into Mweru, and returned along the south shore to the entrance of the Luapula River. It enters Mweru by several branches, or rather it has formed many reedy islands at its mouth. It is easy to see at the mouth of the river how the swamps lying at the south end of the lake have been formed. Floating plants are carried down and collect together; reeds take root on them, an island is formed, and the deposit brought down by the river joins island to island. The depth at the entrance is 7 or 8 feet (dry season); once inside the river the depth increases to 3 fathoms, and from the lake right up to the falls of the Luapula in S. lat 10° 30′ 46′′ there is never a less depth than 10 feet. It is a magnificent river, from 250 yards to a mile in width, slow running with clear water, no rocks or sand banks. From Mweru up to the falls the rate of current is from 1 mile tomile per hour. It is a very similar river to the Upper Zambesi just above Zumbo, except that the current is much slower than that of the Zambesi. The latitude of the mouth of the Luapula at its entrance into Mweru is 9° 25′ 30′′. Shortly before my arrival at the north end of Nyasa, that district had been visited by the cattle plague, which has been raging through East Central Africa during the past year. Practically, all the cattle of the north Nyasa country are cleared out, the mortality being over 90 per cent. On my way across to Tanganyika I found that parts of the country had been visited and portions had escaped. I had No. VI.-JUNE, 1893.] 2 M heard that this disease had also attacked the wild game; I had no actual evidence of it, however, until I arrived at the south end of Lake Mweru. Here enormous quantities of game have died: for the first two days up the Luapula, where it passes through marshes, it is near the banks only of the river where good dry land is found. These banks are, or were, covered with game, mostly pookoo, buffalo, and lechwe. At the time of my passing up through these swamps the plague was at its height. Dead and dying beasts were all around. The first day I counted over forty dead pookoo within mile of my camp. Subsequently, on my return down the river, I saw scarcely any live game near the mouth, but the whole country was scattered with dead bodies. The natives from about Kazembe's were going with canoes, backwards and forwards, carrying the dead meat up to the villages beyond the marshes. Elephants, of which there are great numbers in these marshes, do not appear to have been attacked by the plague. Mweru is a lake of gentle winds. There seems to be no prevailing winds as on Lakes Nyasa and Tanganyika. I found the winds mostly from the northern half of the compass, and these enabled me to use my sail for the first two days up the Luapula River. In S. lat. 9° 48' I reached a narrow creek which entered the Luapula on its east bank, and which I was told by the natives led up to Kazembe's town. By poling and pushing I got the boat up it. This creek, leaving the firm land near Kazembe's, enters the marshes, and passing through them to the Luapula, forms a means of communication by canoe with the river. Following this creek up, I got my boat up to the dry land (the old shore of Mweru Lake) and thence went by land to Kazembe's town, which I reached on October 15th, and found that Mr. Kydd and the caravan had already arrived. Kazembe sent out the British flag to meet me, with a deputation conveying hospitable messages and greetings. On October 16th I was received by him with much state and ceremony. The recent death of Mshidi, the Chief of Katanga, had evidently made Kazembe somewhat afraid of Europeans, but knowing me of old, he soon became reassured. Lunda, Kazembe's country, is a rich agricultural country, very different to Itawa. Lunda is well watered by permanent streams of running water, and the vegetation is much more luxuriant than in the countries north of it. The tsetse fly, however, is very plentiful throughout both Lunda and Itawa. East of Lunda lies the Awemba country, into which it is difficult to enter at present, owing to the desire on the part of the inhabitants and of the Arabs to keep us out as long as possible. The Awemba country is a great feeder of the slave trade. Caravans can always obtain slaves there. On October 17th I left Kazembe's, and sending the caravan on overland to meet me on the Upper Luapula, I rejoined the river in the boat, and followed it to the south. The latitude of Kazembe's present town is 9o 48", some 8 miles south of the Mbereze River. The swamps lying to the west of the town, and which on my first journey I took to be part of Mofwe, are in reality south of the Mofwe lagoon. This lagoon, however, is gradually filling up, and will before long form part of the marshes. On the shore of the Mofwe lagoon are visible the banks and ditches which surrounded a town where a previous Kazembe had resided. The Kazembe of to-day is not such a great chief as the Kazembe of one hundred years ago, when Dr. Lacerda's expedition visited this country; and I cannot help thinking that the accounts given by Pinto (the historian of that expedition) are much overdrawn. Still, there is far more ceremony and State at Kazembe's than at any other part of Central Africa I have been in. Ascending the Luapula I reached the limit of the swamps in lat. 9° 55', and from here upwards for some miles were dry plains. There is, however, one point in the marshes of the Luapula where the high ground on the west approaches the river, a tongue of land; it reaches the river in about lat. 9° 44', and here is a village of Mshidi's people cut off by the Luapula and the intervening swamps from Kazembe's people. In lat. 10° 4′ 1′′, the first of Kazembe's villages on the Luapula was passed on the east bank. From here upwards the country on that bank is undulating and wooded with gentle hills, and villages of Kazembe's people are met with here and there up to the Falls. On the west bank the population is much smaller, but now numbers of Mshidi's people are giving in their allegiance to Kazembe, and are building villages on the west bank. In lat. 10° 12' a large river joins the Luapula on the east bank. I conclude that this must be the river marked on existing maps as the Luongo. The natives, however, call it the " Ruki," and do not know the name Luongo. Above the Ruki plains the Luapula is very beautiful, passing through gently rising, wooded hills; the water is always deep and clear. The inhabitants of the villages on either bank are simple, friendly people, timid at first, but eager to barter produce as soon as they found we had no wish to hurt them. In lat. 10° 22′ 16′′ there are some remarkable red cliffs on the west bank. On October 22nd, soon after starting, I heard the sound of rapids, and presently reached the head of navigation of the Luapula in lat. 10° 30′ 46′′. The river here rushes through great masses of rock. In places the water has worn channels for itself below and between the rocks, and portions of the river are for some way bridged by them. The water was extremely clear (dry season). Here and there were pretty little bays with bright, sandy beaches. I found that a fine, clean-looking fish of from one pound to five pounds took eagerly both a spinning bait and a fly, and I had some really excellent fishing, making flies with red and white calico, and using a long, springy bamboo as a rod. As I had, however, no reel, and no landing net, I lost many fish. I christened the falls, in the absence of any special native name for them, "Johnston Falls." I put the caravan in camp here for a week, and took three short journeys; one for 10 miles up the river, which I found to be nothing but a succession of cataracts one to the east for 12 miles; and one to the west for 8 miles. The country to the east I found dry and thinly forested, gentle rises and descents. Four days east of Johnston Falls, I was told, were the "Mchinga" (high range of mountains) and one to two days beyond that was Bangweolo Lake. The name Bangweolo is not known, however, the lake being spoken of as the "Mweru of the Awiza." The Awiza people are said to live on islands in the lake. Mshidi's old town was said to be six days' journey west from Johnston Falls, This point, therefore, forms a very central position, as in addition to being so near to the Bangweolo and Katanga Districts, water carriage to Rhodesia puts it within seven days' land journey of Tanganyika. At the Falls I bought seven large canoes, in which, and in the boat, I stowed all the loads of the expedition, and in this manner I transported everything by water all the way back to Rhodesia Station. This enabled the carriers to travel without loads, and therefore with speed. On October 29th, small-pox broke out in my camp-two cases, a Zanzibari and an Atonga native. I left them in one of Kazembe's villages in charge of the chief, with plenty of cloth to provide for their wants, and to bring them home when recovered. I had originally hoped to return to Karonga by way of Lake Bangweolo, and by the Chambezi River through the Awemba country, but finding that the time at my disposal would not allow of it I decided to return by way of Tanganyika. I left Johnston Falls, therefore, on October 29th with the steel boat and seven canoes, the caravan going overland. Passing through the The rains commence much earlier on Mweru and the Luapula than in Nyasaland. Heavy rains began with us on October 23rd, and until the middle of November we had constant rain. There were some terrific thunderstorms on my way down the Luapula. marshes I saw numbers of elephants, and shot seven. difficult country to shoot in, however, as the elephants when disturbed or wounded go straight into the marshes where it is impossible to follow them. One sinks in mud and water sometimes to the neck, leeches are plentiful, mosquitos thick, the razor-like grass cuts one's hands, and minute spears on the grass stalks pierce any part of the skin they touch. I re-entered Lake Mweru again from the Luapula on November 6th, and coasting along its southern shore to the Chimbofuma inlet, followed up the east coast to Rhodesia Station, which I reached on the 9th, thus completing the circumnavigation of the lake. The Kalongwizi River which enters Mweru from the east, has thrown out an extensive delta into the lake. This consists mostly of papyrus swamp, but the beach is sandy. Very little water comes down the Kalongwizi in the dry season. On the bar there was 18 inches of water: inside, 1 fathom. From the time of leaving Kazembe's village to arriving at Rhodesia no food was procurable, and on from Rhodesia until I reached Mkula's not a grain of food could be bought. The caravan was thus for three |