How I found Livingstone : $b Travels, adventures, and discoveres in Central Africa, including an account of four months' residence with Dr. LivingstoneStanley, Henry M. (Henry Morton)
History
How I found Livingstone : $b Travels, adventures, and discoveres in Central Africa, including an account of four months' residence with Dr. Livingstone
Stanley, Henry M. (Henry Morton)
Africa, Central -- Description and travel; Livingstone, David, 1813-1873
After so many minute details about the River Rusizi, it only remained
for us to see it. On the second morning of our arrival at Mugihewa we
mustered ten strong paddlers, and set out to explore the head of the
lake and the mouth of the Rusizi. We found that the northern head of
the lake was indented with seven broad bays, each from one and a half to
three miles broad; that long broad spits of sand, overgrown with matete,
separated each bay from the other. The first, starting from west to
east, at the broadest part, to the extreme southern point of Mugihewa,
was about three miles broad, and served as a line of demarcation between
Mukamba's district of Ruwenga and Mugihewa of Ruhinga; it was also two
miles deep. The second bay was a mile from the southern extremity of
Mugihewa to Ruhinga's village at the head of the bay, and it was a mile
across to another spit of sand which was terminated by a small island.
The third bay stretched for nearly a mile to a long spit, at the end of
which was another island, one and a quarter mile in length, and was the
western side of the fourth bay, at the head of which was the delta
of the Rusizi. This fourth bay, at its base, was about three miles
in depth, and penetrated half a mile further inland than any other.
Soundings indicated six feet deep, and the same depth was kept to within
a few hundred yards of the principal mouth of the Rusizi. The current
was very sluggish; not more than a mile an hour. Though we constantly
kept our binocular searching for the river, we could not see the main
channel until within 200 yards of it, and then only by watching by what
outlet the fishing; canoes came out. The bay at this point had narrowed
from two miles to about 200 yards in breadth. Inviting a canoe to show
us the way, a small flotilla of canoes preceded us, from the sheer
curiosity of their owners. We followed, and in a few minutes were
ascending the stream, which was very rapid, though but about ten yards
wide, and very shallow; not more than two feet deep. We ascended about
half a mile, the current being very strong, from six to eight miles an
hour, and quite far enough to observe the nature of the stream at its
embouchure. We could see that it widened and spread out in a myriad of
channels, rushing by isolated clumps of sedge and matete grass; and that
it had the appearance of a swamp. We had ascended the central, or main
channel. The western channel was about eight yards broad. We observed,
after we had returned to the bay, that the easternmost channel was about
six yards broad, and about ten feet deep, but very sluggish. We had
thus examined each of its three mouths, and settled all doubts as to
the Rusizi being an effluent or influent. It was not necessary to ascend
higher, there being nothing about the river itself to repay exploration
of it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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