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
Descending from the summit of the range, which bounded the lake east for
about four hundred feet, we travelled along the northern shore. The time
occupied in the journey from the eastern to the western extremity was
exactly one hour and thirty minutes.
As this side represents its greatest length I conclude that the lake is
three miles long by two miles greatest breadth. The immediate shores of
the lake on all sides, for at least fifty feet from the water's edge,
is one impassable morass nourishing rank reeds and rushes, where the
hippopotamus' ponderous form has crushed into watery trails the soft
composition of the morass as he passes from the lake on his nocturnal
excursions; the lesser animals; such as the "mbogo" (buffalo), the
"punda-terra" (zebra); the "twiga" (giraffe), the boar, the kudu, the
hyrax or coney and the antelope; come here also to quench their thirst
by night. The surface of the lake swarms with an astonishing variety of
water-fowl; such as black swan, duck, ibis sacra cranes, pelicans; and
soaring above on the look-out for their prey are fish-eagles and
hawks, while the neighbourhood is resonant with the loud chirps of the
guinea-fowls calling for their young, with the harsh cry of the toucan,
the cooing of the pigeon, and the "to-whit, to-whoo" of the owl. From
the long grass in its vicinity also issue the grating and loud cry of
the florican, woodcock, and grouse.
Being obliged to halt here two days, owing to the desertion of the Hindi
cooper Jako with one of my best carbines, I improved the opportunity
of exploring the northern and southern shores of the lake. At the rocky
foot of a low, humpy hill on the northern side, about fifteen feet
above the present surface of the water I detected in most distinct and
definite lines the agency of waves. From its base could be traced clear
to the edge of the dank morass tiny lines of comminuted shell as plainly
marked as the small particles which lie in rows on a beech after a
receding tide. There is no doubt that the wave-marks on the sandstone
might have been traced much higher by one skilled in geology; it was
only its elementary character that was visible to me. Nor do I entertain
the least doubt, after a two days' exploration of the neighbourhood,
especially of the low plain at the western end, that this Lake of Ugombo
is but the tail of what was once a large body of water equal in extent
to the Tanganika; and, after ascending half way up Ugombo Peak, this
opinion was confirmed when I saw the long-depressed line of plain at
its base stretching towards the Mpwapwa Mountains thirty miles off, and
thence round to Marenga Mkali, and covering all that extensive surface
of forty miles in breadth, and an unknown length. A depth of twelve feet
more, I thought, as I gazed upon it, would give the lake a length
of thirty miles, and a breadth of ten. A depth of thirty feet would
increase its length over a hundred miles, and give it a breadth of
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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