We found, when twenty miles from the river, that many of the Waregga had never seen it, though they had heard of it as the Lu-al-ow-wa. Had not Livingstone spoken of the river at Nyangwé as the Lualaba, I should not have mentioned the word except as a corruption by the Waguha of the Wenya term Lu-al-ow-wa, but as the river changes its name each time after receiving an affluent, it would be useless to endeavour to retain so many names in the memory. The Livingstone was 1200 yards wide from bank to bank opposite the landing-place of Kampunzu. As there were no people dwelling within a mile of the right bank, we prepared to encamp. My tent was pitched about thirty feet from the river, on a grassy spot; Tippu-Tib and his Arabs were in the bushes; while the 550 people of whom the Expedition consisted began to prepare a site for their huts, by enlarging the open space around the landing-place. While my breakfast (for noon) was cooking, and my tent was being drawn taut and made trim, a mat was spread on a bit of short grass, soft as an English lawn, a few yards from the water. Some sedgy reeds obstructed my view, and as I wished while resting to watch the river gliding by, I had them all cropped off short. Frank and the Wangwana chiefs were putting the boat sections together in the rear of the camp; I was busy thinking, planning a score of things—what time it would be best to cross the river, how we should commence our acquaintance with the warlike tribes on the left bank, what our future would be, how I should succeed in conveying our large force across, and, in the event of a determined resistance, what we should do, &c. Gentle as a summer’s dream, the brown wave of the great Livingstone flowed by; broad and deep. On the opposite bank loomed darkly against the sky another forest, similar to the one which had harrowed our souls. I obtained from my seat a magnificent view of the river, flanked by black forests, gliding along, with a serene grandeur and an unspeakable majesty of silence about it that caused my heart to yearn towards it. “Downward it flows to the unknown! to night-black clouds of mystery and fable, mayhap past the lands of the anthropoids, the pigmies, and the blanket-eared men of whom the gentle pagan king of Karagwé spoke, by leagues upon leagues of unexplored lands, populous with scores of tribes, of whom not a whisper has reached the people of other continents; perhaps that fabulous being the dread Macoco, of whom Bartolomeo Diaz, Cada Mosto, and Dapper have written, is still represented by one who inherits his ancient kingdom and power, and surrounded by barbarous pomp. Something strange must surely lie in the vast space occupied by total blankness on our maps, between Nyangwé and ‘Tuckey’s Farthest!’”