Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo, Volume 2Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
History
Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo, Volume 2
Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
Africa, West -- Description and travel; Congo River -- Description and travel; Ethnology -- Africa, West
Meanwhile the late Ladislaus Magyar, who had previously informed
the Benguelan Government that the Casais was reported to fall
into the Indian Ocean at some unknown place, in 1851 followed
this great artery lower than any known traveller. He heard that,
beyond his furthest exploration point (about south latitude 6°
30,[FN#19] and east longitude, G. 22°), it pursues a north-
easterly direction and, widening several miles, it raises waves
which are dangerous to canoes. The waters continue to be sweet
and fall into a lake variously called Mouro or Moura (Moráve or
Marávi?), Uhanja or Uhenje (Nyanza?), which is suspected to be
the Urenge or Ulenge, of which Livingstone heard in about south
latitude 3°, and east longitude (G.) 26°. The Hungarian traveller
naturally identified it with the mythical Lake Nyassa which has
done such portentous mischief in a day now gone by. Ladislaus
Magyar also states:[FN#20] "The Congo rises, I have convinced
myself by reports, in the swamp named Inhan-ha occupying the high
plateau of Moluwa, in the lands of the Luba, uniting with the
many streams of this region; at a distance of about five days
from the source it becomes a deep though narrow river, which
flows to the westward, through a level country covered with dense
forests, whose frequent streams coming from the north (?) and
south are taken up "by the river; then it bends north-westward
under the name of Kuango." Here we find the drowned lands, the
"sponges" of Livingstone, who, however, placed the sources much
further to the south-east.
Dr. Livingstone's third and last expedition, which began on March
24, 1866, and which ended (1873) with fatal fitness in the swamps
of the Bangweolo, suggests a new and more distant derivation for
the mighty Congo. After travelling from the Rovuma River to Lake
Nyassa, the great explorer in l867-8 came upon an "earthern
mound," west of Lake Bangweolo or Bemba, in about south latitude
11°; and here he places the sources of the Nile, where
geographers have agreed provisionally to place the sources of the
Congo. Already, in 1518, Fernandez de Enciso (Suma de
Geographia), the "theoretical discoverer" of Kilimanjaro, was
told by the Congoese that their river rises in high mountains,
from which another great stream flows in an opposite direction--
but this might apply to more watersheds than one. The subject is
treated at considerable length in an article by Dr. E.
Behm,[FN#21] certain of whose remarks I shall notice at the end
of this chapter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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