This mountain mass I consider to be THE TRUE MOUNTAINS OF THE MOON, regarding which so many erroneous speculations have been ventured. I infer this because they lie beyond Unyamuézi (country of the Moon), and must have been first mentioned to geographical inquirers by the Wanyamuézi (people of the Moon), who have from time out of mind visited the coast, and must have been the first who gave information of them. I am the more satisfied of the correctness of this view from observing the missionaries' map; for what could have induced them to call their great lake, in general terms, the Sea of the Moon, except that it lay beyond the country of the Moon?[43] The mountains form a crescent overhanging the north end of the lake, large and deep in the body to the north, and tapering to horns as they stretch southwards down the east and west sides of the lake. Our line of march, about six hundred rectilinear geographical miles, had been nearly due west from Zanzibar. Here you may picture to yourself my bitter disappointment when, after toiling through so many miles of savage life, all the time emaciated by divers sicknesses and weakened by great privations of food and rest, I found, on approaching the zenith of my ambition, the Great Lake in question nothing but mist and glare before my eyes. From the summit of the eastern horn the lovely Tanganyika Lake could be seen in all its glory by everybody but myself. The fact was, that fevers and the influence of a vertical sun had reduced my system so, that inflammation, caught by sleeping on the ground during this rainy season, attacked my eyes, brought on an almost total blindness, and rendered every object before me enclouded as by a misty veil. Proceeding onwards down the western slopes of the hill, we soon arrived at the margin of the lake, and hired a canoe at Ukaranga to take us to Ujiji, the chief place on the lake which Arabs frequent. This is a name we had long been familiar with, and is the term by which the Arabs in general call this lake. This mode of nomenclature is quite in accordance with the usual custom of semi-civilised people, as we see in Arabia, where the Arabs call the Red Sea by the names of the different ports which they frequent. Thus, for instance, at Jeddah, it is called by them the Sea of Jeddah, whilst at Suez it is the Sea of Suez, &c. &c. The Tanganyika Lake, lying between 3° and 8° south latitude, and in 29° east longitude, has a length of three hundred miles, and is from thirty to forty broad in its centre. The surface-level, as I ascertained by the temperature of boiling water, is only eighteen hundred feet, and it appears quite sunk into the lap of these mountains. Its waters are very sweet, and abound with delicious fish in great variety. The fertility of the northern end of the lake surpassed anything we had hitherto seen; but this was not surprising when duly considered. The hills, instead of being, as on the great plateau we had recently left, outcrops of granite, were