A Forest Grave.
The gardens had high hedges round to keep off wild beasts. We came to a grave in the forest; it was a little rounded mound as if the occupant sat in it in the usual native way: it was strewed over with flour, and a number of the large blue beads put on it: a little path showed that it had visitors. This is the sort of grave I should prefer: to lie in the still, still forest, and no hand ever disturb my bones. The graves at home always seemed to me to be miserable, especially those in the cold damp clay, and without elbow room; but I have nothing to do but wait till He who is over all decides where I have to lay me down and die. Poor Mary lies on Shupanga brae, "and beeks fornent the sun."[64]
Came to the Chando River, which is the boundary between Casembe and Chikumbi; but Casembe is over all.
27th June, 1868.—We crossed a flooded marsh with the water very cold, and then the Chando itself twelve feet broad and knee deep, then on to another strong brook Nsénga.
28th June, 1868.—After service we went on up hills to a stockade of Banyamwezi, on the Kalomina River, and here we built our sheds; the spot is called Kizinga, and is on the top of a sandstone range covered as usual with forest. The Banyamwezi beat off the Mazitu with their guns, while all the country people fled. The Banyamwezi are decidedly uglier than the Balonda and Baitawa: they eat no fish, though they come from the east side of Tanganyika, where fish are abundant and cheap; but though uglier, they have more of the sense of honour with traders than the aborigines.
29th June, 1868.—Observed the "smokes" to-day, the first of the season:[65] they obscured the whole country.
1st July, 1868.—I went over to Chikumbi, the paramount chief of this district, and gave him a cloth, begging a man to guide me to Bangweolo. He said that I was welcome to his country; all were so: I had better wait two days till he had selected a good man as a guide, and he would send some food for me to eat in the journey—he would not say ten days, but only two, and his man would take me to the smaller part of the Lake, and leave others to forward me to the greater or Bangweolo. The smaller part is named Bemba, but that name is confusing, because Bemba is the name of the country in which a portion of the Lake lies. When asking for Lake Bemba, Kasongo's son said to me, "Bemba is not a lake, but a country:" it is therefore better to use the name BANGWEOLO, which is applied to the great mass of the water, though I fear that our English folks will bogle at it, or call it Bungyhollow! Some Arabs say Bambeolo as easier of pronunciation, but Bangweolo is the correct word. Chikumbi's stockade is 1-1/2 hour S.E. of our camp at Kizinga.
2nd July, 1868.—Writing to the Consul at Zanzibar to send supplies of cloth to Ujiji—120 pieces, 40 Kiniki; 80 merikano 34 inches broad, or samsam. Fine red beads—Talaka, 12 frasilas. I ask for soap, coffee, sugar, candles, sardines, French preserved meats, a cheese in tin, Nautical Almanac for 1869 and 1870, shoes (two or four pairs), ruled paper, pencils, sealing-wax, ink, powder, flannel-serge, 12 frasila beads, 6 of Talaka; added 3 F. pale red, 3 W. white.
3rd July, 1868.—The summary of the sources which I have resolved to report as flowing into the central line of drainage formed by the Chambezé, Luapula, and Lualaba are thirteen in all, and each is larger than the Isis at Oxford, or Avon at Hamilton. Five flow into the eastern line of drainage going through Tanganyika, and five more into the western line of drainage or Lufira, twenty-three or more in all. The Lualaba and the Lufira unite in the Lake of the chief Kinkonza.