[The tiresome procrastination of Mohamad and his horde was not altogether an unmixed evil. With so many new discoveries in hand Livingstone had an opportunity for working out several problems, and instituting comparisons between the phenomena of Inner Africa and the well-marked changes which go on in other parts of the world. We find him at this time summing them up as follows:—]
The subject of change of climate from alteration of level has not received the investigation it deserves. Mr. Darwin saw reason to believe that very great alterations of altitude, and of course of climate, had taken place in South America and the islands of the Pacific; the level of a country above the sea I believe he thought to be as variable as the winds. A very great alteration of altitude has also taken place in Africa; this is apparent on the sea-coast of Angola, and all through the centre of the country, where large rivers which once flowed southwards and westwards are no longer able to run in these directions: the general desiccation of the country, as seen in the beds of large rivers and of enormous lakes, tells the same tale. Portions of the east coast have sunk, others have risen, even in the Historic Period. The upper or northern end of the Red Sea has risen, so that the place of the passage of the children of Israel is now between forty and fifty miles from Suez, the modern head of the Gulf. This upheaval, and not the sand from the desert, caused the disuse of the ancient canal across the Isthmus: it took place since the Mohamadan conquest of Egypt. The women of the Jewish captivities were carried past the end of the Red Sea and along the Mediterranean in ox-waggons, where such cattle would now all perish for want of water and pasture; in fact, the route to Assyria would have proved more fatal to captives then than the middle passage has been to Africans since. It may be true that, as the desert is now, it could not have been traversed by the multitude under Moses—the German strictures put forth by Dr. Colenso, under the plea of the progress of science, assume that no alteration has taken place in either desert or climate—but a scientific examination of the subject would have ascertained what the country was then when it afforded pasture to "flocks and herds, and even very much cattle." We know that Eziongeber was, with its docks, on the seashore, with water in abundance for the ship-carpenters: it is now far from the head of the Elaic Gulf in a parched desert. Aden, when visited by the Portuguese Balthazar less than 300 years ago, was a perfect garden; but it is now a vast conglomeration of black volcanic rocks, with so little vegetation, that, on seeing flocks of goats driven out, I thought of the Irish cabman at an ascent slamming the door of his cab and whispering to his fare, "Whish, it's to desave the baste: he thinks that you are out walking." Gigantic tanks in great numbers and the ruins of aqueducts appear as relics of the past, where no rain now falls for three or more years at a time. They have all dried up by a change of climate, possibly similar and cotemporaneous with that which has dried up the Dead Sea.
The journey of Ezra was undertaken after a fast at the River Ahava. With nearly 50,000 people he had only about 8000 beasts of burden. He was ashamed to ask a band of soldiers and horsemen for protection in the way. It took about four months to reach Jerusalem; this would give five and a half or six miles a day, as the crow flies, which is equal to twelve or fifteen miles of surface travelled over; this bespeaks a country capable of yielding both provisions and water, such as cannot now be found. Ezra would not have been ashamed to ask for camels to carry provisions and water had the country been as dry as it is now. The prophets, in telling all the woes and miseries of the captivities, never allude to suffering or perishing by thirst in the way, or being left to rot in the route as African slaves are now in a well-watered country. Had the route to Assyria been then as it is now, they could scarcely have avoided referring to the thirst of the way; but everything else is mentioned except that.
Respecting this system of Lakes in the centre of Africa, it will possibly occur to some that Lake Nyassa may give a portion of its water off from its northern end to the Nile, but this would imply a Lake giving off a river at both ends; the country, too, on the north-north-west and north-east rises to from 4000 to 6000 feet above the sea, and there is not the smallest indication that Nyassa and Tanganyika were ever connected. Lake Liemba is the most southerly part of Tanganyika; its latitude is 8° 46' south; the most northerly point of Lake Nyassa is probably 10° 56'-8° 46' = 2° 10'. Longitude of Liemba 34° 57'-31° 57' = 3° 00' = 180' of longitude. Of latitude 130' + 180' = 310', two-thirds of which is about 206', the distance between two Lakes; and no evidence of fissure, rent, or channel now appears on the highland between.
Again, Liemba is 3000 feet above the sea. The altitude of Nyassa is 1200/x800 feet. Tanganyika would thus go to Nyassa—down the Shiré into the Zambesi and the sea, if a passage existed even below ground.
The large Lake, said to exist to the north-west of Tanganyika might, however, send a branch to the Nile; but the land rises up into a high ridge east of this Lake.
It is somewhat remarkable that the impression which intelligent Suaheli, who have gone into Karagwé, have received is, that the Kitangulé flows from Tanganyika into Lake Ukerewé. One of Syde bin Omar's people put it to me very forcibly the other day by saying, "Kitangulé is an arm of Tanganyika!" He had not followed it out; but that Dagara, the father of Rumanyika, should have in his lifetime seriously proposed to deepen the upper part of it, so as to allow canoes to pass from his place to Ujiji, is very strong evidence of the river being large on the Tanganyika side. We know it to be of good size, and requiring canoes on the Ukerewé side. Burton came to the very silly conclusion that when a native said a river ran one way, he meant that it flowed in the opposite direction. Ujiji, in Rumanyika's time, was the only mart for merchandise in the country. Garaganza or Galaganza has most trade and influence now. (14th Sept., 1868.)
Okara is the name by which Victoria Nyanza is known on the eastern side, and an arm of it, called Kavirondo, is about forty miles broad. Lake Baringo is a distinct body of water, some fifty miles broad, and giving off a river called Ngardabash, which flows eastwards into the Somauli country. Lake Naibash is more to the east than Kavirondo, and about fifty miles broad too: it gives off the River Kidété, which is supposed to flow into Lufu. It is south-east of Kavirondo; and Kilimanjaro can be seen from its shores; in the south-east Okara, Naibash and Baringo seem to have been run by Speke into one Lake. Okara, in the south, is full of large islands, and has but little water between them; that little is encumbered with aquatic vegetation called "Tikatika," on which, as in lakelet Gumadona, a man can walk. Waterlilies and duckweed are not the chief part of this floating mass. In the north Okara is large. Burukineggé land is the boundary between the people of Kavirondo and the Gallahs with camels and horses.
9th November, 1868.—Copied several Notes written at Kizinga and elsewhere, and at Kabwabwata resume Journal. Some slight showers have cooled the air a little: this is the hottest time of the year.
10th November, 1868.—A heavier shower this morning will have more of the same effect.