5 P.M. Men returned, but the large canoe having been broken by the donkey, we have to go back and pay for it, and take away about twenty men now left. Matipa kept all the payment from his own people, and so left us in the lurch; thus another five days is lost.
31st March, 1873.—I sent the men back to Matipa's for all our party. I give two dotis to repair the canoe. Islanders are always troublesome, from a sense of security in their fastnesses. Made stirrups of thick brass wire four-fold; they promise to do well. Sent Kabinga a cloth, and a message, but he is evidently a niggard, like Matipa: we must take him as we find him, there is no use in growling. Seven of our men returned, having got a canoe from one of Matipa's men. Kabinga, it seems, was pleased with the cloth, and says that he will ask for maize from his people, and buy it for me; he has rice growing. He will send a canoe to carry me over the next river.
3rd April, 1873.—Very heavy rain last night. Six inches fell in a short time. The men at last have come from Matipa's.
4th April, 1873.—Sent over to Kabinga to buy a cow, and got a fat one for 2-1/2 dotis, to give the party a feast ere we start. The kambari fish of the Chambezé is three feet three inches in length.
Two others, the "polwé" and "lopatakwao," all go up the Chambezé to spawn when the rains begin. Casembe's people make caviare of the spawn of the "pumbo."
[The next entry is made in a new pocket-book, numbered XVII. For the first few days pen and ink were used, afterwards a well-worn stump of pencil, stuck into a steel penholder and attached to a piece of bamboo, served his purpose.]
5th April, 1873.—March from Kabinga's on the Chambezé, our luggage in canoes, and men on land. We punted on flood six feet deep, with many ant-hills all about, covered with trees. Course S.S.E. for five miles, across the River Lobingela, sluggish, and about 300 yards wide.
6th April, 1873.—Leave in the same way, but men were sent from Kabinga to steal the canoes, which we paid his brother Mateysa handsomely for. A stupid drummer, beating the alarm in the distance, called us inland; we found the main body of our people had gone on, and so by this, our party got separated,[31] and we pulled and punted six or seven hours S.W. in great difficulty, as the fishermen we saw refused to show us where the deep water lay. The whole country S. of the Lake was covered with water, thickly dotted over with lotus-leaves and rushes. It has a greenish appearance, and it might be well on a map to show the spaces annually flooded by a broad wavy band, twenty, thirty, and even, forty miles out from the permanent banks of the Lake: it might be coloured light green. The broad estuaries fifty or more miles, into which the rivers form themselves, might be coloured blue, but it is quite impossible at present to tell where land ends, and Lake begins; it is all water, water everywhere, which seems to be kept from flowing quickly off by the narrow bed of the Luapula, which has perpendicular banks, worn deep down in new red sandstone. It is the Nile apparently enacting its inundations, even at its sources. The amount of water spread out over the country constantly excites my wonder; it is prodigious. Many of the ant-hills are cultivated and covered with dura, pumpkins, beans, maize, but the waters yield food plenteously in fish and lotus-roots. A species of wild rice grows, but the people neither need it nor know it. A party of fishermen fled from us, but by coaxing we got them to show us deep water. They then showed us an islet, about thirty yards square, without wood, and desired us to sleep there. We went on, and then they decamped.
Pitiless pelting showers wetted everything; but near sunset we saw two fishermen paddling quickly off from an ant-hill, where we found a hut, plenty of fish, and some firewood. There we spent the night, and watched by turns, lest thieves should come and haul away our canoes and goods. Heavy rain. One canoe sank, wetting everything in her. The leaks in her had been stopped with clay, and a man sleeping near the stern had displaced this frail caulking. We did not touch the fish, and I cannot conjecture who has inspired fear in all the inhabitants.
7th April, 1873.—Went on S.W., and saw two men, who guided us to the River Muanakazi, which forms a connecting link between the River Lotingila and the Lolotikila, about the southern borders of the flood. Men were hunting, and we passed near large herds of antelopes, which made a rushing, plunging sound as they ran and sprang away among the waters. A lion had wandered into this world of water and ant-hills, and roared night and morning, as if very much disgusted: we could sympathise with him! Near to the Muanakazi, at a broad bank in shallow water near the river, we had to unload and haul. Our guides left us, well pleased with the payment we had given them. The natives beating a drum on our east made us believe them to be our party, and some thought that they heard two shots. This misled us, and we went towards the sound through papyrus, tall rushes, arums, and grass, till tired out, and took refuge on an ant-hill for the night. Lion roaring. We were lost in stiff grassy prairies, from three to four feet deep in water, for five hours. We fired a gun in the stillness of the night, but received no answer; so on the 8th we sent a small canoe at daybreak to ask for information and guides from the village where the drums had been beaten. Two men came, and they thought likewise that our party was south-east; but in that direction the water was about fifteen inches in spots and three feet in others, which caused constant dragging of the large canoe all day, and at last we unloaded at another branch of the Muanakazi with a village of friendly people. We slept there.