We cut across a broad cape-like formation of land and passed from the bay of Kisaho to a bay near Itari on the 20th, and from the summit of a high ridge near the latter place I perceived by compass bearings and solar observation, that we were much south of the south-west coast line, as marked on my map in “Through the Dark Continent.” From this elevated ridge could be seen the long series of islands overlapping one another, which, in our flight from the ferocious natives of Bumbiré in 1875, without oars, had been left unexplored, and which, therefore, I had sketched as mainland.
We find that the Wazinja call the Victoria Nyanza Muta Nzigé, as the Wanyoro call the Albert Lake Muta Nzigé, and the Wasongora and Wanyankori call the Albert Edward by the same name.
On leaving Itari we were made aware of lions having paid the vicinity of our camp a visit by a dead zebra which had just been killed. We were also astonished at the number of human skulls about, and when we asked the guides the cause, we were informed that at Itari the Wazinja endeavoured to oppose the Waganda during their late invasion. It may be that the Wazinja deserved the cruel visitation. It is well known that Usui needs a lesson like it. The last caprice of Kasasura has been to halt a caravan of 150 guns.
As we reflected on the various events which appear to have occurred in this region in 1887, the Waganda in force in Karagwé, audacious and insolent, and shooting Arab traders, and invading Uzinja, and from Kishakka to the Victoria Lake the land one seething area of strife and bloodshed, it struck us that the events of 1888, the deposition of Mwanga, the revolution and counter-revolution, were simply clearing our track for a peaceful march to the sea.
It became impressed on us as we travelled over these dry, waterless plains, with their nakedness scarcely hidden by dwarf acacia, and hardy euphorbias, that the forest people were utterly unfit to be taken out of their arboreal homes. Half of those who had accompanied us we had been obliged to leave behind, and yet there had been no want of either food or water. In the same manner the Somalis, Soudanese, Madis, or Baris, when taken into the forest, soon became joyless, dull, and moping, and died. And yet I have read in affectedly learned books that Africa was only fit for the Africans!
1889.
Aug. 21.
Amranda.
To my great surprise, and indeed delight, the Lake extended to 2° 48′ south latitude, which we ascertained on reaching Amranda on the 21st. The highest elevation reached since leaving Nyamaagoju has not been higher than 50 feet above the Lake, while immense tracts of as yet poor flat country have been left bare by the recession of its waters, and until many a season yet of rains has scoured the nitre out of these plains they must remain mean and unproductive.
By a gradual rise from Amranda southward we escape after a few miles out of the unlovely plains to older land producing a better quality of timber. Before we were 100 feet above the Lake a visible improvement had taken place, the acacia had disappeared, and the myombo, a tree whose bark is useful for native cloth and for boxes, and which might be adapted for canoes, flourished everywhere. At Bwanga, the next village, the language of the Wahuma, which we had heard continually since leaving the Albert Nyanza, ceases, and the Unyamwezi interpreters had now to be employed, which fact the sceptical Zanzibaris hailed as being evidence that we were approaching Pwani (the coast).