Cameron’s course was southward from Ujiji. He turned the
southern end of the lake and found no outlet there. But he saw some of the most extraordinary examples of rock and tree scenery in the world. There were magnificent terraces of rock
which looked as if they had been built by the hands of man, and scattered and piled in fantastic confusion were over-hanging blocks, rocking stones, obelisks, and pyramids. All were overhung with trees whose limbs were matted together by creepers. It was like a transformation scene in a pantomime rather than a part of Mother Earth, and one seemed to await the opening of the rocks and the appearance of the spirits. Not long to wait. The creepers sway and are pulled apart. An army of monkeys swing themselves into the foreground and, hanging by their paws, stop and chatter and gibber at the strange sight of a boat. A shout from the boatmen, and they are gone with a concerted scream which echoes far and wide along the shores.
The inhabitants are not impressive or numerous on the shores, yet they show art in dress, and in manufactures. They have been terribly demoralized by the slave traders, and many sections depopulated entirely. While sailing up the western shore of the lake, Cameron thought he found what was the long sought for outlet of Tanganyika—the traditional connecting link between it and Lakes Ngami and Albert Nyanza. Of a sudden the mountains broke away and a huge gap appeared in the shores. There was evidently a river there, and his boat appeared to be in a current setting toward it. The natives said it was the Lukuga, and that it flowed out of the lake westward toward the Lualaba.
But alas for human credulity. Cameron ran into the Lukuga for seven or eight miles, found it a reedy lagoon, without current, stood up in his boat and looked seven or eight miles further toward a break in the hills, beyond which he was told the river ran away in a swift current from the lake, and then he returned home to tell the wondrous story. Tanganyika had an outlet after all. The wise men all said, “I told you so; the lake is no more mysterious than any other.” Why Cameron should have stopped short on the eve of so great a discovery, or why he should have palmed off a native story as a scientific fact, can only be accounted for by the fact that he was sick during most of his cruise and at times delirious with fever. While it was thought that he had clarified the Tanganyika
situation, it was really more of a mystery than when Burton and Speke, or Livingstone and Stanley, left it.
We here strike again the track of our own explorer Stanley. We have already followed him on his first African journey to Ujiji to find Livingstone, in 1871-72. We have seen also in our article on “The Sources of the Nile,” how he started on his second journey in 1874, determined to complete the work of Livingstone, by clearing up all doubts about the Nile sources. This involved a two-fold duty, first to fully investigate the Lakes Victoria Nyanza and Albert Nyanza; second the outlets of Tanganyika and the secret of the great Lualaba, which had so mystified Livingstone.
In pursuit of this mission we followed him to Victoria Nyanza, on his second journey, and saw how he was entertained by King Mtesa, and what adventures he had on the Victoria Nyanza. He settled it beyond doubt that the Victoria was a single large lake, with many rivers running into it, the chief of which was the Alexandra Nile. This done, he had hoped to visit Albert Nyanza, but the hostility of the natives prevented. He therefore turned southwestward toward Tanganyika, and on his way fell in with the old King Mirambo with whom he ratified a friendship by the solemn ceremony of “blood brotherhood.” The American and African sat opposite each other on a rug. A native chief then made an incision in the right leg of Mirambo and Stanley, drew a little blood from each, and exchanged it with these words:—“If either of you break this brotherhood now established between you, may the lion devour him, the serpent poison him, bitterness be his food, his friends desert him, his gun burst in his hands and everything that is bad do wrong to him until his death.”
On May 27, 1876, Stanley reached Ujiji, where he had met Livingstone in 1871. Sadly did he recall the fact that the “grand old hero” who had once been the centre of absorbing interest in that fair scene of water, mountain, sunshine and palm, was gone forever. He came equipped to circumnavigate the lake. He had along his boat, the “Lady Alice,” built lightly and in sections for just this kind of work. Leaving the bulk
of his extensive travelling party at Ujiji, well provided for, he took along only a sufficient crew for his boat, under two guides, Para, who had been Cameron’s attendant in 1874, and Ruango who had piloted Livingstone and Stanley in 1871.