This moisture converted the surrounding country into one huge bog or sponge, twenty-nine of which Livingstone had to cross in thirty miles, each taking about half an hour to cross.
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THE DISCOVERY OF LAKE BANGWEOLO, 1868: LIVINGSTONE ON
THE LAKE WITH HIS MEN. From Livingstone's Last Journals, by permission of Mr. John Murray. |
The explorer was still greatly occupied on the problem of the Nile. "The discovery of the sources of the Nile," he says, "is somewhat akin in importance to the discovery of the North-West Passage." It seemed to him not impossible that the great river he found flowing through these two great lakes to the west of Tanganyika might prove to be the Upper Nile.
It was December before he started for Tanganyika. The new year of 1868 opened badly. Half-way, he became very ill. He was constantly wet through; he persistently crossed brooks and rivers, wading through cold water up to his waist. "Very ill all over," he enters in his diary; "cannot walk. Pneumonia of right lung, and I cough all day and all night. I am carried several hours a day on a frame. The sun is vertical, blistering any part of the skin exposed, and I try to shelter my face and head as well as I can with a bunch of leaves."
On 14th February 1869 he arrived on the western shores of the lake, and after the usual delay he was put into it canoe for Ujiji. Though better, he was still very ill, and we get the pathetic entry, "Hope to hold out to Ujiji."
At last he reached the Arab settlement on the eastern shores, where he found the goods sent to him overland from Zanzibar, and though much had been stolen, yet warm clothes, tea, and coffee soon revived him. After a stay of three months he grew better, and turned westwards for the land of the Manyuema and the great rivers reported to be flowing there.
He was guided by Arabs whose trade-route extended to the great Lualaba River in the very heart of Africa some thousand miles west of Zanzibar. It was an unknown land, unvisited by Europeans when Livingstone arrived with his Arab escort at Bambarra in September 1869.
"Being now well rested," he enters in his diary, "I resolved to go west to Lualaba and buy a canoe for its exploration. The Manyuema country is all surpassingly beautiful. Palms crown the highest heights of the mountains, and the forests about five miles broad are indescribable. Climbers of cable size in great numbers are hung among the gigantic trees, many unknown wild fruits abound, some the size of a child's head, and strange birds and monkeys are everywhere."