I gazed in dismay. The remains of my blindness, the veil of trees, and broad ray of sunshine illuminating but one reach of the lake, had shrunk its fair proportions. Prematurely I began to curse my folly in having risked life and health for so poor a prize, and even thought of proposing an immediate return with a view of exploring the Nyanza, or Northern Lake. Advancing, however, a few yards, the whole scene suddenly burst upon my view, filling me with wonder, admiration, and delight. My longing eyes beheld the Tanganyika Lake as it lay in the lap of the mountain, basking in the gorgeous tropical sunshine. Our journey had not been in vain.
II
THE LAKE REGIONS
I shall never forget my first glimpse of Tanganyika. Below and beyond a short foreground of rugged and precipitous hill-fold, down which the footpath zigzagged painfully, a narrow strip of emerald green shelved towards a ribbon of glistening yellow sand, here bordered by sedgy rushes, there cleanly cut by the breaking wavelets. Further in front stretched the waters, an expanse of soft blue, in breadth varying from thirty to thirty-five miles, and sprinkled by the crisp east wind with tiny crescents of snowy foam. The background in front was a high and broken wall of steel-coloured mountain. To the south, and opposite the long, low point, lay bluff headlands, and, as the eye dilated, it fell upon a cluster of outlying islets, speckling a sea horizon. Villages, cultivated lands, the frequent canoes of the fishermen on the waters, and, as we came nearer, the murmur of the waters breaking upon the shore, gave variety and movement to the landscape. The riant shores of this vast lake appeared doubly beautiful to me after the silent and spectral mangrove creeks on the East African seaboard, and the melancholy, mononotous
experience I had gone through of desert and jungle, tawny rock and sunburnt plain, or rank herbage and flats of black mire. Truly it was a feast of soul and sight. Forgetting toils, dangers, and the doubtfulness of return, I felt willing to endure double what I had endured. I had sighted the fabled lake, and all the party seemed to join with me in joy. Even my purblind companion found nothing to grumble at except the “mist and glare before his eyes.”
Arrived at Ukaranga I was disappointed to find there a few miserable grass huts that clustered around a single “tembe,” or inn, then occupied by its proprietor, an Arab trader. I found that that part of Ukaranga contained not a single native canoe, and there seemed no possibility of getting one, the innkeeper being determined that I should spend beads for rations and lodgings among him and his companions, and be heavily mulcted for a boat into the bargain. The latter manœuvre was frustrated by my securing a solid-built Arab craft for the morrow, capable of containing from thirty to thirty-five men. It belonged to an absent merchant, and in point of size it was second on Tanganyika, and, being too large for paddling, the crew rowed, instead of scooping up the water like the natives. I paid an exorbitant price for the hire of this boat.
Early in the morning of the following day, February 14th, we began coasting along the eastern shore of the lake in a north-westerly direction, towards the
Kawele district, in the land of Ujiji. The view was exceedingly beautiful, and the picturesque and varied forms of the mountains, rising above and dipping into the lake, were clad in purplish blue, set off by the rosy tints of the morning. As we approached our destination, I wondered at the absence of houses and people. By the Arabs I had been taught to expect a town, a port, and a bazaar excelling in size that of Zanzibar, instead of which I found a few scattered hovels, and our craft was poled up through a hole in a thick welting of coarse grass to a level landing-place of flat shingle. Such was the disembarkation quay of the great Ujiji.
We stepped ashore. Around the landing-place a few scattered huts represented the port-town. Advancing some hundred yards through a din of shouts and screams, tom-toms and trumpets, which defies description, and mobbed by a swarm of black beings whose eyes seemed about to start from their heads with surprise, I passed a relic of Arab civilisation, the bazaar. It was on a plot of higher ground, and there, between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., weather permitting, a mass of standing and squatting negroes buy and sell, barter and exchange, offer and chaffer, with a hubbub heard for miles. The articles exposed for sale were sometimes goats and sheep and poultry, generally fish, vegetables, and a few fruits, and palm wine was a staple commodity. Occasionally an ivory or a slave was hawked about. Such was the little village of Kawele. The Tanganyika is ever seen to advantage