[11]. Yet we read of the ‘great river Matoney,’ and of ‘travellers crossing the great River Mtony.’ Mto, in the language of Zanzibar, is a river or a rivulet; also a pillow. The Quilimani River signifies simply kilima-ni, (water) from the mountain. The meaning of Quilimansi (the Obi—Webbe—Nile of Makdishu, Webbe Shebayli, of late christened the Haines River, and called Quilimancy by De Barros, from a settlement now unknown) is still under dispute. It cannot grammatically be made to mean ‘mountain-stream, or a mountain with streams,’ as Dr Krapf has it.
[12]. The ‘Father of History’ evidently held to the theory that the modern Bahr el Ghazal (explored of late by Mr Petherich and by the unfortunate Tinné family) was the head reservoir of the White Nile. Nor is it impossible that in long-past ages the lakes or waters in question were fed by a watershed whose eastern declivities still discharge themselves into the higher basin.
[13]. In 1859 I had written (Journal Royal Geographical Society, vol. xxix. 272) ‘The Nyanza, as regards name, position, and even existence, has hitherto been unknown to European geographers; but descriptions of this “sea” by native travellers have been unconsciously transferred by our writers to the Tanganyika of Ujiji, and even to the Nyassa of Kilwa.’ Mr Hogg proposes to show that such was not the case. But the map by John Senex (1711) throws into one three or at least two waters. Mercator (Kauffman) lays the ‘Garava’ lakelet almost parallel with the Zaflan (Zambeze) or Kilwa Lake. Walker (1811) and Lizars (1815) fit in the Tanganyika correctly, whilst the Nyassa is wholly incorrect.
Of the five maps one only, that of John Senex, deserves consideration. ‘This great lake placed here by report of the negroes,’ alludes, I believe, to legends of the Bahari-ngo (the ‘great sea,’ vulgarly, Baringo), of which many East African travellers have heard. One Rumu wa Kikandi, a native of Uemba, described the water to Dr Krapf as lying five days’ journey from Mount Kenia: in the Introduction to his last travels (p. xlviii.), however, the enterprising missionary identifies it with the so-called Nyanza or Ukerewe Lake. I was told of it by the Wakamba at Mombasah in 1857. The Père Léon d’Avanchers (Bulletin de la Société de Géographie, vol. xvii. 164) also collected, when travelling on the East African coast, in August, 1858, information concerning Baharingo, as he writes it. Senex finally disconnects it with the Nile, and indeed gives it no drainage at all.
I cannot but think that Mr Hogg’s learning and research have considerably strengthened my position, and that the so-called Nyanza Lake was, curious to say, the least known, and at the same time the nearest, to European geographers.
[14]. This ‘restrictive treaty’ was published in No. 24 of the Bombay Selection (1856), under the head of ‘Persian Gulf.’
[15]. We must not, however, forget that in ‘all-enlightened England’ Smollett could complain of the ‘people at the other end of the island knowing as little of Scotland as of Japan.’
[16]. The ‘Nyassi’ is, in fact, a general reservoir into which are thrown the Lakes Tanganyika, the Nyassa, the Shirwa, and the four smaller waters, the Liemba, the Bangweolo, the Moero of the great river Chambeze, and the Liemba drained by the Lufira-Luapula stream. The latter, lying between S. lat. 10°-12°, have lately been reported by Dr Livingstone (Map of the Lake Region of Eastern Africa)[Africa)], showing the Sources of the Nile recently discovered by Dr Livingstone, with notes, &c., by Keith Johnston, jun. (Johnston); and we have a Sketch Map of Dr Livingstone’s recent Explorations—Eine Kartenskizze, &c. From Dr Petermann’s Geographische Mittheilungen, Part V., for May, 1870 (Gotha, Perthes).
[17]. Changa (large sands), in the plural Michanga, sands (of great extent). Mchanga (sand generally), at Mombasah and on the coast which preserve the older dialect, becomes Mtángá, and means a sandy place. The islanders of Zanzibar, for instance, will say Nti (the land or earth), the continentals, Nchi: these prefer Ku Changanyika (to meet together), those Ku Tanganyika. Foreigners often confound chyá with jyá, and pronounce, for instance, Msijyáná for Msichyáná—a lass. The Arabs, who cannot articulate the ch, convert it into their familiar sh, e. g. Ku Shimba for Ku Chimba (to dig).
[18]. Manioc, often erroneously written Mahogo.