During my journey through Angola I received at Cassenge a packet of the "Times" from home with news of the Russian war up to the terrible charge of the light cavalry. The intense anxiety I felt to hear more may be imagined by every true patriot.
After leaving the Kasai country, we entered upon a great level plain, which we had formerly found in a flooded condition. We forded the Lotembwa on June 8, and found that the little Lake Dilolo, by giving a portion to our Kasai and another to the Zambesi, distributes its waters to the Atlantic and Indian oceans. From information derived from Arabs at Zanzibar, whom I met at Naliele in the middle of the country, a large shallow lake is pointed out in the region east of Loanda, named Tanganyenka, which requires three days in crossing in canoes. It is connected with another named Kalagwe (Garague?), farther north, and may be the Nyanja of the Maravim.
Although I was warned that the Batoka tribe would be hostile, I decided on going down the Zambesi, and on my way I visited the falls of Victoria, called by the natives Mosioatunya, or more anciently, Shongwe. No one can imagine the beauty of the view from anything witnessed in England. It has never been seen before by European eyes, but scenes so lovely must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight. Five columns of "smoke" arose, bending in the direction of the wind. The entire falls is simply a crack made in a hard basaltic rock from the right to the left bank of the Zambesi, and then prolonged from the left bank away through thirty or forty miles of hills. The whole scene was extremely beautiful; the banks and islands dotted over the river are adorned with sylvan vegetation of great variety of colour and form. At the period of our visit several of the trees were spangled over with blossoms.
In due time we reached the confluence of the Loangwa and the Zambesi, most thankful to God for His great mercies in helping us thus far. I felt some turmoil of spirit in the evening at the prospect of having all my efforts for the welfare of this great region and its teeming population knocked on the head by savages to-morrow, who might be said to "know not what they do."
When at last we reached within eight miles of Tete I was too fatigued to go on, but sent the commandant the letters of recommendation of the bishop and lay down to rest. Next morning two officers and some soldiers came to fetch us, and when I had partaken of a good breakfast, though I had just before been too tired to sleep, all my fatigue vanished. The pleasure of that breakfast was enhanced by the news that Sebastopol had fallen and the war finished.
PIERRE LOTI
The Desert
I.—Arabia Deserta