[A TRIP ON LAKE NYASSA.]
As many of our readers will doubtless recollect, Mr E. D. Young, R.N., left this country in May 1875, with a small party, for the purpose of establishing the Livingstonia mission, and of placing a small steamer on Lake Nyassa, in the interior of Africa; he and his friends being moved thereto by an earnest determination to carry out one of the dearest wishes of the late Dr Livingstone. Mr Young has recently returned home; and on February 26th he delivered, before the Royal Geographical Society, an interesting account of what he did and what he saw on the Lake of Storms, from which we condense the following brief particulars.
We join Mr Young and his party at the Kongoné mouth of the Zambesi, where the sections of the little steamer Ilala were screwed together; and although an extraordinary flood, early in 1875, had altered the course of the rivers since her captain's previous visit, nothing materially impeded her passage to the foot of the Shiré cataracts. These falls extend for some seventy-five miles, and are a very formidable obstacle to navigation. In the distance named, the waters of Lake Nyassa leap down a staircase of rocks and boulders for some eighteen hundred feet; and before the traveller can reach the higher ground, he has to traverse a most rugged road. Want of porters, as a rule, is the most grievous obstacle to be overcome; but thanks to the kindly recollection existing among the natives of previous missionaries, Mr Young experienced no difficulty on this score; and in ten days the Ilala was taken to pieces, and her sections, boilers, machinery, and stores were conveyed to the upper end of the cataracts. What, however, is thus told in a few brief words, involved very great toil; and Mr Young himself says that the carriage of the steel plates, &c., necessitated some of the most tremendous exertion he ever witnessed, which was much aggravated by the intense heat, in some places reaching one hundred and twenty degrees in the shade. We may certainly admit with him, that the men who did this four days' work for six yards of calico each (say one shilling and sixpence), finding their own food too, without a grumble or a growl, were not to be despised. The work of reconstruction was soon accomplished, and steam was up in a fortnight.
The little steamer entered Lake Nyassa at 7 A.M. on the 12th of October 1875. After examining several beautiful bays and inlets, which did not afford the necessary shelter for the vessel, Mr Young's party resolved to settle, at anyrate temporarily, at Cape Maclear, whither, accordingly, they transported all their stores. On November 19th Mr Young set off on a voyage round the lake, in the course of which he discovered a large extension of its waters, hitherto unknown. Making his way northwards, he came in sight of the grand range which towers over Chiloweela; in places the mountains run sheer down into the lake, and no bottom could be got at one hundred fathoms. After weathering a furious gale which raged for thirteen hours, the Ilala pursued her northward voyage, passing the islands of Likomo and Chusamoolo. On his right, Mr Young reports an iron-bound coast stretching everywhere, excepting only when some ravine came down to the shore. In one spot, there were evident signs of a dreadful massacre having taken place—the result of a slave-raid. Mr Young's account of what he saw here is curious and interesting. Hardly any wood, he says, was to be procured, in consequence of the forests being cleared, and the only remnant of a large population was now to be found on rocky patches jutting up from the water of the lake, and on singular 'pile villages.' It was found that the poor creatures had conveyed earth in their canoes to these rocks, and wherever a crevice afforded a hold, there would a little patch of cassava or corn appear, grown with infinite labour.
The platform villages reached by Mr Young were exceedingly interesting; for the most part they are built three or four hundred yards from the shore, and in from eight to twelve feet of water. Poles are driven down in rows, and on the top of them a wooden platform is constructed, forming the foundation or floor of the village. To give some idea of the extent of these, it may be mentioned that one of them consisted of about one hundred huts. With an abundance of fish round them, the islanders hold their own against starvation. Shortly after leaving these strange villages, Mr Young met with some scenery, the description of which is worth quoting. 'We were now abreast,' he says, 'of some mountains that amongst the parallel ranges which virtually make a mountain-basin of Lake Nyassa, exceed them all in stupendous grandeur. In no part of the world have I seen anything to equal their peculiar magnificence. With peaks apparently from ten to twelve thousand feet high, they run perpendicularly down into the lake. The rain was pouring upon them, and numberless waterfalls hung like threads of white floss-silk from crevices which ran out upon their sides far up among the clouds. Baffled by the raids of the Ma Viti in 1866, Livingstone could not induce his men to go with him to the north end of Nyassa, and thus he missed seeing that which would have struck him as the most beautiful feature of "his old home," as he called the lake. There was but one name to give to these mountains. At its northern end they stand like portals to the lake, faced by the opposite mountains; and as future travellers look upon the "Livingstone Range," it may aid them to remember the man who during his life, more than any other, added to our knowledge of the hitherto unknown beauties of the earth.'
A violent storm, more like what might be expected on the Atlantic than on an inland sea, prevented Mr Young from doing much in the way of exploring the unknown region at the end of the lake; but he saw there what he believed to be the mouth of a wide river; and this opinion was confirmed by what he learned from the natives when he next landed after the storm referred to. They averred that a River Rovuma or Röoma flows out at the extreme north; and he inclines to believe this to be the case for the following reasons: In the first place, Dr Livingstone heard the same story twenty years ago, when he discovered the lake, and in quite a different quarter. It will be remembered by many how sanguine he was that the Rovuma River, which debouches on the east coast, was identical with the Nyassa River, and that it would prove to be a second outlet. It may yet prove to be so; but the discovery can be of little use, for the Rovuma ceases to be navigable a short distance from the coast. The second reason for believing the native report is, that in the stormy time, when Mr Young was there, it was very easy to see where rivers ran into the lake. A long current of muddy water would trail out on the dark-blue surface; in this case, however, there was nothing of the kind; and it is consequently tolerably clear that no inflow exists.
Cruising southwards along the western shore of the lake, Mr Young observed, instead of the iron-bound coast on the opposite side, exquisite park-like glades between the mountains and the water's edge; the herds of game merely looked up as the steamer passed, just as sheep raise their heads to gaze at a train, and then went on browsing. In one place a remarkable detached perpendicular rock stands four thousand feet high. The top is flat, and the sides give it the appearance of a pyramid from which a large slice of the top has been removed in order to place in position a perfectly square block of a greenish colour. Beneath this singular summit there is a deep horizontal band of white stone or quartz, succeeded by another of clay apparently; and then comes one of intense black, possibly coal, for this mineral is known to all the natives.
Mr Young's story of his cruise furnishes undeniable evidence of the justness of the name Dr Livingstone gave to Nyassa, namely the Lake of Storms, for he has constantly to record meeting with them—one more terrible than the other. The last he mentions must have been fearfully and awfully grand in its wildness. 'At one time,' he says, 'in the middle of a thunder-storm of great fury, no fewer than twelve waterspouts appeared around us, and we had literally to steer hither and thither to avoid them, for had one overtaken us, it would have sent us to the bottom without a doubt.'
Such are the salient features in Mr Young's brief account of the first trip made by a steamer on the stormy bosom of Lake Nyassa. It did not come within the scope of his paper to describe the daily life of the missionary party at Cape Maclear, the insight they got into the native life, the intrigues of the slave-traders, nor the marvellous effect which the presence of Europeans produced on all sides, more especially in attracting to them from the four winds the scattered remnants of villages swept away by slave-raids; but it will be interesting to our readers to state in conclusion, that he hopes to preserve these details for the public in another form, which we feel sure will meet with the welcome it cannot fail to deserve, as the record of the establishment of the first British colony on Lake Nyassa.