The water is reported to be so deep in front that it is impossible to go north:  the Wanyamwesi, who are detained here as well as we, say it is often more than a man’s depth, and there are no canoes.  They would not stop here if a passage home could be made.  I am thinking of going to Lake Bemba, because at least two months must be passed here still before a passage can be made; but my goods are getting done, and I cannot give presents to the chiefs on our way.

This Lake has a sandy, not muddy bottom, as we were at first informed, and there are four islands in it, one, the Bangweolo, is very large, and many people live on it; they have goats and sheep in abundance:  the owners of canoes demand three hoes for the hire of one capable of carrying eight or ten persons; beyond this island it is sea horizon only.  The tsebula and nzoe antelopes abound.  The people desire salt and not beads for sale.

2nd April, 1868.—­If I am not deceived by the information I have received from various reliable sources, the springs of the Nile rise between 9 deg. and 10 deg. south latitude, or at least 400 or 500 miles south of the south end of Speke’s Lake, which he considered to be the sources of the Nile.  Tanganyika is declared to send its water through north into Lake Chowambe or Baker’s Lake; if this does not prove false, then Tanganyika is an expansion of the Nile, and so is Lake Chowambe; the two Lakes being connected by the River Loanda.  Unfortunately the people on the east side of the Loanda are constantly at war with the people on the west of it, or those of Rusisi.  The Arabs have been talking of opening up a path through to Chowambe, where much ivory is reported; I hope that the Most High may give me a way there.

11th April, 1868.—­I had a long oration from Mohamad yesterday against going off for Bemba to-morrow.  His great argument is the extortionate way of Casembe, who would demand cloth, and say that in pretending to go to Ujiji I had told him lies:  he adds to this argument that this is the last month of the rains; the Masika has begun, and our way north will soon be open.  The fact of the matter is that Mohamad, by not telling me of the superabundance of water in the country of the Marungu, which occurs every year, caused me to lose five months.  He knew that we should be detained here, but he was so eager to get out of his state of durance with Casembe that he hastened my departure by asserting that we should be at Ujiji in one month.  I regret this deception, but it is not to be wondered at, and in a Mohamadan and in a Christian too it is thought clever.  Were my goods not nearly done I would go, and risk the displeasure of Casembe for the chance of discovering the Lake Bemba.  I thought once of buying from Mohamad Bogharib, but am afraid that his stock may be getting low too:  I fear that I must give up this Lake for the present.