Respecting this system of Lakes in the centre of Africa, it will possibly occur to some that Lake Nyassa may give a portion of its water off from its northern end to the Nile, but this would imply a Lake giving off a river at both ends; the country, too, on the north-north-west and north-east rises to from 4000 to 6000 feet above the sea, and there is not the smallest indication that Nyassa and Tanganyika were ever connected.  Lake Liemba is the most southerly part of Tanganyika; its latitude is 8 deg. 46’ south; the most northerly point of Lake Nyassa is probably 10 deg. 56’-8 deg. 46’ = 2 deg. 10’.  Longitude of Liemba 34 deg. 57’-31 deg. 57’ = 3 deg. 00’ = 180’ of longitude.  Of latitude 130’ + 180’ = 310’, two-thirds of which is about 206’, the distance between two Lakes; and no evidence of fissure, rent, or channel now appears on the highland between.

Again, Liemba is 3000 feet above the sea.  The altitude of Nyassa is 1200/x800 feet.  Tanganyika would thus go to Nyassa—­down the Shire into the Zambesi and the sea, if a passage existed even below ground.

The large Lake, said to exist to the north-west of Tanganyika might, however, send a branch to the Nile; but the land rises up into a high ridge east of this Lake.

It is somewhat remarkable that the impression which intelligent Suaheli, who have gone into Karagwe, have received is, that the Kitangule flows from Tanganyika into Lake Ukerewe.  One of Syde bin Omar’s people put it to me very forcibly the other day by saying, “Kitangule is an arm of Tanganyika!” He had not followed it out; but that Dagara, the father of Rumanyika, should have in his lifetime seriously proposed to deepen the upper part of it, so as to allow canoes to pass from his place to Ujiji, is very strong evidence of the river being large on the Tanganyika side.  We know it to be of good size, and requiring canoes on the Ukerewe side.  Burton came to the very silly conclusion that when a native said a river ran one way, he meant that it flowed in the opposite direction.  Ujiji, in Rumanyika’s time, was the only mart for merchandise in the country.  Garaganza or Galaganza has most trade and influence now. (14th Sept., 1868.)

Okara is the name by which Victoria Nyanza is known on the eastern side, and an arm of it, called Kavirondo, is about forty miles broad.  Lake Baringo is a distinct body of water, some fifty miles broad, and giving off a river called Ngardabash, which flows eastwards into the Somauli country.  Lake Naibash is more to the east than Kavirondo, and about fifty miles broad too:  it gives off the River Kidete, which is supposed to flow into Lufu.  It is south-east of Kavirondo; and Kilimanjaro can be seen from its shores; in the south-east Okara, Naibash and Baringo seem to have been run by Speke into one Lake.  Okara, in the south, is full of large islands, and has but little water between them; that little is encumbered with aquatic vegetation called “Tikatika,” on which, as in lakelet Gumadona, a man can walk.  Waterlilies and duckweed are not the chief part of this floating mass.  In the north Okara is large.  Burukinegge land is the boundary between the people of Kavirondo and the Gallahs with camels and horses.