2nd April, 1872.—­Making a sounding-line out of lint left by Mr. Stanley.  Whydah birds are now building their nests.  The cock-bird brings fine grass seed-stalks off the top of my Tembe.  He takes the end inside the nest and pulls it all in, save the ear.  The hen keeps inside, constantly arranging the grass with all her might, sometimes making the whole nest move by her efforts.  Feathers are laid in after the grass.

4th April, 1872.—­We hear that Dugumbe’s men have come to Ujiji with fifty tusks.  He went down Lualaba with three canoes a long way and bought much ivory.  They were not molested by Monangungo as we were.

My men whom I had sent to look for a book left by accident in a hut some days’ journey off came back stopped by a flood in their track.  Copying observations for Sir T. Maclear.

8th April, 1872.—­An Arab called Seyed bin Mohamad Magibbe called.  He proposes to go west to the country west of Katanga (Urange).

[It is very interesting to find that the results of the visit paid by Speke and Grant to Mteza, King of Uganda, have already become well marked.  As we see, Livingstone was at Unyanyembe when a large trading party dropped in on their way back to the king, who, it will be remembered, lives on the north-western shores of the Victoria Nyassa.]

9th April, 1872.—­About 150 Waganga of Mteza carried a present to Seyed Burghash, Sultan of Zanzibar, consisting of ivory and a young elephant.[17] He spent all the ivory in buying return presents of gunpowder, guns, soap, brandy, gin, &c., and they have stowed it all in this Tembe.  This morning they have taken everything out to see if anything is spoilt.  They have hundreds of packages.

One of the Baganda told me yesterday that the name of the Deity is Dubale in his tongue.

15th April, 1872.—­Hung up the sounding-line on poles 1 fathom apart and tarred it. 375 fathoms of 5 strands.

Ptolemy’s geography of Central Africa seems to say that the science was then (second century A.D.) in a state of decadence from what was known to the ancient Egyptian priests as revealed to Herodotus 600 years before his day (or say B.C. 440).  They seem to have been well aware by the accounts of travellers or traders that a great number of springs contributed to the origin of the Nile, but none could be pointed at distinctly as the “Fountains,” except those I long to discover, or rather rediscover.  Ptolemy seems to have gathered up the threads of ancient explorations, and made many springs (six) flow into two Lakes situated East and West of each other—­the space above them being unknown.  If the Victoria Lake were large, then it and the Albert would probably be the Lakes which Ptolemy meant, and it would be pleasant to call them Ptolemy’s sources, rediscovered by the toil and enterprise of our countrymen Speke, Grant, and Baker—­but unfortunately Ptolemy has inserted the small Lake “Coloe,” nearly where the Victoria Lake stands, and one cannot say where his two Lakes are.  Of Lakes Victoria, Bangweolo, Moero, Kamolondo—­Lake Lincoln and Lake Albert, which two did he mean?  The science in his time was in a state of decadence.  Were two Lakes not the relics of a greater number previously known?  What says the most ancient map known of Sethos II.’s time?