green.  The broad estuaries fifty or more miles, into which the rivers form themselves, might be coloured blue, but it is quite impossible at present to tell where land ends, and Lake begins; it is all water, water everywhere, which seems to be kept from flowing quickly off by the narrow bed of the Luapula, which has perpendicular banks, worn deep down in new red sandstone.  It is the Nile apparently enacting its inundations, even at its sources.  The amount of water spread out over the country constantly excites my wonder; it is prodigious.  Many of the ant-hills are cultivated and covered with dura, pumpkins, beans, maize, but the waters yield food plenteously in fish and lotus-roots.  A species of wild rice grows, but the people neither need it nor know it.  A party of fishermen fled from us, but by coaxing we got them to show us deep water.  They then showed us an islet, about thirty yards square, without wood, and desired us to sleep there.  We went on, and then they decamped.

Pitiless pelting showers wetted everything; but near sunset we saw two fishermen paddling quickly off from an ant-hill, where we found a hut, plenty of fish, and some firewood.  There we spent the night, and watched by turns, lest thieves should come and haul away our canoes and goods.  Heavy rain.  One canoe sank, wetting everything in her.  The leaks in her had been stopped with clay, and a man sleeping near the stern had displaced this frail caulking.  We did not touch the fish, and I cannot conjecture who has inspired fear in all the inhabitants.

7th April, 1873.—­Went on S.W., and saw two men, who guided us to the River Muanakazi, which forms a connecting link between the River Lotingila and the Lolotikila, about the southern borders of the flood.  Men were hunting, and we passed near large herds of antelopes, which made a rushing, plunging sound as they ran and sprang away among the waters.  A lion had wandered into this world of water and ant-hills, and roared night and morning, as if very much disgusted:  we could sympathise with him!  Near to the Muanakazi, at a broad bank in shallow water near the river, we had to unload and haul.  Our guides left us, well pleased with the payment we had given them.  The natives beating a drum on our east made us believe them to be our party, and some thought that they heard two shots.  This misled us, and we went towards the sound through papyrus, tall rushes, arums, and grass, till tired out, and took refuge on an ant-hill for the night.  Lion roaring.  We were lost in stiff grassy prairies, from three to four feet deep in water, for five hours.  We fired a gun in the stillness of the night, but received no answer; so on the 8th we sent a small canoe at daybreak to ask for information and guides from the village where the drums had been beaten.  Two men came, and they thought likewise that our party was south-east; but in that direction the water was about fifteen inches in spots and three feet in others, which caused constant dragging of the large canoe all day, and at last we unloaded at another branch of the Muanakazi with a village of friendly people.  We slept there.