After leaving Muazi’s, we passed over a flat country sparsely covered with the scraggy upland trees, but brightened with many fine flowers.  The grass was short, reaching no higher than the knee, and growing in tufts with bare spaces between, though the trees were draped with many various lichens, and showed a moist climate.  A high and very sharp wind blew over the flats; its piercing keenness was not caused by low temperature, for the thermometer stood at 80 degrees.

We were now on the sources of the Loangwa of the Maravi, which enters the Zambesi at Zumbo, and were struck by the great resemblance which the boggy and sedgy streams here presented to the sources of the Leeba, an affluent of the Zambesi formerly observed in Londa, and of the Kasai, which some believe to be the principal branch of the Congo or Zaire.

We had taken pains to ascertain from the travelled Babisa and Arabs as much as possible about the country in front, which, from the lessening time we had at our disposal, we feared we could scarcely reach, and had heard a good deal of a small lake called Bemba.  As we proceeded west, we passed over the sources not only of the Loangwa, but of another stream, called Moitawa or Moitala, which was represented to be the main feeder of Lake Bemba.  This would be of little importance, but for the fact that the considerable river Luapula, or Loapula is said to flow out of Bemba to the westward, and then to spread out into another and much larger lake, named Moero, or Moelo.  Flowing still further in the same direction, the Loapula forms Lake Mofue, or Mofu, and after this it is said to pass the town of Cazembe, bend to the north, and enter Lake Tanganyika.  Whither the water went after it entered the last lake, no one would venture an assertion.  But that the course indicated is the true watershed of that part of the country, we believe from the unvarying opinion of native travellers.  There could be no doubt that our informants had been in the country beyond Cazembe’s, for they knew and described chiefs whom we afterwards met about thirty-five or forty miles west of his town.  The Lualaba is said to flow into the Loapula—­and when, for the sake of testing the accuracy of the travelled, it was asserted that all the water of the region round the town of Cazembe flowed into the Luambadzi, or Luambezi (Zambesi), they remarked with a smile, “He says, that the Loapula flows into the Zambesi—­did you ever hear such nonsense?” or words to that effect.  We were forced to admit, that according to native accounts, our previous impression of the Zambesi’s draining the country about Cazembe’s had been a mistake.  Their geographical opinions are now only stated, without any further comment than that the itinerary given by the Arabs and others shows that the Loapula is twice crossed on the way to Cazembe’s; and we may add that we have never found any difficulty from the alleged incapacity of the negro to tell which way a river flows.