We have only been at the Lake at one season of the year:  then the wind blows strongly from the east, and indeed this is its prevailing direction hence to the Orange River; a north or a south wind is rare, and seldom lasts more than three days.  As the breeze now blew over a large body of water, towards us, it was delightful; but when facing it on the table-land it was so strong as materially to impede our progress, and added considerably to the labour of travelling.  Here it brought large quantities of the plant (Vallisneriae), from which the natives extract salt by burning, and which, if chewed, at once shows its saline properties by the taste.  Clouds of the kungo, or edible midges, floated on the Lake, and many rested on the bushes on land.

The reeds along the shores of the Lake were still crowded with fugitives, and a great loss of life must since have taken place; for, after the corn they had brought with them was expended, famine would ensue.  Even now we passed many women and children digging up the roots, about the size of peas, of an aromatic grass; and their wasted forms showed that this poor hard fare was to allay, if possible, the pangs of hunger.  The babies at the breast crowed to us as we passed, their mothers kneeling and grubbing for the roots; the poor little things still drawing nourishment from the natural fountain were unconscious of that sinking of heart which their parents must have felt in knowing that the supply for the little ones must soon fail.  No one would sell a bit of food to us:  fishermen, even, would not part with the produce of their nets, except in exchange for some other kind of food.  Numbers of newly-made graves showed that many had already perished, and hundreds were so emaciated that they had the appearance of human skeletons swathed in brown and wrinkled leather.  In passing mile after mile, marked with these sad proofs that “man’s inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn,” one experiences an overpowering sense of helplessness to alleviate human woe, and breathes a silent prayer to the Almighty to hasten the good time coming when “man and man the world o’er, shall brothers be for all that.”  One small redeeming consideration in all this misery could not but be felt; these ills were inflicted by heathen Mazitu, and not by, or for, those who say to Him who is higher than the highest, “We believe that thou shalt come to be our Judge.”

We crossed the Mokole, rested at Chitanda, and then left the Lake, and struck away N.W. to Chinsamba’s.  Our companions, who were so much oppressed by the rarefied air of the plateau, still showed signs of exhaustion, though now only 1300 feet above the sea, and did not recover flesh and spirits till we again entered the Lower Shire Valley, which is of so small an altitude, that, without simultaneous observations with the barometer there and on the sea-coast, the difference would not be appreciable.