Lake Nyasa

“ The smaller basin of the longer river is due to its narrowness when passing through the Sahara. Southward the basin includes the northern part of the plateau between the two “Rift” valleys which traverse that part of Africa, and also that portion of the Albertine (or western) “Rift” valley which lies north of the Mfumbiro mountains. That part of the plateau within the Nile basin is occupied by the Victoria Nyanza and its affluents. These affluents drain a comparatively small part of this plateau, which stretches south to Lake Nyasa. ”

“ From the summit of an inclined plane, eight thousand feet above the level of the sea, the eye travels for sixty miles over hundreds of little hills, embosomed in the widely diverging arc that defines the bay-like valley, in which is contained the whole 55 of the numberless streams that, joining the small river Dinkee near to Farree, flow into Lee Adu. This lake formed a bright feature of the scene, embosomed in the dark green belt of forest that marks the course of the Hawash; beyond which the sandy plains of Adal, blending with a colourless sky, constituted an horizon in which sight was lost. ”

“ These Wa-Nyassa, or people of the lake, as they call themselves, have been driven away by fear, and they rarely leave their lake dwelling unless under cover of night. Even then they are liable to capture by any man of a stronger tribe who happens to meet them, and numbers who have been kidnapped in this way are to be found in the villages of neighboring chiefs. ”

“ Instead of being one hundred and fifty miles long, as first supposed, Lake Nyassa is now known to have a length of three hundred and fifty miles, and a breadth varying from sixteen to sixty miles. It occupies a gigantic trough of granite and gneiss, the profoundly deep water standing at a level of sixteen hundred feet above the sea, with the mountains rising all around it, and sometimes sheer above it, to a height of one, two, three, and four thousand feet. ”

“ The waters of the Nyanza, violently agitated, were foaming like the billows of a sea. By the appearance of certain long swells that followed the sinking of the waves, the doctor was enabled to conclude that the lake must have great depth of water. Only one or two rude boats were seen during this rapid passage.
“This lake is evidently, from its elevated position, the natural reservoir of the rivers in the eastern part of Africa, and the sky gives back to it in rain what it takes in vapor from the streams that flow out of it. ”

“ For several miles from the shore its dark grey stream continues to flow in a separate channel without intermingling with the blue waters of the lake.
The natives have a great veneration for their river, and one of the titles they give it seems to justify the hypothesis that it is really the main headstream of the Nile. According to Stanley they call it the "mother" of the "Stony Current," that is, of the emissary of Lake Nyanza in Uganda. At its north-west angle the lake is joined by the Kalonga, another copious river rising in the west in the neighbourhood of Lake Mwutan-Nzigé. ”

“ But the Kitangure River, according to the Arabs, falls into the Nyanza diagonally from south-west to north-east. Its embouchure will, therefore, not be distant from the equator. The line of road is thus described: After ascending the hills of Ruhembe the route, deflecting eastward, pursues for three days the lacustrine plain of the Nyanza. At Tenga, the fourth station, the first gradient of the Karagwah mountains is crossed, probably at low levels, where the spurs fall towards the lake. ”

“ Toward Fond du Lac, on the south, the horizon is the lake. South-southwestward, Black Wolf Point runs out, just over the verge, and the tops of the tall trees upon it peep up into view, like shadowy pile-work. Westward are the well-kept hospital grounds, fringed with stately elms overhanging the firm, gravelly beach, studded with ice-heaved bowlders, which extends northward to Neenah. The view to the north and northeast is delightfully hazy, being now dark with delicate fringes of forest which cap the occasional limestone promontories, and again losing itself in a watery sky-line. ”

“ It is not artificial, but a natural lake, that is partly fed by the water of the Jussuf canal; its utility is as good as non-existent; no fishing-boat enlivens the hard and desert-circled water mirror, as the brackish water contains scarcely any fish, and is not even favourable to the vegetation at the shores; when the Nile is high and there is plenty of water flowing in, it does swell, but it is by far too deep to allow a drop of the water that flows into it to flow out again ”

“ Here I first saw the extraordinary "Kungu" fly, which is, I believe, peculiar to Lake Nyassa. They resemble small may-flies, and at certain seasons of the year rise from the water in such stupendous clouds that they blot out the whole horizon. Seen in the distance, they have exactly the appearance of a rainstorm coming across the lake. When they are blown landwards they make every place uninhabitable by the stench which arises from the countless millions that lodge and die on every inch of sheltered ground. ”

“ Elsewhere they make clear off at sight of man.
The first village we came to on the banks of the Lake had a grove of palm-oil and other trees around it. This palm tree was not the dwarf species seen on Lake Nyassa. A cluster of the fruit passed the door of my hut which required two men to carry it. The fruit seemed quite as large as those on the West Coast. Most of the natives live on two islands, where they cultivate the soil, rear goats, and catch fish. The Lake is not large, from 15 to 20 miles broad, and from 30 to 40 long. ”

“ A feature of Lake Albert Edward Nyanza is the thick haze which overhangs the water during the dry season, blotting out from view the mountains. In the rains, when the sky is clear, the magnificent panorama of hills encircling the lake on the west and north-west is revealed. The lake water is clear of a light green colour, and distinctly brackish. Fish abound, as do waterfowl, crocodiles and, in the southern swamps, hippopotami. In the rainy season the lake is subject to violent storms. ”

“ One of the gentlemen present, Senhor Candido, had visited a lake 45 days to the N.N.W. of Tete, which is probably the Lake Maravi of geographers, as in going thither they pass through the people of that name. The inhabitants of its southern coast are named Shiva; those on the north, Mujao; and they call the lake Nyanja or Nyanje, which simply means a large water, or bed of a large river. A high mountain stands in the middle of it, called Murombo or Murombola, which is inhabited by people who have much cattle. ”

“ I have seldom been more powerfully affected by nature. The lake lying in hot mist under dark clouds, with the swamp and jungle on one side and an absolutely impenetrable wall of entangled trees and trailers on the other, so dense and matted that before putting one's feet on shore space would have to be cut for them with a parang, seemed as if it must be a hundred miles from the abodes of men, and as if nobody had ever been there before or ever would be there again. ”

“ As we descend from Karimi to the basin of the Albert Edward the first thing we become conscious of is that we are treading the dry bed of a lake. We do not require a gifted geologist to tell us that. Five feet of rise to the lake would increase its extent five miles to the north and five miles to the south. Fifty feet of rise would restore the lake to its old time-honoured condition, when its waves rolled over the pebbled beach under the shadows of the forest near Mtsora. ”

“ We push on rapidly, lest the news of our coming might reach the people of Ujiji before we come in sight, and are ready for them. We halt at a little brook, then ascend the long slope of a naked ridge, the very last of the myriads we have crossed. This alone prevents us from seeing the lake in all its vastness. We arrive at the summit, travel across and arrive at its western rim, and— pause, reader—the port of Ujiji is below us, embowered in the palms, only five hundred yards from us! ”

“ From Liwonde the S.S. Monteith took me to Fort Johnston, which is the port of Lake Nyassa, and is situated a few miles south of the bar at the outlet of the lake. A short distance from Fort Johnston the river opens out and forms the small lake Pamalomba, formerly a great haunt of elephant. The lake is very shallow, and as the steamer passes along, the disturbed mud emits enormous volumes of marsh gas: so great is the quantity that the water has the appearance of violently boiling. ”

“ They do eat whomsoever they assault, and he that catches anybody of another tribe, kills him and eats him, as the game eaten. The situation of these lakes is from 50-56° longitude from the springs of the river, and from 6-7° latitude on the south of the equator. The Oriental lake is called Kúkû and Tamim es-Sudanese, and the occidental Damâdim and Galjûr and Hajami. ”

“ No human inhabitant can dwell in these impenetrable swamps; but they are far from empty of life. Great flights of wild geese, ducks, waders, and other water-fowl abound here in prodigious numbers, and rise from the brake at the noise of the passing boat or steamer—for already steamers now ply on the waters of the river below and the great lake above.
The discovery of the lake was due to Livingstone who had heard of the “Great Water” somewhere to the north of the Zambesi and far amid the mountains of the Shiré. ”

“ It resembles Albert Nyanza and Tanganyika, with which it was formerly supposed to be connected. Its shores are overhung by tall mountains, down which cascades plunge into the lake. But once on the tops of these mountains, there is no precipitous decline; only high table land stretching off in all directions. The inhabitants are the wildest kind of Zulus, who carry formidable weapons and paint their bodies in fiendish devices. They are the victims of the slave traders to an extent which would shock even the cruel Arab brigands of the White Nile.
Lake Nyassa is a “Lake of Storms.” ”

“ But the produce of the lake resembles that of the river in its purity; the people living on the shores prefer it, unlike that of the Tanganyika, to the highest and clearest springs; all visitors agree in commending its lightness and sweetness, and declare that the taste is rather of river or of rain water, than resembling the soft slimy produce of stagnant, muddy bottoms, or the rough harsh flavour of melted ice and snow.
"From the southern creek of the Nyanza, and beyond the archipelago of neighbouring islets, appear the two features which have given to this lake the name of Ukerewe. ”

“ Apart from this local development of igneous rocks at the north end of Lake Nyassa, the only other break in the granitic series throughout the area traversed by my line of march occurs near the native village of Karonga, on Lake Nyassa. About a dozen miles from the north-western lake shore on the route to Tanganyika, after following the Rukuru river through a defile of granite rocks, I came, to my great surprise, upon a well-marked series of stratified beds. At a bend in the river a fine section is exposed. ”

“ The changes which a lapse of nearly two thousand years may be supposed to have occasioned on the northern coast of Africa, are fully sufficient to have reduced the river Lathon to the spring which now flows into the Lake of Bengazi.
The lake itself is salt, and in the summer is nearly dry; while the small stream in question takes its rise within a few yards of the lake, and running along a channel of inconsiderable breadth, bordered with reeds and rushes, might be mistaken by a common observer for an inroad of the lake into the sandy soil which bounds it. ”

“ No eye of white man had ever beheld this lake before, and to Lady Baker, not less than to her husband, belongs the glory of the discovery of the lake which all the world knows to-day as the Albert Nyanza. ”

“ It was originally intended that the mission should be planted in the neighborhood of Lake Nyassa; but he found a more suitable locality in the highlands above the Shiré, east of the cataracts, and midway between Magomero and Mount Soché. The ground rises from the river in a succession of terraces. It is about 3,000 feet above the sea, and extends from twelve to fifteen miles in breadth. Gushing springs730 and flowing streams abound. The scenery is beautiful and picturesque. The soil is fertile. There is abundance of good timber and iron ore. ”

“ Almost all the lakes of Africa are, comparatively speaking, quite shallow, and bear evidence of being the remains of much greater bodies of water that existed in past ages. It is believed that the whole district now drained by the Zambesi River and its tributaries was, at one time, a great fresh water lake. ”

“ Finally, Captain Speke made his own lake a physical impossibility. Within little more than 60 miles from east to west he has given it three main effluents, the Mwerango, the Luajerri, and the Nile or Napoleon channel, to say nothing of the Myo Myanza, the Murchison Creek, the Usoga stream, together with the Asúa river from the Baringo. ”

“ The salt is highly prized and is exported to great distances.
The main feeder of Albert Edward Nyanza, and western head-stream of the Nile, the Ruchuru, rises on the north side of the volcanoes north of Lake Kivu (see Mfumbiro.) On reaching the level plain 15 m. from the lake its waters become brackish, and the Vegetation on its banks is scanty. The reedy marshes near its mouth form a retreat for a primitive race of fishermen. Lake Dweru, the shores of which are generally high, is fed by the streams from the eastern slopes of the Ruwenzori range. ”

“ The periodical swelling of the Nyanza Lake, which, flooding a considerable tract of land on the south, may be supposed—as it lies flush with the basal surface of the country—to inundate extensively all the low lands that form its periphery, forbids belief in the possibility of its being the head-stream of the Nile, or the reservoir of its periodical inundation. In Karágwah, upon the western shore, the masika, or monsoon, last from October to May or June, after which the dry season sets in. ”