Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 2.djvu/357

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
DR. LIVINGSTONE.
341

point his researches are brought to a stop by the mutiny of his men, and, in a state of mind bordering on despair, and utterly destitute, he wanders back to Ujiji, leaving about 180 miles of country unexplored—the casket containing the crown of his discoveries.

When he first began the journeys which led to them from Lake Moero, he could learn nothing from natives about the central line of drainage, after leaving that lake. It might pass eastward into Tanganyika; and if so, and Tanganyika was found to be connected with the Albert Nyanza, then the Chambézi would be the farthest source of the Nile to the south; but, in this case, the configuration of the country showed that it would have to run up-hill. Or it might flow westward, and be found to be none other than the source of the Congo or Niger. To throw light on this point, Manyuema, or, as the Arabs called it, Manyema, a splendid country, but little known, and whose inhabitants were reported to be cannibals, though Livingstone rather ridicules the idea, had to be visited. Then followed the discovery of Lake Kamolondo, the southern end, in lat. 6° 30' S., and the great central drain of the Lualaba. But, then, what of the Kamolondo outflow? Here Livingstone is left to himself; the natives know—can tell him nothing; his chronometers are defective, and he cannot depend on his reckonings; but he traces the northeast set of the Lufira and Lomami, and sees that the western, like the eastern boundary of the great valley, is elevated. He observes, too, that the central line of the Lualaba maintains a steady though sinuous northward flow; hence, he is led to the conclusion that this river and lake system has nothing to do with the Congo, but that his tedious wanderings have been to and fro among the head-waters of the Nile.

In the mean time, the question is, and will be, keenly debated. The River Kasai, Livingstone's old friend on the Loando journey, flowing into the Congo, bears another name, Loke, among the natives, and is said by them to wind out of a "Nyanja," or lake. The Lomami, according to Livingstone, is also called the "Loeki." Does this similarity of name warrant the conclusion that the Kasai is only a prolongation of the river, with its source in the Manyema country? The Kasai, with the Quango and Lubilash—the two former rising west of the water-shed in the latitude of Lake Bangweolo—were always presumed, on Portuguese authority, to be the sources of the great western river. Can the Lualaba—proved to be connected with the Loeki or Lomami—take a westward course after its prolonged northing, and, overthrowing Livingstone's assumption, become the Congo feeder? If not, another question arises: What is the course of the Lualaba after leaving the Unknown Lake? Do these great waters find a channel to the eastward, and empty themselves into the Albert Nyanza? If, according to Sir S. Baker's observations, the elevation of that lake is 2,700 feet, the lower level of Kamolondo, which is 2,000 feet above the sea, must necessarily preclude that.