Commissioner of Nyasaland. After a stay of several
days, during which he enjoyed unstinted hospitality, he
fears he is outstaying his time, and meditates going down
the Zambezi and home, but consulting his host new ideas
are furnished to him. “ Why not,” said Sir Harry, “ go
to Nyasaland, cross to Lake Tanganika, and thence to
Ujiji? From there you could reach the Victoria Nyanza,
and thus get to Uganda. Then perhaps you would find
Sir Gerald Portal and march down to the coast with him.”
Needless to say, he eventually accepted the suggestion
and accomplished it to the letter. He took passage in
the steamer Domira in March, 1893, as she was bound for
Karonga at the north end of Nyasa Lake. The voyage
he calls a heart-breaking one. He was stranded in the
mud for nine days while racked with fever, diarrhoea, and
stomachic pains. Getting freed finally, the steamer ran
for ten minutes and plunged again into a sand-bar, which
held her for three days longer. Freed a second time, a
day was spent in cutting fuel and replacing one of her
twin screws which had been smashed. Then came perils
from storms, as the boat was terribly overcrowded. The
cabin was a mere “ cupboard with two bunks, while the
fare consisted largely of cockroaches, bugs, flies, fleas, and
ants.” The unpleasant lake voyage lasted twenty-six days
—the lake being 360 miles in length.
Reaching terra firm a, he started with a caravan of
sixty-seven men on his march overland between the
Nyasa and Tanganika. On the fourth day he was on
the uplands, which he likens to the plateaus of Mashona-
land. Our traveller meets with the usual troubles that
beset the white who depends upon black porters for his
transport. One of the men is caught stealing and is
flogged, presently the porters desert in a body because
they think they are underpaid ; but as he hates reciting
commonplace annoyances, he stops further mention of
them to find room for the odd bits of information which
he gathers about native pests, diseases, superstition,
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wars, &c. He is clever in lightening his paragraphs, and
before we are aware of it we arrive with Mr. Decle at Lake
Tanganika, though the march has consumed the best part
of a month. At Kituta, at the south end of the lake, he
chartered an arab dhow, by which after nine days’ sail he
reached Ujiji, “ more dead than alive.”
When Captains Burton and Speke, in February, 1858,
came to Ujiji as the discoverers of Lake Tanganika, the
bazaar was some hundred yards from the edge of the
lake. When thirteen years later I met Livingstone at
this place, the market-place was just about the same distance
from the water. At present it is about half a mile,
which shows how much the Lukuga outlet has emptied the
lake. From this town Mr. Decle proceeds to give us a
view of East Africa as it existed in 1893, some twenty-
one years later than when I first saw it. We may therefore
call Ujiji the terminus of the third stage of our
traveller’s journey.
After a running commentary on the Arab slavers,
the slave trade, and the' aborigines, and giving his
usual dig at the Congo State, Mr. Decle adapts himself
to the habits of the Central African traveller, engages |
a caravan of porters, and starts for Urambo, so named
after the famous Mirambo. In blackmailing Uhha he
meets with various difficulties, which are tided over with
his customary good luck. At M tali's he encounters the
van of the Germans who are going to occupy and
Germanize the lake port. With the commanders he
settles a quarrel between Mtali and his brother, though
the peace did not long continue. Soon after his departure
he heard the boom of the German cannon, and came near
being involved in a war with the Wahha in consequence.
Though Mr. Decle sometimes imprudently mixes himself
with local questions, he passed through without bloodshed,
and safely reached Urambo, where, according to him, he
was ‘ petted and spoiled ” by another missionary. The
mission was founded in 1881, and since then its moderating
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