Part 296

Having found it impracticable to open up a carriage-path to the west, it became a question as to which part of the east coast we should direct our steps. The Arabs had come from Zanzibar through a peaceful country. They assured me that the powerful chiefs beyond the Cazembe on the N.E., viz., Moatutu, Moaroro, and Mogogo, chiefs of the tribes Batutu, Baroro, and Bagogo, would have no objection to my passing through their country. They described the population there as located in small villages like the Balonda, and that no difficulty is experienced in traveling among them. They mentioned also that, at a distance of ten days beyond Cazembe, their path winds round the end of Lake Tanganyenka. But when they reach this lake, a little to the northwest of its southern extremity, they find no difficulty in obtaining canoes to carry them over. They sleep on islands, for it is said to require three days in crossing, and may thus be forty or fifty miles broad. Here they punt the canoes the whole way, showing that it is shallow. There are many small streams in the path, and three large rivers. This, then, appeared to me to be the safest; but my present object being a path admitting of water rather than land carriage, this route did not promise so much as that by way of the Zambesi or Leeambye. The Makololo knew all the country eastward as far as the Kafue, from having lived in former times near the confluence of that river with the Zambesi, and they all advised this path in preference to that by the way of Zanzibar. The only difficulty that they assured me of was that in the falls of Victoria. Some recommended my going to Sesheke, and crossing over in a N.E. direction to the Kafue, which is only six days distant, and descending that river to the Zambesi. Others recommended me to go on the south bank of the Zambesi until I had passed the falls, then get canoes and proceed farther down the river. All spoke strongly of the difficulties of traveling on the north bank, on account of the excessively broken and rocky nature of the country near the river on that side. And when Ponuane, who had lately headed a foray there, proposed that I should carry canoes along that side till we reached the spot where the Leeambye becomes broad and placid again, others declared that, from the difficulties he himself had experienced in forcing the men of his expedition to do this, they believed that mine would be sure to desert me if I attempted to impose such a task upon them. Another objection to traveling on either bank of the river was the prevalence of the tsetse, which is so abundant that the inhabitants can keep no domestic animals except goats.