New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1872-08-25
LIVINGSTONE.
The Letter Received by His Brother.
TORONTO, Ont, August 20.-The follow
nr Is Dr. liNin gStnna's Latter. tn his hrnt thar

/
ing is DR.. LivingstOnes letter to his brother
| IN Canada, mentioned yesterday:
UJIJI, November I6, 1871.
! My DEAR BROTHER-Ir received your wei.
| come letter in February last written when
| the cable news made you put off your suits
! of mourning. This was the first intimatiOn
| had that cable had been successfully
| laid in the deep Atlantic. Very few letters
| have reached me for years, in consequence
of which my friends have been speculating
where 1 should come out, en- the west coast
| down the Nile. or elsewhere. The water
shed is broad upland, between four and
five thousand feet above the sea, and some
seventy miles long. The springs of the
Nile that rise thereon are almost innumer-
able. 1t would take the best part of a mans
| lifetime to count them. One part, sixty
four miles of latitude, gave thirty-twO
springs, from calf to waist deep, one spring
for every two miles.
A birds eve view of them would be
like vegetation of frost on windOw-panes.
To ascertain that all these fountains united
in four great rivers in the upper part of the
Nile valley was the work of time and much
travel. Many a weary feOt | trOde ere
light daWned on the ancient problem. If
had left at the end of two years, for which
my bare expenses were paid, could have
thrown very little more light on the country
than the Portuguese, who in their three
slavery visits to Cazembe asked for ivory
and slaves, and heard of nothing else l
asked about the waters, questioned and
cross questioned until was really ashamed,
and almost afraid that would be set down
as afflicted with hydrOcehpalus. l went
forward, backward, and sideways, feeling
my way, and every step of the way / was
generally cropping in the dark, for who cared
where the rivers ran? OF these four rivers
into which the springs of the Nile converge,
the central one, called Lualaba, is the
largest. 1t begins at the river Chambez,
which flows into great lake, BangwOlO;
on leaving it its name is changed from
Chambezi to Luapula, and that enters Lake
MOerO. Coming out oft thename Lualaba
is resumed, and it flows into third lake,
kamOlOndO, which receives one of the four
large drains mentioned above. 1t then
flows on and makes two enormous bends to
the west, which made me often fear that
/ was following the Congo instead of
the Nile. 1t is from one to three miles |
broad, and never can be waded at any !
part or at any time of the year. Far
down the valley it receives another of the
four large rivers above mentioned, the |
Locke or LOmame, which flows through |
what have named Lake Lincoln, and then !
joins Central Lualaba. We have then only |
two lines of drainage in the lower part of |
the great valley, that is Tanganyika and |
Albert Lake, which are but one lake, river, |
or say, if you want to be pedantic, lacus- |
trine river, These two form the eastern
line OF the Lualaba, which / call WGbb's |
Lualaba, is then the western line nearly as
depicted by Ptolemy in the second century
of our era. After the Lamame enters the |
Lualaba, the fourth great lake in the cen
tral-lue Of drainage is found; but this | |
have not yet seen, nor yet the link between |
the eastern and western mains. At the top |
Of PtOlemys Loop the great central line
goes down into large reedy lakes, possibly
those reported to NerO's centurion, and |
these form the western or PetheriCk's arm
which Speke and Grant and Baker believed
to be the river of Egypt. Neither can be
called the Nile until they unite. The lakes
mentioned in the central line of drainage
are by no means small.
Lake BangwOlO at the lowest estimate
is one hundred and fifty miles long and | |
tried to cross it and measure its breath ex-
aCtly. The first stage was to an inhabited
island twenty-fOur miles. The second stage
could be seen from its highest point, or
rather the tops of trees upon it, evidently |
lifted up by miTgage. The third stage, the |
mainland. was said to be as far beyond, but
my canoe men had stolen the canoe, and
they got hint that the real owners were
in pursuit, and got in a furry to return
home. Oh, that they would; but l had
only my Coverlet left to hire another craft,
and the lake being four hundred feet above
the sea, it was very cold, so | gave in and
went back but l believe the breadth to be
between sixty and seventy miles.
BangwolO, Moro and KamOlOndO are
looked on as one great riverine lake, and
as one of Petlemys. The other is Tang
anyika, which | found steadily flowing to
the north. This geOgTapher's predecessors
must have cleaned their geography from
men who visited this very region. The rea-
son why his genuine geography was re
jected was the extreme mOdesty Of mod
ern map makers. One idle person in Lon
don published a pamphlet, which, with
killing mOdesty, he entitled "Inner Africa
Laid Open and in the newspapers even
in the Times, rails at any one who travels
and dares to find the country different from
that drawn in his twaddle. l am a great
sinner in the poor fellows opinion, and the
Times published his rawlings even when |
was most unwisely believed to be dead.
Nobody but Lord Brougham and l know
what people will say after we are gone.
The work of trying to follow the central
lines of drainage down, has taken me away
from the mails or postage. The manyemen
are undoubtedly cannibals, but it was long
before l could get conclusive evidence
thereon. | was sOrely set and hndered by
having half caste MOslem attendants, un- !
towards, and false as their
prophet, of whose religion they have only
lmDlOed the ful50me pFld9. They forced me
back when almost in sight of the end of my
exploration, a distance of between 400
and 500 miles, under a blazing vertical
sun. | came here mere ruckle of
bones, terribly jaded in body and mind
The head man of my worthless Mos
ems remained here, and as he had |
lone from the coast, ran riot with goods
ent to me, drunk for a month at time.
He then OWNED on the Koran, and found |
was dead, sold off all the goods that re-
NAMED for slaves and ivory for himself,
md l arrived to find myself destitute Of
yerything except few goods l left in case
# need. Goods are currency here, and l
AVE to wait now till other goods and other
nen come from Zanzibar. When placed in
harge of my supply of soap, brandy,
plum and gunpOwder from certain banians, !
British subjects" he was fourteen months
all expenses being paid out of a,
" stOcks-three months were ample-and
hen he remained here and sold off all You {
all this smart, do you! Some do, if you
ont, l think it moral idiOtcy.
Yours, affectiOnately,
DAVID IIEINGSTOEF