Litchfield enquirer., 1874-05-14
pR. LIvincsroMg.
His Letter to Ills Brother In canad.

The following is the chief of the two letters mentioned in late teleRrams as hay. ing been received by MT. John Ldvinktone, of Idstowel, Canada, and by him communi- cated to the Hamilton Spectator:
 MANYUEMA, oB CANrBAI. COUNTRY.
 Say 15O miles northwest of Uiiii,
 April, 1870.
 My DEAR BROTHER: l have not the faintest prospect of being able to send this letter to the coast for many months to come, but write to have something in readiness when an opportunity of making up packet arrives. As soon as I was able to march went up Tanganyika about fifty or sixty miles, and from the south up the Islet Kasange, struck away first northwest, then I passed the beginn- ing of the lake formed by the Lualaba, and found myself in the great bend which that lake river makes after, as I ga W it, coming out of Lake Moreo. made up to small Arab party which rendered me most important aid in my illness in Ma rungu, and we met a lot of Ujijians com ing with 1S,OOO pounds weight of ivory. The ivory was bought in this new field for mere trife in beads. After resting while in the town of the principal Man yuema chief, I went west down a river named Luamo, from one to 15O wards broad, and always deep enough to require canoes, but the Ujiji traders had been obliged to employ their slaves in collect ing their ivory, and slaves with guns in thelr hands are usually limbs of the evil one. The Manyuema were always in the wrong, wanted to eat them, and always gave the slaves reasons to capture people, goats, and fowls, and carry of as much graln El0j as thsE gRseasa .Thsig heed 4sp ivory only, but the masters and men join ed in one chorus; the Manyuema are bad, bad, very bad. When near the confluence of Luamo and Lualaba I was coming among people who had suffered very se- verely at the hands of the slaves: and they would not believe that my small par ty did not belong to the ood-thirsty strangers The women were particularly outspoken, but the worst that was done was to turn out in force and show us out of the district. Glad that no collision took place. we returned to the principal town, and, with the friendly party which we overlook, struck away north, they to buy ivory and to get canoe on the Lu- alaba, but the rains began, and travelling, as found in Marungu, in the wet season was killing work. The vegetation is in- describably rank; through the grass, if grass 1t can be called, which IS more than half an inch thick in the stalk and twelve feet high, nothing but elephants can walk. Then large belts of primeval forest stand between the districts, and into them the sun, though vertical, cannot penetrate. The rainwater stands in stag nant pools, and the dead leaves decay in the damp soil and make the water of the numerous rills and rivulets of the colorof strong infusion of tea. One feels him. self the veriest pigmy before the giant trees. The roots, high out of the soil, keep you constantly looking down, and shot does no harm to guinea fowls on their tops. The climbing plants prevent you from leaving the ancient path, and I have heard the scko or gorilla growing of him. Their call to each other is Sifee iike that of tomcat. The country is noun talnous; the light gray granite of the hills rises through bed of new red sand. stone, looking like islands in it. Innum- erable dells have to be crossed, and the mud of Manyuema is awful. Bad water and perpetual wetting told on us all by choleraic symptoms and cancellation. The news of the chiefs caused gold fever at UjUi, and soon 0 herd numbering 600 muskets made up to us, all eager for ivory. turned back about seven days and re- solved to remain with the heads of this party during the rains. Their people are away, and they are as kind to me as could wish. Rest and boiling all the wa ter l used have restored me. After this preamble may add that slowly and sure- ly the conviction has crept across my mind that all I can in hon. esty and modesty claim is the redis- covery of the source of the Nile, which had sunk into oblivion like the circumnavigation of Africa by the Pho- nician Admiral of one of the Pharaohs, B. c. about 600. Herodotus did not believe him, because he said that in passing around Lybia he had the sun on his right hand. This to us, who have gone round from east to west, stamps his tale as gen. uine. He put down the sources of the Nile and Mountains of the moon in 100 to 12 south, where found both them and the watershed. Ptolemy, or more probably his predecessors, had received genuine though oral information from men who had visited this region. This is extremely likely, because the fountains and mountains abound where no theorist would put them. He makes their waters collect into two lacustrine rivers, Tangan- yika and Lualaba-extant specimens of those lakeland river beds known in the south of Africa as melazzo and in the North as wadys, both words meaning the same thing-river beds where no water flows. l am now trying to follow the western arm down, and have seen enough of it to confirm the information which the Greek geographer or others derived from ancient explorers. The eastern arm of Tanganyika, upper and lower, has been much exaggerated in breadth. I careful ly watched it's steady flow to the north for three months by means of broad masses of aquatic vegetation which, but for this current, would be the means of choking 1t up as is the case with Okaro, the Victo- ria Nyanza. As soon as I have ascertain ed where the western arm joins the east ern, l shall retire and pray that the AL mighty may lead me safely home. Ihave no wish to speak dogmatically of what have done, and fell sorry that am in manner compelled to speak disparaging- 'ly of the opinions of modern discoverers of the sources of the Nile. The great mistake of Capt. Spoke was the eager pUr- suit of foregone conclusion. When he discovered the Victoria Nyanza. he at once leaped to the conclusion that there in lay the sources of the Nile, the whole Jade being 800 miles down the great Nile valley, and so much away from the sour- ces. As soon as Spoke and Grant looked toward their Nyanza they turned their backs on the fountains, and in their splen- did achievements of following the river down, every step took them further away from the Caput Milo. Baker came fur ther up the great valley than any other explorer in modern times; had his face in the right direction, but turned when some 700 miles from the sources. He seemed inclined to make the Lower Tanganyika second source to Speke's. Those two large rivers begin in lake. I am glad that he has received some of the honors he deserves. Ptolemys's small Lake Coloe is a more correct view of Victoria Nyanza than that given nowadays. As to breadth the native Arabs might be mis- taken, but not in saying that they knew three lakes, where huge Victoria Nyan- ga had been run in. No honor seems to L<o~ IA .koL L. 1-.