United States or Yemen ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
At daybreak, leaving Kukumba Point after our humble breakfast of coffee, cheese, and dourra cakes was despatched, we steered south once more. Our fires had attracted the notice of the sharp-eyed and suspicious fishermen of Kukumba; but our precautions and the vigilant watch we had set before retiring, had proved an effectual safeguard against the Kivira thieves.
On a subsequent occasion, when talking to a very respectable Suahili merchant, by name Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasib, about the N'yanza, he corroborated the story about the mariners, who are said to keep logs and use sextants, and mentioned that he had heard of the Kidi and Bari people living on the Kivira river.
We quit Kivira early, and paddling S. 25o W., make the famous fish-market in the little island Kabizia, just in time to breakfast on a freshly-caught fish, the celebrated Singa, a large, ugly, black-backed monster, with white belly, small fins, and long barbs, but no scales.
I therefore employed the day in strolling all over the island, and took bearings of some of the principal features of the lake: of Thembue, a distant promontory on the western shore, south of this, which is occupied by a powerful sultan, and contains a large population of very boisterous savages; of Ukungue, on the east shore; and of the islands of Kivira and Kabizia.
Although the day was now far advanced, the weather was so promising, whilst our stores were running short, that impatience suggested a venture for the opposite shore to Kivira, an island near it, and which, with the Uguhha heights in the background, is from this distinctly visible.
The weather still remaining too rough for sailing, I strolled over the island, and from its summit on the eastern side I found a good view of the lake, and took bearings of Ujiji, Insigazi, and a distant point southwards on the eastern shore of the lake, called Ukungue. Kivira Island is a massive hill, about five miles long by two or three broad, and is irregularly shaped.
And I did not spare the men's feelings who had caused the death of my goat in the morning, now that their superstitious fears concerning it, if they ever possessed any, were proven to be without foundation. 27th. We took our final departure from Kivira in the morning, and crossed the broad lake again in fourteen hours, two of them, as before, being spent in pipes and rest.
I now took leave of my generous host; and, bidding adieu to Kasenge, soon arrived and spent the day at Kabizia, mourning in my mind that I had induced Captain Burton to discharge Ramji's slaves, for Bombay said they were all sailors, and would have handled the dhow in first-rate style. 23d. We crossed over to Kivira, and pitched the tent in our former harbour.
Great fraternising, story-telling, and a little pipe ensued, for every one loves tobacco; then both departed in peace and friendship: they to their former abode, a cove in a small uninhabited island which lies due south of Kivira; whilst we proceeded to a long narrow harbour in Kivira itself, the largest of all these islands.
This man called the river Kivira, and described it as being much broader, deeper, and stronger in its current than either the Katonga or Kitangule river; that it came from the lake, and that it intersected stony hilly ground on its passage to the north-west.
Word Of The Day