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Similar indications exist of the former existence of other immense bodies of water, which have in like manner been drained by fissures through the surrounding elevations, leaving shallow lakes at the lowest points. Such are, undoubtedly, Tsad at the north, Ngami at the south, Dilolo at the west, and Taganyika and Nyanja, of which we have only vague reports, at the east.
When one of my men became ill, but still could walk, others parted his luggage among them; yet we had often to stop one day a week, besides Sundays, simply for the sake of rest. The latitude of Lake Dilolo is 11d 32' 1" S., long. 22d 27' E. JUNE 14TH. We reached the collection of straggling villages over which Katema rules, and were thankful to see old familiar faces again.
We went about four or five miles in a N.N.W. direction, then two in a westerly one, and came round the small end of Lake Dilolo. It seemed, as far as we could at this time discern, to be like a river a quarter of a mile wide. It is abundantly supplied with fish and hippopotami; the broad part, which we did not this time see, is about three miles wide, and the lake is almost seven or eight long.
In his easy-chair he had forestalled me by three years, though I had been working hard through jungle, marsh, and fever, and, since the light dawned on my mind at Dilolo, had been cherishing the pleasing delusion that I should be the first to suggest the idea that the interior of Africa was a watery plateau of less elevation than flanking hilly ranges.
Here Shakatwala insisted on our remaining to get supplies of food from Katema's subjects, before entering the uninhabited watery plains. When asked the meaning of the name Dilolo, Shakatwala gave the following account of the formation of the lake. She asked for a supply of food, and Mosogo's wife gave her a sufficient quantity.
Next day we pursued our way, and on the 8th of June we forded the Lotembwa to the N.W. of Dilolo, and regained our former path. The Lotembwa here is about a mile wide, about three feet deep, and full of the lotus, papyrus, arum, mat-rushes, and other aquatic plants.
Katema's Town, 5' S. of Lake 11 35 49 22 27 0 1854, Feb. 17 . 2 Dilolo, the source of the Lotembwa, one of the principal feeders of the Leeba. The ford is in latitude 11d 17'. Bango's Village, about 10' 10 22 53 20 58 0 1855, May 28 3 . W. of the Loembwe. Bottom of descent = 208 Deg. = 2097 feet. Bottom of east ascent = 205 Deg. = 3680 feet.
I did not observe the course in which the water flowed while crossing; but, having noticed before that the Lotembwa on the other side of the Lake Dilolo flowed in a southerly direction, I supposed that this was simply a prolongation of the same river beyond Dilolo, and that it rose in this large marsh, which we had not seen in our progress to the N.W. But when we came to the Southern Lotembwa, we were informed by Shakatwala that the river we had crossed flowed in an opposite direction not into Dilolo, but into the Kasai.
Probably this lake is the watershed between the Zambesi and the Nile, as Lake Dilolo is that between the Leeba and Kasai. But, however this may be, the phenomena of the rainy season show that it is not necessary to assume the existence of high snowy mountains until we get reliable information.
After hunting it for two days it was dispatched at last by another ball. Here we saw a flock of jackdaws, a rare sight in Londa, busy with the grubs in the valley, which are eaten by the people too. Leaving Katema's town on the 19th, and proceeding four miles to the eastward, we forded the southern branch of Lake Dilolo.
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