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Updated: May 7, 2025
Just as it disappeared over a distant ridge Tom came in sight of a small pond or lakelet covered with reeds, and swarming with ducks and geese, besides a host of plover and other aquatic birds most of them with outstretched necks, wondering no doubt what all the hubbub could be about. Tom incontinently bore down on these, and dashing in among them was soon up to his neck in water!
As it came down into the little plain, it was there received into a fair channel and ran very swiftly into the middest thereof, where it formed a lakelet, such as the townsfolk made whiles, by way of fishpond, in their gardens, whenas they have a commodity thereof.
A number of noisy fellows stopped our party, and demanded tribute for the cannon; I burst through them, and the rest followed without giving anything: they were afraid of the English. The town is on the east bank of the Lakelet Mofwé, and one mile from its northern end.
It was a tiny lake bordered by a small, grass-grown prairie dotted with small clean clumps of palmetto, pine and cypress. The water of the lakelet was clear blue, and the grass round it waved softly.
We heard the fire of three guns in the evening, and judged by the report that they must be at least six-pounders. They were said to belong to an Ajawa chief named Mukata. In descending the Shire, we found concealed in the broad belt of papyrus round the lakelet Pamalombe, into which the river expands, a number of Manganja families who had been driven from their homes by the Ajawa raids.
The interruption to the night's repose had been somewhat unpleasant, but that did not prevent me sleeping on until daylight; after which I proceeded in the direction where I expected to find the lakelet into which my rifle and knapsack had dropped.
Such alternations made our voyage a charming olla. We had the placid glide, the fleet dash, the wild career, the pause, the landing, the agreeable interlude of a portage, and the unburdened stampede along-shore. Thus we won our way, or our way wooed us on, until, in early afternoon, a lovely lakelet opened before us.
It stands near the north end of the Lakelet Mofwé; this is from one to three miles broad, and some six or seven long: it is full of sedgy islands, and abounds in fish. The country is quite level, but fifteen or twenty miles west of Mofwé we see a long range of the mountains of Rua.
We can see a ledge of rocks in the distance, and the Indian with us assures us that we shall find water there. At night we come to the cliff, and under it, in a great cave, we find a lakelet. Sweeter, cooler water never blessed the desert.
That creature, having recovered from its consternation, discovered, to its inexpressible joy, that, an enormous jug having been smashed by Bounce along with the other things, the floor was covered in part with a lakelet of rich cream.
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