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Updated: May 3, 2025
The country in which we now found ourselves, Mugihewa, is situated in the delta of the Rusizi River. It is an extremely flat country, the highest part of which is not ten feet above the lake, with numerous depressions in it overgrown with the rankest of matete-grass and the tallest of papyrus, and pond-like hollows, filled with stagnant water, which emit malaria wholesale.
Kivo Lake is so called from the country in which it is situated. The name of the chief of Kivo is Kwansibura. After so many minute details about the River Rusizi, it only remained for us to see it. On the second morning of our arrival at Mugihewa we mustered ten strong paddlers, and set out to explore the head of the lake and the mouth of the Rusizi.
On the 7th December, early in the morning, we left Mugihewa, and rowing past the southern extremity of the Katangara Islands, we approached the highlands of Uashi near the boundary line between Mukamba's country and Uvira. The boundary line is supposed to be a wide ravine, in the depths of which is a grove of tall, beautiful, and straight-stemmed trees, out of which the natives make their canoes.
West of Ruwenga, comprising all the mountains for two days' journey in that direction, was Uashi. These are the smaller sub-divisions of what is commonly known as Ruwenga and Usige. Ruwenga comprises the countries of Ruwenga and Mugihewa; Usige, the countries of Usumbura, Mukanigi, and Mugere.
In nine hours we had arrived at the head of the lake in Mugihewa, the country of Ruhinga; Mukamba's elder brother.
In looking back to where we had come from we perceived that we had made a diagonal cut across from south-east to north-west, instead of having made a direct east and west course; or, in other words, from Mugere which was at least ten miles from the northernmost point of the eastern shore we had come to Mugihewa, situated at the northernmost point of the western shore.
He has seen Mwezi, the great King of Urundi, and describes him as a man about forty years old, and as a very good man. Our work was now done; there was nothing more to detain us at Mugihewa. Ruhinga had been exceedingly kind, and given us one ox after another to butcher and eat. Mukamba had done the same.
Commencing from the western bank of the Rusizi, to the extreme north-western head of the lake, was Mugihewa Ruhinga's country. 5th. From Uvira on the west, running north past Mugihewa, and overlapping it on the north side as far as the hills of Chamati, was Ruwenga, also a country governed by Mukamba. Beyond Ruwenga, from the hills of Chamati to the Ruanda River, was the country of Chamati.
The information of such an intelligent man as Ruhinga is not to be despised; for, if Lake Albert came within a hundred miles of the Tanganika, he would surely have heard of its existence, even if he had not seen it himself. Originally he came from Mutumbi, and he has travelled from that country into Mugihewa, the district he now governs.
The first, starting from west to east, at the broadest part, to the extreme southern point of Mugihewa, was about three miles broad, and served as a line of demarcation between Mukamba's district of Ruwenga and Mugihewa of Ruhinga; it was also two miles deep.
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