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Updated: June 11, 2025
We wooded, and then waited for the Bishop till the 9th of March, when he came in the "Lyra." On the 11th we proceeded up the river, and saw that it had fallen four or five feet during our detention. The scenery on the lower part of the Rovuma is superior to that on the Zambesi, for we can see the highlands from the sea.
Besides the cumbrous moneys, they carried several boxes of instruments, such as chronometers, air thermometers, sextant, and artificial horizon, boxes containing clothes, medicines, and personal necessaries. The expedition travelled up the left bank of the Rovuma River, a rout/e/ as full of difficulties as any that could be chosen.
Previous reports represented the navigable part of this river as extending to the distance of a month's sail from its mouth; we found that, at the ordinary heights of the water, a boat might reach the obstructions which seem peculiar to all African rivers in six or eight days. The Rovuma is remarkable for the high lands that flank it for some eighty miles from the ocean.
To secure this, they scrape holes in the sandbanks beside the stream, and scoop up the water, which slowly filters through, rather than take it from the equally clear and limpid river. This practice is common in the Zambesi, the Rovuma, and Lake Nyassa; and some of the Portuguese at Tette have adopted the native custom, and send canoes to a low island in the middle of the river for water.
The territory lying between the Rovuma River and this Wahiyou village was an uninhabited wilderness, during the transit of which Livingstone and his expedition suffered considerably from hunger and desertion of men. Early in August, 1866, the Doctor came to the country of Mponda, a chief who dwelt near the Lake Nyassa. On the road thither, two of the liberated slaves deserted him.
Consequently much of the terrors of the fever-stricken port of Kilwa in by-gone days had disappeared, and with the continuance of ordinary precautions the place offered a suitable base for the columns about to operate between the Mohoro and Rovuma rivers. Without undue delay the Waffs were disembarked and sent under canvas on fairly high ground at some distance from the harbour.
At the lakelet Chidia, we noticed the same sandstone rock, with fossil wood on it, which we have on the Zambesi, and knew to be a sure evidence of coal beneath. We mentioned this at the time to Captain Gardner, and our finding coal now seemed a verification of what we then said; the coal-field probably extends from the Zambesi to the Rovuma, if not beyond it.
Some streams ran to the north-west to the Lismyando, which flows N. for the Rovuma; others to the south-east for the Loendi. 10th and 11th July, 1866. Nothing to interest but the same weary trudge: our food so scarce that we can only give a handful or half a pound of grain to each person per day.
The Rovuma itself comes from the W.N.W., and after the traveller passes the confluence of the Liende at Ngomano or "meeting-place," the chief of which part is named Ndonde, he finds the river narrow, and the people Ajawa. Crocodiles in the Rovuma have a sorry time of it. Never before were reptiles so persecuted and snubbed. They are hunted with spears, and spring traps are set for them.
He was very polite; sitting on the right bank till all the goods were carried over, then coming in the same canoe wifn me himself, he opened a fish basket in a weir and gave me the contents, and subsequently a little green sorghum. He literally has lost all his corn, for he was obliged to flee with his people to Marumba, a rocky island in Rovuma, about six miles above Matawatawa.
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