Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/317

 suffice to traverse the lake from end to end in steamers, whereas the first explorers took from ten to fifteen days to make the trip. The natives, who scarcely ever venture far from the coast, make use of canoes or dug-outs, hollowed chiefly by the action of fire, with the gunwales curved outwards to the right and left, so as to strike against the water, and thus secure greater steadiness.

At times the whole surface of the lake becomes enveloped in a thin silvery mist or haze, shrouding all the mountains and veiling the bright solar rays. This kungu, as it is called, is entirely due, not to any aqueous or aërial vapours, but to countless myriads of tiny white-winged gnats, which, when alighting on vessels or houses, cover the whole surface as with flakes of snow. The natives gather these midges by the basketful and knead them into cakes.

Lying, like Tanganyika, in a fissure of the ground, Nyassa is almost entirely encircled by mountains, which are not merely the escarpments or outer slopes of

the plateaux, but constitute in some places real elevated ranges. On the northeast side especially they even assume the aspect of an Alpine region, towering with some of its peaks to an altitude of nearly 7,000 feet, and, according to some explorers, even exceeding 10,000 feet. Seen from the lake, this northeastern range, which has received the name of the Livingstone Mountains, in honour of the illustrious traveller and discoverer of Nyassa, appears to terminate towards its northern extremity in a superb pyramidal peak. Southwards it is continued parallel with the axis of the lake, gradually breaking into less elevated heights and low hills, connected by numerous saddles, which give access from the lacustrine basin to the valleys watered by the headstreams of the Rovuma. On the eastern slope the range rises here and there but slightly above the surrounding plateau, in which it rapidly merges altogether. Towards the sources of the Rovuma the culminating point is Mount Mtonia, which rises over 5.000 feet above the lake