Name game

In “Now and then” (16 S ep - tember), you mention that on this day in 1859 David Livingstone discovered Lake Nyasa. The local people already knew it was there and swam and fished in it, as I did when I visited in 1959.

“Nyasa” means“Lake” in a local language so the name means “Lake lake” or “Loch loch ”. Since Malawi gained independence in the 1960s it has usually been called Lake Malawi.

DAVID STEVENSON, Blacket Place, Edinburgh