The lake was known to Europeans from reports by chiefs such as Kazembe and from Swahili traders, and it was sometimes referred to as 'Lake Bemba' from the name of the dominant tribe. In 1868 explorer and missionary David Livingstone was the first European to see the lake at the north end of the Lake Chifunabuli section. He was taken by canoe as far as Mbabala Island. His last expedition a few years later foundered in the swamps and their maze of shifting channels as he struggled to discover the rivers draining in and out of the lake. He died in 1873 in Chief Chitambo's village on the edge of the southern flood plain, about 100 km from the lake itself. The spot is marked by the Livingstone Memorial (see map). The lake was partially surveyed in 1883 by the French traveller, Victor Giraud, and first circumnavigated by Poulett Weatherley in 1896.