This would be only seven days'
march from Gondokoro, and by such a direct course I should be sure to
arrive in time for the boats to Khartoum.
I had promised Speke that I would explore most thoroughly the doubtful
portion of the river that he had been forced to neglect from Karuma
Falls to the lake. I was myself confused at the dead-water junction; and
although I knew that the natives must be right - as it was their own
river, and they had no inducement to mislead me - I was determined to
sacrifice every other wish in order to fulfil my promise, and thus to
settle the Nile question most absolutely. That the Nile flowed out of
the lake I had heard, and I had also confirmed by actual inspection;
from Magungo I looked upon the two countries, Koshi and Madi, through
which it flowed, and these countries I must actually pass through and
again meet the Nile before I could reach Gondokoro. Thus the only point
necessary to settle was the river between the lake and the Karuma Falls.
The boats being ready, we took leave of the chief of Magungo, leaving
him an acceptable present of beads, and descended the hill to the river,
thankful at having so far successfully terminated the expedition as to
have traced the lake to that important point, Magungo, which had been
our clew to the discovery even so far away in time and place as the
distant country of Latooka. We were both very weak and ill, and my knees
trembled beneath me as we walked down the easy descent. I, in my
enervated state, endeavoring to assist my wife, we were the "blind
leading the blind;" but had life closed on that day we could have died
most happily, for the hard fight through sickness and misery had ended
in victory; and although I looked to home as a paradise never to be
regained, I could have lain down to sleep in contentment on this spot,
with the consolation that, if the body had been vanquished, we died with
the prize in our grasp.
On arrival at the canoes we found everything in readiness, and the
boatmen already in their places. Once in the broad channel of dead water
we steered due east, and made rapid way until the evening. The river as
it now appeared, although devoid of current, was on an average about 500
yards in width. Before we halted for the night I was subjected to a most
severe attack of fever, and upon the boat reaching a certain spot I was
carried on a litter, perfectly unconscious, to a village, attended
carefully by my poor sick wife, who, herself half dead, followed me on
foot through the marches in pitch darkness, and watched over me until
the morning. At daybreak I was too weak to stand, and we were both
carried down to the canoes, and crawling helplessly within our grass
awning we lay down like logs while the canoes continued their voyage.
Many of our men were also suffering from fever.
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