It was a nest of robbers, and my men
had just exhibited so pleasantly their attachment to me, and their
fidelity!
There was no European beyond Gondokoro, thus I should be the
only white man among this colony of wolves; and I had in perspective a
difficult and uncertain path, where the only chance of success lay in
the complete discipline of my escort and the perfect organization of the
expedition. After the scene just enacted I felt sure that my escort
would give me more cause for anxiety than the acknowledged hostility of
the natives.
I had been waiting at Gondokoro twelve days, expecting the arrival of
Debono's party from the south, with whom I wished to return. Suddenly,
on the 15th of February, I heard the rattle of musketry at a great
distance and a dropping fire from the south. To give an idea of the
moment I must extract verbatim from my journal as written at the time.
"Guns firing in the distance; Debono's ivory porters arriving, for whom
I have waited. My men rushed madly to my boat, with the report that two
white men were with them who had come from the SEA! Could they be Speke
and Grant? Off I ran, and soon met them in reality. Hurrah for old
England! They had come from the Victoria N'yanza, from which the Nile
springs . . . . The mystery of ages solved! With my pleasure of meeting
them is the one disappointment, that I had not met them farther on the
road in my search for them; however, the satisfaction is, that my
previous arrangements had been such as would have insured my finding
them had they been in a fix . . . . My projected route would have
brought me vis-a-vis with them, as they had come from the lake by the
course I had proposed to take . . . . All my men perfectly mad with
excitement. Firing salutes as usual with ball cartridge, they shot one
of my donkeys - a melancholy sacrifice as an offering at the completion
of this geographical discovery."
When I first met the two explorers they were walking along the bank of
the river toward my boats. At a distance of about a hundred yards I
recognized my old friend Speke, and with a heart beating with joy I took
off my cap and gave a welcome hurrah! as I ran toward him. For the
moment he did not recognize me. Ten years' growth of beard and mustache
had worked a change; and as I was totally unexpected, my sudden
appearance in the centre of Africa appeared to him incredible. I hardly
required an introduction to his companion, as we felt already
acquainted, and after the transports of this happy meeting we walked
together to my diahbiah, my men surrounding us with smoke and noise by
keeping up an unremitting fire of musketry the whole way. We were
shortly seated on deck under the awning, and such rough fare as could be
hastily prepared was set before these two ragged, careworn specimens of
African travel, whom I looked upon with feelings of pride as my own
countrymen. As a good ship arrives in harbor, battered and torn by a
long and stormy voyage, yet sound in her frame and seaworthy to the
last, so both these gallant travellers arrived at Gondokoro. Speke
appeared the more worn of the two; he was excessively lean, but in
reality was in good, tough condition. He had walked the whole way from
Zanzibar, never having once ridden during that wearying march. Grant was
in honorable rags, his bare knees projecting through the remnants of
trousers that were an exhibition of rough industry in tailor's work. He
was looking tired and feverish, but both men had a fire in the eye that
showed the spirit that had led them through.
They wished to leave Gondokoro as soon as possible, en route for
England, but delayed their departure until the moon should be in a
position for an observation for determining the longitude. My boats were
fortunately engaged by me for five months, thus Speke and Grant could
take charge of them to Khartoum.
At the first blush on meeting them, I had considered my expedition as
terminated by having met them, and by their having accomplished the
discovery of the Nile source; but upon my congratulating them with all
my heart upon the honor they had so nobly earned, Speke and Grant with
characteristic candor and generosity gave me a map of their route,
showing that they had been unable to complete the actual exploration of
the Nile, and that a most important portion still remained to be
determined. It appeared that in N. lat. 2 "degrees" 17', they had
crossed the Nile, which they had tracked from the Victoria Lake; but the
river, which from its exit from that lake had a northern course, turned
suddenly to the WEST from Karuma Falls (the point at which they crossed
it at lat. 2 "degrees" 17'). They did not see the Nile again until they
arrived in N. lat. 3 "degrees" 32', which was then flowing from the
west-south-west. The natives and the King of Unyoro (Kamrasi) had
assured them that the Nile from the Victoria N'yanza, which they had
crossed at Karuma, flowed westward for several days' journey, and at
length fell into a large lake called the Luta N'zige; that this lake
came from the south, and that the Nile on entering the northern
extremity almost immediately made its exit, and as a navigable river
continued its course to the north, through the Koshi and Madi countries.
Both Speke and Grant attached great importance to this lake Luta N'zige,
and the former was much annoyed that it had been impossible for them to
carry out the exploration. He foresaw that stay-at-home geographers,
who, with a comfortable arm-chair to sit in, travel so easily with their
fingers on a map, would ask him why he had not gone from such a place to
such a place?
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