With This Small Beginning, Africa Was Before Me, And Thus I
Commenced The Search For The Sources Of The Nile.
On arrival at Korosko, twenty-six days from Cairo, we started across the
Nubian Desert.
During the cool months, from November until February, the
desert journey is not disagreeable; but the vast area of glowing sand
exposed to the scorching sun of summer, in addition to the withering
breath of the simoom, renders the forced march of two hundred and thirty
miles in seven days, at two and a half miles per hour, one of the most
fatiguing journeys that can he endured.
We entered a dead level plain of orange-colored sand, surrounded by
pyramidical hills. The surface was strewn with objects resembling cannon
shot and grape of all sizes from a 32-pounder downward, and looked like
the old battle-field of some infernal region - rocks glowing with heat,
not a vestige of vegetation, barren, withering desolation. The slow
rocking step of the camels was most irksome, and, despite the heat, I
dismounted to examine the Satanic bombs and cannon shot. Many of them
were as perfectly round as though cast in a mould, others were
egg-shaped, and all were hollow. With some difficulty I broke them, and
found them to contain a bright red sand. They were, in fact, volcanic
bombs that had been formed by the ejection of molten lava to a great
height from active volcanoes; these had become globular in falling, and,
having cooled before they reached the earth, they retained their forms
as hard spherical bodies, precisely resembling cannon shot.
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