Here was the great basin of the Nile that received EVERY DROP
OF WATER, even from the passing shower to the roaring mountain torrent
that drained from Central Africa toward the north. This was the great
reservoir of the Nile!
The first coup d'oeil from the summit of the cliff 1500 feet above the
level had suggested what a closer examination confirmed. The lake was a
vast depression far below the general level of the country, surrounded
by precipitous cliffs, and bounded on the west and south-west by great
ranges of mountains from five to seven thousand feet above the level of
its waters - thus it was the one great reservoir into which everything
MUST drain; and from this vast rocky cistern the Nile made its exit, a
giant in its birth. It was a grand arrangement of nature for the birth
of so mighty and important a stream as the river Nile. The Victoria
N'yanza of Speke formed a reservoir at a high altitude, receiving a
drainage from the west by the Kitangule River; and Speke had seen the
M'fumbiro Mountain at a great distance as a peak among other mountains
from which the streams descended, which by uniting formed the main river
Kitangule, the principal feeder of the Victoria Lake from the west, in
about 2 degrees S. latitude. Thus the same chain of mountains that fed
the Victoria on the east must have a watershed to the west and north
that would flow into the Albert Lake. The general drainage of the Nile
basin tending from south to north, and the Albert Lake extending much
farther north than the Victoria, it receives the river from the latter
lake, and thus monopolizes the entire head-waters of the Nile. The
Albert is the grand reservoir, while the Victoria is the eastern source.
The parent streams that form these lakes are from the same origin, and
the Kitangule sheds its waters to the Victoria to be received EVENTUALLY
by the Albert, precisely as the highlands of M'fumbiro and the Blue
Mountains pour their northern drainage DIRECTLY into the Albert Lake.
That many considerable affluents flow into the Albert Lake there is no
doubt. The two waterfalls seen by telescope upon the western shore
descending from the Blue Mountains must be most important streams, or
they could not have been distinguished at so great a distance as fifty
or sixty miles. The natives assured me that very many streams, varying
in size, descended the mountains upon all sides into the general
reservoir.
It was most important that we should hurry forward on our journey, as
our return to England depended entirely upon the possibility of reaching
Gondokoro before the end of April, otherwise the boats would have
departed. I started off Rabonga, to Magungo, where he was to meet us
with riding oxen.
We were encamped at a small village on the shore of the lake, called
Vacovia. On the following morning not one of our party could rise from
the ground. Thirteen men, the boy Saat, four women, besides my wife and
me, were all down with fever. The natives assured us that all strangers
suffered in a like manner. The delay in supplying boats was most
annoying, as every hour was precious. The lying natives deceived us in
every possible manner, delaying us purposely in hope of extorting beads.
The latitude of Vacovia was 1"degree" 15' N.; longitude 30 "degrees" 50'
E. My farthest southern point on the road from M'rooli was latitude 1
"degree" 13'. We were now to turn our faces toward the north, and every
day's journey would bring us nearer home. But where was home? As I
looked at the map of the world, and at the little red spot that
represented old England far, far away, and then gazed on the wasted form
and haggard face of my wife and at my own attenuated frame, I hardly
dared hope for home again. We had now been three years ever toiling
onward, and having completed the exploration of all the Abyssinian
affluents of the Nile, in itself an arduous undertaking, we were now
actually at the Nile head. We had neither health nor supplies, and the
great journey lay all before us.
Eight days were passed at Vacovia before we could obtain boats, which,
when they did come, proved to be mere trees neatly hollowed out in the
shape of canoes. At last we were under way, and day after day we
journeyed along the shore of the lake, stopping occasionally at small
villages, and being delayed now and then by deserting boatmen.
The discomforts of this lake voyage were great; in the day we were
cramped in our small cabin like two tortoises in one shell, and at night
it almost invariably rained. We were accustomed to the wet, but no
acclimatization can render the European body mosquito-proof; thus we had
little rest. It was hard work for me; but for my unfortunate wife, who
had hardly recovered from her attack of coup de soleil, such hardships
were most distressing.
On the thirteenth day from Vacovia we found ourselves at the end of our
lake voyage. The lake at this point was between fifteen and twenty miles
across, and the appearance of the country to the north was that of a
delta. The shores upon either side were choked with vast banks of reeds,
and as the canoe skirted the edge of that upon the east coast we could
find no bottom with a bamboo of twenty-five feet in length, although the
floating mass appeared like terra firma. We were in a perfect wilderness
of vegetation. On the west were mountains about 4000 feet above the lake
level, a continuation of the chain that formed the western shore from
the south.
