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? why he had not followed the Nile to the Luta N'zige lake,
and from the lake to Gondokoro? As it happened, it was impossible for
Speke and Grant to follow the Nile from Karuma: the tribes were fighting
with Kamrasi, and no strangers could have gone through the country.
Accordingly they procured their information most carefully, completed
their map, and laid down the reported lake in its supposed position,
showing the Nile as both influent and effluent precisely as had been
explained by the natives.
Speke expressed his conviction that the Luta N'zige must be a second
source of the Nile, and that geographers would be dissatisfied that he
had not explored it. To me this was most gratifying. I had been much
disheartened at the idea that the great work was accomplished, and that
nothing remained for exploration. I even said to Speke, "Does not one
leaf of the laurel remain for me?" I now heard that the field was not
only open, but that an additional interest was given to the exploration
by the proof that the Nile flowed out of one great lake, the Victoria,
but that it evidently must derive an additional supply from an unknown
lake, as it entered it at the NORTHERN extremity, while the body of the
lake came from the south. The fact of a great body of water such as the
Luta N'zige extending in a direct line from south to north, while the
general system of drainage of the Nile was from the same direction,
showed most conclusively that the Luta N'zige, if it existed in the form
assumed, must have an important position in the basin of the Nile.
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