With the same
instruments he determined the altitude of the Lualaba to be lower than
the Albert N'yanza, thus showing the impossibility of a connection
between that river as an affluent with the lake.
I will not presume to assert that the Lualaba is a source of the Congo,
as I have a strong objection to geographical theories or assertions
unless proved by actual inspection, but if Livingstone's observations
for altitude are correct, it is impossible that the Lualaba can be
connected with the Nile. [*]
[*Footnote: Mr. Stanley's discoveries since this was written have
confirmed my suppositions.]
Dr. Schweinfurth's discovery of the Welle river flowing towards the
west, between the 3rd and 4th deg. N. lat., is a clear proof that no
river can be running from the south to the north-east towards the Nile
Basin, otherwise the Welle river would be intersected.
In page 186, vol. ii., Dr. Schweinfurth [*] writes: - "Its course [the
Lualaba], indeed, was towards the north; but Livingstone was manifestly
in error when he took it for a true source of the Nile, a supposition
that might have some semblance of foundation originating in the
inexplicable volume of the water of Lake M'wootan (Albert N'yanza), but
which was negatived completely as soon as more ample investigation had
been made as to the comparative level, direction, and connection of
other rivers, especially of the Welle."
[*Footnote: "The Heart of Africa."]
Although Dr. Schweinfurth was unprovided with astronomical instruments,
we may place thorough reliance in the integrity and ability of this
traveller, who has taken the greatest pains to arrive at true
conclusions. I am quite of his opinion, that the Welle is outside the
Nile Basin, and drains the western watershed.
In a letter from Dr. Livingstone addressed to Sir Bartle Frere, dated
Lake Bangweolo, 27th Nov. 1870, he writes: - " The Tanganyika, whose
majestic flow I marked by miles and miles of confervae and other aquatic
vegetation for three months during my illness at Ujiji, is, with the
lower Tanganyika, discovered by Baker, a riverine lake from twenty to
thirty miles broad."
It is thus clear that Livingstone considered that the Tanganyika and the
Albert N'yanza were one water. On 30th May, 1869, dated Ujiji, he writes
to Dr. Kirk: - "Tanganyika, N'zige Chowambe (Baker?) are one water, and
the head of it is 300 miles south of this."
"The majestic flow" of confervae remarked by Livingstone on the
Tanganyika is beyond my comprehension, if that vast lake has no outlet
at the north.
In Livingstone's letter of 27th Nov., 1870, he writes: - "Speke's great
mistake was the pursuit of a foregone conclusion. When he discovered the
Victoria N'yanza he at once leaped to the conclusion that therein lay
the sources; but subsequently, as soon as he and Grant looked to the
N'yanza, they turned their backs on the Nile fountains. Had they doubted
the correctness of the conclusion, they would have come west into the
trough of the great valley, and found there mighty streams, not eighty
or ninety yards, as their White Nile, but from 4,000 to 8,000 yards, and
always deep."
I was surprised that Livingstone could make such an error in quoting
Speke's White Nile from the Victoria N'yanza as eighty or ninety yards
in width! At M'rooli, in latitude N. 1 degree 37", I have seen that
magnificent river, which is at least A THOUSAND YARDS in width, with a
great depth. I have travelled on the river in canoes, and in the
narrowest places, where the current is naturally increased; the width is
at least 300 yards.
From my personal experience I must strenuously uphold the Victoria Nile
as a source of enormous volume, and should it ever be proved that the
distant affluents of the M'wootan N'zige are the most remote, and
therefore the nominal sources of the Nile, the great Victoria N'yanza
must ever be connected with the names of Speke and Grant as one of the
majestic parents of the Nile Basin.
Latterly, when speaking of the Lualaba, Livingstone writes to Sir Henry
Rawlinson: - "The drainage clearly did not go into Tanganyika, and that
lake, though it probably has an outlet, lost all its interest to me as a
source of the river of Egypt."
We are, therefore completely in the dark concerning the flow of water
from the Lualaba south of the equator, and of Schweinfurth's Welle north
of the equator, but both these large rivers were tending to the same
direction, north-west. The discovery of these two rivers in about the
same meridian is a satisfactory proof of the western watershed, which
completely excludes them from the Nile Basin. If the Tanganyika lake has
no communication with the Albert N'yanza, the old Nile is the simple
offspring of the two parents - the Victoria and the Albert lakes.
(This is now proved to be the case.)
When the steamer that I left at Gondokoro in sections shall be launched
upon the Albert N'yanza, this interesting question will be quickly
solved.
Early in November, 1871, when I was on the Nile south of Regiaf, I
noticed the peculiar change that suddenly took place in the river. We
were then in N. lat. 4 degrees 38", below the last cataracts, where the
water was perfectly clear and free from vegetation, with a stream of
about three and a half or four miles per hour.
Suddenly the river became discoloured by an immense quantity of the
Pistia Stratiotes, of which not one plant was entire.
This aquatic plant invariably grows in either dead water or in the most
sluggish stream, and none existed in the part of the river at N. lat. 4
degrees 38".
I examined many of the broken plants, which, instead of floating as
usual on the surface, were mingled in enormous quantities with the
rushing waters.
