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:
