To the dog-keeping Waganda, who also would be considered women,
as they wear bark clothes. In my turn, I told Petherick he had
missed a good thing by not going up the river to look for me;
for, had he done so, he would not only have had the best ivory-
grounds to work upon, but, by building a vessel in Madi above the
cataracts, he would have had, in my belief, some hundred miles of
navigable water to transport his merchandise. In short, his
succouring petition was most admirably framed, had he stuck to
it, for the welfare of both of us.[FN#28]
We now received our first letters from home, and in one from Sir
Roderick Murchison I found the Royal Geographical Society had
awarded me their "founder's medal" for the discovery of the
Victoria N'yanza in 1858.
Conclusion
My journey down to Alexandria was not without adventure, and
carried me through scenes which, in other circumstances, it might
have been worth while to describe. Thinking, however, that I
have already sufficiently trespassed on the patience of the
reader, I am unwilling to overload my volume with any matter that
does not directly relate to the solution of the great problem
which I went to solve. Having now, then, after a period of
twenty-eight months, come upon the tracks of European travellers,
and met them face to face, I close my Journal, to conclude with a
few explanations, for the purpose of comparing the various
branches of the Nile with its affluences, so as to show their
respective values.
The first affluent, the Bahr el Ghazal, took us by surprise; for
instead of finding a huge lake, as described in our maps, at an
elbow of the Nile, we found only a small piece of water
resembling a duck-pond buried in a sea of rushes. The old Nile
swept through it with majestic grace, and carried us next to the
Geraffe branch of the Sobat river, the second affluent, which we
found flowing into the Nile with a graceful semicircular sweep
and good stiff current, apparently deep, but not more than fifty
yards broad.
Next in order came the main stream of the Sobat, flowing into the
Nile in the same graceful way as the Geraffe, which in breadth it
surpassed, but in velocity of current was inferior. The Nile by
these additions was greatly increased; still it did not assume
that noble appearance which astonished us so much, immediately
after the rainy season, when we were navigating it in canoes in
Unyoro.
I here took my last lunar observations, and made its mouth N.
lat. 9§ 20' 48", E. long. 31§ 24' 0". The Sobat has a third
mouth farther down the Nile, which unfortunately was passed
without my knowing it; but as it is so well known to be
unimportant, the loss was not great.
