It has all the appearance of a mountain stream, subject to great
periodical fluctuations. I was never more disappointed that with
this river; if the White river was cut off from it, its waters
would all be absorbed before they could reach Lower Egypt.
The Atbara river, which is the last affluent, was more like the
Blue river than any of the other affluences, being decidedly a
mountain stream, which floods in the rains, but runs nearly dry
in the dry season.
I had now seen quite enough to satisfy myself that the White
river which issues from the N'yanza at the Ripon Falls, is the
true or parent Nile; for in every instance of its branching, it
carried the palm with it in the distinctest manner, viewed, as
all the streams were by me, in the dry season, which is the best
time for estimating their relative perennial values.
Since returning to England, Dr Murie, who was with me at
Gondokoro, has also come home; and he, judging from my account of
the way in which we got ahead of the flooding of the Nile between
the Karuma Falls and Gondokoro, is of opinion that the Little
Luta Nzige must be a great backwater to the Nile, which the
waters of the Nile must have been occupied in filling during my
residence in Madi; and then about the same time that I set out
from Madi, the Little Luta Nzige having been surcharged with
water, the surplus began its march northwards just about the time
when we started in the same direction. For myself, I believe in
this opinion, as he no sooner asked me how I could account for
the phenomenon I have already mentioned of the river appearing to
decrease in bulk as we descended it, than I instinctively
advanced his own theory. Moreover, the same hypothesis will
answer for the sluggish flooding of the Nile down to Egypt.
I hope the reader who has followed my narrative thus far will be
interested in knowing how "my faithful children," for whose
services I had no further occasion, and whom I had taken so far
from their own country, were disposed of. At Cairo, where we put
up in Shepherd's Hotel, I had the whole of them photographed, and
indulged them at the public concerts, tableaux vivants, etc. By
invitation, we called on the Viceroy at his Rhoda Island palace,
and were much gratified with the reception; for, after hearing
all our stories with marked intelligence, he most graciously
offered to assist me in any other undertaking which would assist
to open up and develop the interior of Africa.
I next appointed Bombay captain of the "faithfuls," and gave him
three photographs of all the eighteen men and three more of the
four women, to give one of each to our Consuls at Suez, Aden, and
Zanzibar, by which they might be recognised.
