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.
