There it is - a silvery gleam. I merely catch sight of
it between the trees, and - but here it is at last! True - THE TANGANIKA!
and there are the blue-black mountains of Ugoma and Ukaramba. An
immense broad sheet, a burnished bed of silver - lucid canopy of
blue above - lofty mountains are its valances, palm forests form its
fringes! The Tanganika! - Hurrah! and the men respond to the
exultant cry of the Anglo-Saxon with the lungs of Stentors, and the
great forests and the hills seem to share in our triumph.
"Was this the place where Burton and Speke stood, Bombay, when they
saw the lake first?"
"I don't remember, master; it was somewhere about here, I think."
"Poor fellows! The one was half-paralyzed, the other half-blind,"
said Sir Roderick Murchison, when he described Burton and Spoke's
arrival in view of the Tanganika.
And I? Well, I am so happy that, were I quite paralyzed and
blinded, I think that at this supreme moment I could take up my
bed and walk, and all blindness would cease at once. Fortunately,
however, I am quite well; I have not suffered a day's sickness
since the day I left Unyanyembe. How much would Shaw be willing
to give to be in my place now? Who is happiest - he revelling in
the luxuries of Unyanyembe, or I, standing on the summit of this
mountain, looking down with glad eyes and proud heart on the
Tanganika?
