It only requires
six or seven months more to trace the true source that I have
discovered with Petherick's branch of the White Nile, or with
the Albert N'Yanza of Sir Samuel Baker, which is the lake
called by the natives `Chowambe.' Why should I go home before
my task is ended, to have to come back again to do what I can
very well do now?"
"And why?" I asked, "did you come so far back without finishing
the task which you say you have got to do?"
"Simply because I was forced. My men would not budge a step
forward. They mutinied, and formed a secret resolution - if I still
insisted upon going on - to raise a disturbance in the country, and
after they had effected it to abandon me; in which case I should
have been killed. It was dangerous to go any further. I had
explored six hundred miles of the watershed, had traced all the
principal streams which discharge their waters into the central
line of drainage, but when about starting to explore the last
hundred miles the hearts of my people failed them, and they set
about frustrating me in every possible way. Now, having returned
seven hundred miles to get a new supply of stores, and another
escort, I find myself destitute of even the means to live but for
a few weeks, and sick in mind and body."
Here I may pause to ask any brave man how he would have comported
himself in such a crisis.
