How I Found Livingstone Travels, Adventures And Discoveries In Central Africa Including Four Months Residence With Dr. Livingstone By Sir Henry M. Stanley
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4 Degrees N. - He Has Been Compelled To Come
To The Conclusion That It Can Be No Other River Than
The Nile.
He had thought it was the Congo; but has discovered the sources
of the Congo to be the
Kassai and the Kwango, two rivers which
rise on the western side of the Nile watershed, in about the
latitude of Bangweolo; and he was told of another river called
the Lubilash, which rose from the north, and ran west. But the
Lualaba, the Doctor thinks, cannot be the Congo, from its great
size and body, and from its steady and continued flow northward
through a broad and extensive valley, bounded by enormous
mountains westerly and easterly. The altitude of the most
northerly point to which the Doctor traced the wonderful river
was a little in excess of 2,000 feet; so that, though Baker
makes out his lake to be 2,700 feet above the sea, yet the
Bahr Ghazal, through which Petherick's branch of the White Nile
issues into the Nile, is but 2,000 feet; in which case there is
a possibility that the Lualaba may be none other than Petherick's
branch.
It is well known that trading stations for ivory have been
established for about 500 miles up Petherick's branch. We must
remember this fact when told that Gondokoro, in lat. 4 degrees N.,
is 2,000 feet above the sea, and lat. 4 degrees S., where the
halt was made, is only a little over 2,000 feet above the sea.
That the two rivers said to be 2,000 feet above the sea, separated
from each other by 8 degrees of latitude, are one and the same
river, may among some men be regarded as a startling statement.
But we must restrain mere expressions of surprise, and take
into consideration that this mighty and broad Lualaba is a
lacustrine river broader than the Mississippi; that at intervals
the body of water forms extensive lakes; then, contracting into
a broad river, it again forms a lake, and so on, to lat.
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