4 Degrees; And Even Beyond This Point The Doctor Hears Of A Large Lake Again North.

We must wait also until the altitudes of the two rivers, the Lualaba, where the Doctor halted, and the southern point on the Bahr Ghazal, where Petherick has been, are known with perfect accuracy.

Now, for the sake of argument, suppose we give this nameless lake a length of 6 degrees of latitude, as it may be the one discovered by Piaggia, the Italian traveller, from which Petherick's branch of the White Nile issues out through reedy marshes, into the Bahr Ghazal, thence into the White Nile, south of Gondokoro. By this method we can suppose the rivers one; for if the lake extends over so many degrees of latitude, the necessity of explaining the differences of altitude that must naturally exist between two points of a river 8 degrees of latitude apart, would be obviated.

Also, Livingstone's instruments for observation and taking altitudes may have been in error; and this is very likely to have been the case, subjected as they have been to rough handling during nearly six years of travel. Despite the apparent difficulty of the altitude, there is another strong reason for believing Webb's River, or the Lualaba, to be the Nile. The watershed of this river, 600 miles of which Livingstone has travelled, is drained from a valley which lies north and south between lofty eastern and western ranges.

This valley, or line of drainage, while it does not receive the Kassai and the Kwango, receives rivers flowing from a great distance west, for instance, the important tributaries Lufira and Lomami, and large rivers from the east, such as the Lindi and Luamo; and, while the most intelligent Portuguese travellers and traders state that the Kassai, the Kwango, and Lubilash are the head waters of the Congo River, no one has yet started the supposition that the grand river flowing north, and known by the natives as the Lualaba, is the Congo.

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