The Natives Most Positively Refused To Take Me Down The Nile From The Lake Into The Madi, As They Said That They Would Be Killed By The People, Who Were Their Enemies, As I Should Not Be With Them On Their Return Up The River.

The exit of the Nile from the lake was plain enough, and if the broad channel of dead water were indeed the entrance of the Victoria Nile (Somerset), the information obtained by Speke would be remarkably confirmed.

Up to the present time all the information that I had received from Kamrasi and his people had been correct. He had told me that I should be about twenty days from M'rooli to the lake; I had been eighteen. He had also told me that the Somerset flowed from Karuma direct to the lake, and that, having joined it, the great Nile issued from the lake almost immediately, and flowed through the Koshi and Madi tribes. I now saw the river issuing from the lake within eighteen miles of Magungo; and the Koshi and the Madi countries appeared close to me, bordering it on the west and east. Kamrasi being the king, it was natural that he should know his own frontier most intimately; but, although the chief of Magungo and all the natives assured me that the broad channel of dead water at my feet was positively the brawling river that I had crossed below the Karuma Falls, I could not understand how so fine a body of water as that had appeared could possibly enter the Albert lake as dead water. The guide and natives laughed at my unbelief, and declared that it was dead water for a considerable distance from the junction with the lake, but that a great waterfall rushed down from a mountain, and that beyond that fall the river was merely a succession of cataracts throughout the entire distance of about six days' march to Karuma Falls. My real wish was to descend the Nile in canoes from its exit from the lake with my own men as boatmen, and thus in a short time to reach the cataracts in the Madi country; there to forsake the canoes and all my baggage, and to march direct to Gondokoro with only our guns and ammunition. I knew from native report that the Nile was navigable as far as the Madi country to about Miani's tree, which Speke had laid down by astronomical observation in lat. 3 degrees 34 minutes; this would be only seven days' march from Gondokoro, and by such a direct course I should be sure to arrive in time for the boats to Khartoum. I had promised Speke that I would explore most thoroughly the doubtful portion of the river that he had been forced to neglect from Karuma Falls to the lake. I was myself confused at the dead water junction; and, although I knew that the natives must be right - as it was their own river, and they had no inducement to mislead me - I was determined to sacrifice every other wish in order to fulfil my promise, and thus to settle the Nile question most absolutely. That the Nile flowed out of the lake I had heard, and I had also confirmed by actual inspection; from Magungo I looked upon the two countries, Koshi and Madi, through which it flowed, and these countries I must actually pass through and again meet the Nile before I could reach Gondokoro. Thus the only point necessary to swear to, was the river between the lake and the Karuma Falls.

I had a bad attack of fever that evening, and missed my star for the latitude; but on the following morning before daybreak I obtained a good observation of Vega, and determined the latitude of Magungo 2 degrees 16 minutes due west from Atada or Karuma Falls. This was a strong confirmation that the river beneath my feet was the Somerset that I had crossed in the same latitude at Atada, where the river was running due west, and where the natives had pointed in that direction as its course to the lake. Nevertheless, I was determined to verify it, although by this circuitous route I might lose the boats from Gondokoro and become a prisoner in Central Africa, ill, and without quinine, for another year. I proposed it to my wife, who not only voted in her state of abject weakness to complete the river to Karuma, but wished, if possible, to return and follow the Nile from the lake down to Gondokoro! This latter resolve, based upon the simple principle of "seeing is believing," was a sacrifice most nobly proposed, but simply impossible and unnecessary.

We saw from our point at Magungo the Koshi and Madi countries, and the Nile flowing out of the lake through them. We must of necessity pass through those countries on our road to Gondokoro direct from Karuma via Shooa, and should we not meet the river in the Madi and Koshi country, the Nile that we now saw would not be the Nile of Gondokoro. We knew, however, that it was so, as Speke and Grant had gone by that route, and had met the Nile near Miani's tree in lat. 3 degrees 34 min. in the Madi country, the Koshi being on its western bank; thus, as we were now at the Nile head and saw it passing through the Madi and Koshi, any argument against the river would be the argumentum ad absurdum. I ordered the boats to be got ready to start immediately.

The chief gave me much information, confirming the accounts that I had heard a year previous in the Latooka countries, that formerly cowrie shells were brought in boats from the south, and that these shells and brass coil brackets came by the lake from Karagwe. He called also several of the natives of Malegga, who had arrived with beautifully prepared mantles of antelope and goatskins, to exchange for bracelets and glass beads.

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