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.
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