"Because in the south I shall find the sea, and vessels which will take me back to my country, to the north, without my having the trouble of walking there."
"The sea!" repeated the King, slowly. "Yes, the white man spoke to me about that, but I did not understand him. Explain to me, if you can, what the sea is."
"Have you any lakes in your country—what they call in the east the
Nyanzas?"
"No. I have not any."
"But you have plenty of rivers?"
"Rivers? Yes, yes—the Gadda, the Keebally—"
"Good! The sea is composed of a vast number of rivers, without banks, ranged one alongside the other."
Munza shut his eyes to conjure up the figure thus presented to him. Did he succeed? We never knew, for he did not again utter a word on the subject. All the Europeans who have ever attempted to give the central tribes an idea of the ocean have failed. It has been often remarked that their imagination cannot grasp the notion. De Morin would, possibly, have done better, had he taken the sky as his point of comparison, and endeavoured to explain that the sea was a sky turned upside down, whose limits the eye is powerless to reach, and which lies ahead instead of being above.
"So," resumed the King, "it is to rejoin the sea that you wish to cross my territory and reach the south?"
"Principally for that reason, but I have also another motive."