MM. de Pommerelle and Desrioux, like Stanley, appear to have nothing but praise to bestow upon M'tésa. In the month of September they quitted, without any obstacle being thrown in their way, the capital of Uganda, leaving to the eastward the celebrated Ripon Falls, which Speke affirms to be the real outset of the Nile. They then crossed an important river, the Kafoor, and proceeded in a direct line towards the north-west, reaching, in the month of October, M'Rooli, formerly the capital of King Kamrasi, who, for so long a time, detained Speke, Baker, and Lady Baker in his kingdom.
A fortnight after its departure from M'Rooli the caravan at length reached Lake Albert, or M'Wootan. From this point, thanks to notes, jotted down from time to time in a memorandum book, we are enabled to follow the two travellers by the light of their own observations.
"There is nothing," exclaims M. de Pommerelle, "in the whole of this country so superb as the appearance of Lake Albert. At my feet lies a long, verdant line of reeds bathing in the blue, transparent water, and waving under the influence of a fitful breeze. In the horizon, a grand wall of mountains, half hidden by shifting vapour, and standing out azure blue in the sunlight and the distance. Rounded, wooded, green hillocks repose on the sides of this granite mass, a tropical vegetation descending its slopes and disappearing on the margin of the lake."
MM. de Pommerelle and Desrioux were not mistaken in supposing that the mountains before them were the Blue Mountains, closing the north-west route which they had, up to this time, followed so strictly, in accordance with the hints contained in the letter from M. Périères. If their friends had not strayed from their intended track they were bound to meet them on the other side of those mountains. But how were they to scale them, or cross the intervening lake?
For some time they made their way along the shore, and reached Magungo, in lat. 2° N., recognizing this harbour by the description given by Baker of it, and its adjoining falls, a thousand feet high.
These falls, situated about twenty-five miles from Magungo, were afterwards christened by Baker the Murchison Falls, and this name has been preserved by both Chaillé-Long and the Italian Gessi in the latest maps published by them, in 1875 and 1876 respectively.
And now we have come to a point where we must recall to our readers the conversation which took place between MM. de Morin and Périères and the interpreter Ali, after the latter had contrived to communicate with M. de Guéran. "The residence of Queen Walinda," said the Arab interpreter, "is situated at the foot of a lofty and insurmountable mountain. Behind that mountain (which M. Périères supposed was Mount Maccorly or M'Caroli) are other mountains still more lofty, so high that they are lost in the clouds. Their tops, so much of them as can be seen, are quite blue, and at night from within them is heard a loud noise similar to that which would be produced by many torrents falling together from a great height." Those, M. de Morin remarked at the time, are the falls discovered at the northern end of Lake Albert, at the same elevation as Magungo, and known as the Murchison Falls.
Some time afterwards, at the end of November, 1873, the expedition of Madame de Guéran came in contact with the Walindis, and, on the 11th of December, gave battle to their army.
MM. de Pommerelle and Desrioux, on their side, reached Magungo, on the eastern shore of Lake Albert, in November, and were then only separated from their friends by that lake and the mountains on its western shore.