“Before leaving the subject of the watershed, I may add that I know about six hundred miles of it, but am not yet satisfied, for unfortunately the seventh hundred is the most interesting of the whole. I have a very strong impression that in the last hundred miles the fountains of the Nile, mentioned to Herodotus by the Secretary of Minerva in the city of Sais do arise, not like all the rest, from oozing earthen sponges, but from an earthen mound, and half the water flows northward to Egypt, the other half south to Inner Ethiopia. These fountains, at no great distance off, become large rivers, though at the mound they are not more than ten miles apart. That is, one fountain rising on the northeast of the mound becomes Bartle Frere’s Lualaba, and it flows into one of the lakes proper, Kamolondo, of the central line of drainage; Webb’s Lualaba, the second fountain rising on the Northwest, becomes (Sir Paraffin) Young’s Lualaba, which passing through Lake Lincoln and becoming Loeki or Lomame, and joining the central line too, goes north to Egypt. The third fountain on the southwest, Palmerston’s, becomes the Liambia or Upper Zambesi; while the fourth, Oswell’s fountain, becomes the Kafue, and falls into Zambesi in Inner Ethiopia.
“More time has been spent in the exploration than I ever anticipated. Many a weary foot I trod ere I got a clear idea of the drainage of the great Nile valley. The most intelligent natives and traders thought that all the rivers of the upper part of that valley flowed into Tanganyika. But the barometers told me that to do so the water must flow up hill. The great rivers and the great lakes all make their waters converge into the deep trough of the valley, which is a full inch of the barometer lower than the Upper Tanganyika.
“Let me explain, but in no boastful style, the mistakes of others who have bravely striven to solve the ancient problem, and it will be seen that I have cogent reasons for following the painful, plodding investigation to its conclusion. Poor Speke’s mistake was a foregone conclusion. When he discovered the Victoria Nyansa he at once jumped to the conclusion that therein lay the sources of the river of Egypt, ‘20,000 square miles of water,’ confused by sheer immensity. Ptolemy’s small lake, Coloc, is a more correct representation of the actual size of that one of three or four lakes which alone sends its outflow to the north. Its name is Okara. Lake Kavirondo is three days distant from it, but connected by a narrow arm. Lake Naibash, or Neibash, is four days from Kavirondo. Baringo is ten days distant, and discharges by a river, the Nagardabash, to the northeast.
“These three or four lakes, which have been described by several intelligent Suaheli, who have lived for many years on their shores, were run into one huge Victoria Nyanza. But no sooner did Speke and Grant turn their faces to this lake, to prove that it contained the Nile fountains, than they turned their backs to the springs of the river of Egypt, which are between four hundred and five hundred miles south of the most southerly portion of the Victoria Lake. Every step of their heroic and really splendid achievement of following the river down took them further and further from the sources they sought. But for the devotion to the foregone conclusion the sight of the little ‘White Nile,’ as unable to account for the great river, they must have turned off to the west down into the deep trough of the great valley, and there found lacustrine rivers amply sufficient to account for the Nile and all its phenomena.
“But all that can in modern times and in common modesty be fairly claimed is the re-discovery of what had sunk into oblivion, like the circumnavigation of Africa by the Phœnician admirals of one of the Pharaohs about B. C. 600. He was not believed because he reported that in passing round Libya he had the sun on his right hand. This, to us who have gone round the Cape from east to west, stamps his tale as genuine. The predecessors of Ptolemy probably gained their information from men who visited this very region, for in the second century of our era he gave in substance what we now find to be genuine geography.
“The geographical results of four arduous trips in different directions in the Manyema country are briefly as follows:—The great river, Webb’s Lualaba, in the center of the Nile valley, makes a great bend to the west, soon after leaving Lake Moero, of at least one hundred and eighty miles; then, turning to the north for some distance, it makes another large sweep west of about one hundred and twenty miles, in the course of which about thirty miles of southing are made; it then draws round to northeast, receives the Lomani, or Loeki, a large river which flows through Lake Lincoln. After the union a large lake is formed, with many inhabited islands in it; but this has still to be explored. It is the fourth large lake in the central line of drainage, and cannot be Lake Albert; for, assuming Speke’s longitude of Ujiji to be pretty correct, and my reckoning not enormously wrong, the great central lacustrine river is about five degrees west of Upper and Lower Tanganyika.
“Beyond the fourth lake the water passes, it is said, into large reedy lakes, and is in all probability Petherick’s branch—the main stream of the Nile—in distinction from the smaller eastern arm which Speke, Grant, and Baker took to be the river of Egypt. In my attempts to penetrate further and further I had but little hope of ultimate success, for the great amount of westing led to a continued effort to suspend the judgment, lest, after all, I might be exploring the Congo instead of the Nile, and it was only after the two great western drains fell into the central main, and left but the two great lacustrine rivers of Ptolemy, that I felt pretty sure of being on the right track.
“The great bends west probably form one side of the great rivers above that geographical loop, the other side being Upper Tanganyika and the Lake River Albert. A waterfall is reported to exist between Tanganyika and Albert Nyanza, but I could not go to it; nor have I seen the connecting link between the two—the upper side of the loop—though I believe it exists.
“The Manyema are certainly cannibals, but it was long ere I could get evidence more positive than would have led a Scotch jury to give a verdict of ‘not proven.’ They eat only enemies killed in war; they seem as if instigated by revenge in their man-eating orgies, and on these occasions they do not like a stranger to see them. I offered a large reward in vain to any one who would call me to witness a cannibal feast. Some intelligent men have told me that the meat is not nice and made them dream of the dead. The women never partake, and I am glad of it, for many of them far down Lualaba are very pretty; they bathe three or four times a day and are expert divers for oysters.
“Markets are held at stated times and the women attend them in large numbers, dressed in their best. They are light colored, have straight noses, finely formed heads, small hands and feet and perfect forms; they are keen traders, and look on the market as a great institution; to haggle and joke and laugh and cheat seem the enjoyments of life. The population, especially west of the river, is prodigiously large.