The mountains lie around in the following direction: Mount Lof-et rises behind Mount Pelenjà, to S.E. by E., at a distance of about four hours, like an isolated mountain of small height. Mount Pelenjà, to S.E., in tolerable extent, from its peak about eight hundred feet high, S.E., 60″ to S. and 75″ to E., some three hours distant, a small mountain group of a rocky nature, and partly wooded, completely secluded. The mountain chain of Logojà, where cannibals dwell, the anterior peak of which seems to project to N., rises at a distance of from eight to nine hours, to a height like that of the seven hills seen from Cologne, with a lofty back, which appears, so far as it is not concealed from the eye by the mountains lying before it right and left, to extend from S.E. southerly 60″ long. The Hill of Liènajin, or Linanzin, a gently rising rock, covered with bushes, towards S.E. 50″ to S., distant an hour and a half. The still smaller rocks of Arlu, to S.E. by S., two hours distant; the rocks of Luluri or Lullulù to S.E. 30″ to S., one hour and a half. In the S. rises Mount Lugi, smoothed at the top, with precipitous disrupt walls of rock, which does not appear to exceed Korèk in height, and may have six hundred feet relative height. The river winds a little to the W. around its base, and this mountain may once have formed a terrace, which has joined to the mountain chain of Kàlleri, lying behind to S.S.E., forming as it were the foot to the mass of mountains rising up in the S. We see on the unevenly elevated rocky wall of Kàlleri, the dry bed of a cataract, to which even the natives drew our attention.
| MOUNTPELENJA. | MOUNTAIN CHAIN OF LOGOJA. | MT. KORESCHIP. | MT. KONNOPI. |
| ISLAND OF KORIANA. | |||
COUNTRY ON THE RIGHT SHORE OF THE NILE FROM THE ISLAND OF TSHANKER, TOWARDS SOUTH-EAST.—27TH JANUARY, 1841.
All these mountains and rocky hills lie on the right side of the river. This coincides with what has been said to us previously, and the plastic formation of the mountains themselves shews that the river does not break through from E. or S.E., and the natives are right when they place the sources of the White Stream to the south. On the left side of the river rises first, S.W. 3″ to W., Mount Lòngi, at two hours distant; Mount Lobèk, with a rocky head S.W. 28″ to W., three hours; the flat, round Loffoni S.W. 30″ to W. four hours; Mount Bio S.W. 60″ to W., some eight hours distant, ascending again to a considerable height; Mount Korèk, already known to us, on the ground softly rising from the river; it is one hour and a half from the river, entirely of a rocky nature, intersected in manifold parts by steep disrupt walls of rocks, similar to quarries. All its peaks not only lie in the distance, where the whole mountain appears like a terrace, but also near at hand, in equal horizontal lines, from W. to 75″ to N. It is perhaps not more than six hundred feet high, and it is the mountain that principally affords iron, although all the heights are said to contain the same.
As I distinguished previously Mount Nerkanjin on the left side of the Nile, by its height, so the mountains seem to increase generally on this side in height, as also the country from the shore to S.W. gradually ascends. Mount Konnopi or Kunobih appears W. by N., at a distance of from nine to ten hours, of light-coloured rocks, without any vegetation. It forms likewise a mountain group, with its six or seven peaks, which fall away tolerably steeply in convex lines, and separate one from the other. The high points of this group are of equal form, and may rise to two hundred feet relative height. Behind this mountain and Korèk, a mountain-chain projecting on both sides of Korèk, which stretches itself for about an hour in length, extends in an undulating form, and loses itself to S. This chain is called Kugelù, and I calculate its distance at being at least twenty hours. To N.W. 73″ towards N. lies Mount Lokùn, about two to two and a half hours distant, with a gentle slope of small height, and to N. the Nerkanjin already known to us, some eight to nine hours distant.
If we only consider the situation of these mountains generally, and the evidence of the natives with reference to the origin of the White Stream, who, from the moment that they stated the iron came from the mountains in the south (where we had already hoped for mountains), shewed their accurate knowledge of locality, and who here, also, transfer the sources of the White arm of the Nile from the foot of the mountain land further to the south, every doubt must be removed by the agreement of these expressions. Even among us the opinion was prevalent that the sources of the Nile should be sought to the east in a ramification of the Abyssinian chain of high mountains. We have therefore made close inquiries, whether any running water were existing on this side, and learned that there is not; for the people in that part, drink, on the contrary, from springs. Nature seems here to have formed, generally, to the east, as well as to the west, a watershed.[2]
In S.E. Mount Logojà is seen, at a distance of eight to nine hours, a chain of mountains stretching from E. to S.; in the west rises Mount Kugelù, twenty hours off, like a long serpentine track, which must be in proportion to the presumed distance, as also its height to the near rocky mountains of considerable elevation, and seems to extend likewise to the south. Both mountain chains may, in consequence of these exterior plastic proportions, rise up like branches to the mighty trunk of mountains in the south, as the natives on the Island of Tshànker endeavoured to shew me when I was sketching, by uttering names and making unmistakable gestures. This mountain-stock, perhaps a second Himalaya, may form the combination of streams of the White Nile between these its sides. The river here formerly broke violently through its projecting base—isolated Mount Lugi, which is like a half demolished pyramid, and rushed down over it like a powerful waterfall.
Selim Capitan made three observations upon the Island of Tshànker, and the northern latitude was confirmed as 4° 30″. The stream, having a direction to S.S.W., is found to be three hundred mètres[3] broad, from the island to the right shore. The two arms of the river may amount to something over one hundred mètres from the island to the left shore, before which another little island lies. A rocky bar of gneiss extends here from E. to W. right across the stream, and continues beyond the islands, the highest points of which it forms, to the left shore, where we may follow the traces of this rocky bank to a still greater distance, for it projects in a slight breadth over the ascending grounds. This reef, running from E. to W. which may give the direction of the succeeding chasms in the valley broken through by the stream, rises in the middle of the river to a larger rock, and other blocks peep out of the water towards the right shore, whilst the other rocky part towards the Island of Tshànker is only superficially covered by water. The current gushes by the before-named rocks as at the Bingen Loch,[4] and it is only there where we may expect to find a passage.
Our Arabs are glad at this tschellàl, as they call a waterfall, or even a current, and want to take it immediately for an insurmountable wall, even before sounding the passage. The conchylia, similar to oysters, clinging to these gneiss rocks, are the thorn-muscles, which are found also at the cataracts in Nubia (Etheria tubifera). By mistake, I previously called these muscles ampulla tubulosa.[5] Besides the snails mentioned on a former occasion, I found on the shores of the White Stream the large water-snails (ampullaria ovata var.), as well as the muscles (Iridina rubens, and Anodonta acuta).