These mountains Stanley thought to be the dividing ridge between Victoria Nyanza, 120 miles east, and the southern projection of Albert Nyanza. But what was his astonishment to find that he had no sooner rose to the summit of his dividing ridge than he stood on a precipice, 1500 feet high, which overlooked the placid waters of the traditional Muta, or Luta, Nzigé. What a prize was here in store for the venturesome American! Something indeed which would rob Baker of his claim to the discovery of an ultimate Nile source in Albert Nyanza. Something which would set at rest many geographic controversies. And, strange to say, something which not only supported the truth of native accounts but seemed to verify the accuracy of an old Portuguese map dating back nearly 300 years.
But fortune was not in favor of the American. His large force had scared the Unyoro people, and they had mysteriously disappeared. The Waganda warriors, who formed his escort, looked ominously on this situation. Samboozi, the leader of the escort, had gained his laurels fighting the Unyoro, and he feared a trap of some kind was being laid for him. His fears demoralized his own men and Stanley’s as well. They decided to retreat. Stanley remonstrated, and asked them to remain till he could
lower his boat and explore the lake. He asked for but two days grace. But expostulation was vain. They would all have deserted in a body.
There was nothing left but to return. When they arrived at Mtesa’s capital, which they did without accident, the king was frightfully mad at his men. He ordered the faithless Samboozi to be imprisoned and all his wives and flocks to be confiscated. Then he offered Stanley his great general Sekebobo with an army of a hundred thousand men to carry him back to the Muta Nzigé. Stanley declined his munificent offer, and determined that in the future none should guide and govern his own force except himself. So, with very much modified impressions of Uganda faithfulness, and somewhat angrily, he started off in a southerly direction, intending to see what lay westward of Victoria Nyanza.
This route of Stanley southward was that of Speke and Grant northward, fourteen years before. It is a well watered, thickly peopled, highly cultivated country, diversified by hill and hollow, and rich in cattle. Its water courses all drain into the Victoria Nyanza. Their heads are rushing streams, but as they approach the lake they become reedy, stagnant lakelets hard to cross. The largest of these, at the southwest corner of Victoria Nyanza, is Speke’s Kitangule, which Stanley named the Alexandra Nile. Will we never have done with these Nile rivers? These continuations of the great river of Egypt?
It seems then that Victoria Nyanza is but a resting place for more southern Nile waters. That this is so, seems clear from the fact that the Alexandra Nile really contributes more water than flows out of the lake at its northern outlet. It has been discovered also that Albert Nyanza sends off another affluent to the north, besides that which flows past Gondokoro and which has been regarded as the true Nile. Further it seems that Lake Ibrahim, half way between Victoria and Albert Nyanza, on the Victoria Nile, dispatches an unknown branch into the wilderness. Whether these branches find their way back to the parent stream or go off to form new lakes, no one can exactly say.
But in the Alexandra Nile Stanley claims he has discovered a new ramification of this wonderful river system leading to other lakes and lake mysteries. The natives call the Alexandra the “Mother of the waters of Uganda,” that is, the Victoria Nyanza or Victoria Nile. Be this as it may, the Alexandra Nile is interesting both for its own sake and that of the people who live upon it. Stanley struck it far up from the lake where it was a quarter of a mile wide, with a dark central current 100 yards wide and fifty feet deep, which below became a rush covered stream whose banks were crowded with villages and herds of cattle. Still further on, it narrows between rocks over which it rushes in a cataract, and then it broadens to lake proportions, being from four to fifteen miles wide. In this expanse of reedy lagoons and green islands it merges into Victoria Nyanza Lake.
Crossing the Alexandra Nile to the south, we are in the Karagwe country, ruled by King Rumanika. Here is a haven of peace and rest. Speke and Grant staid many weeks with Rumanika. Stanley stopped for a considerable while to rest and recruit. He is gentle and reasonable, hospitable and friendly. He is a vassal of King Mtesa of Uganda, but the two are wholly different, except in their admiration of white men. Rumanika has no bursts of temper, but is serene, soft of voice and placid in manner. Stanley calls him a “venerable and aged Pagan,” a tall man, six feet six inches high, gorgeously dressed, attended by a multitude of spearmen, drummers and fifers, bearing a cane seven feet long. He has a museum in which he delights, and is an insatiable gatherer of news from those who come from civilized countries. He is not to be outdone by the stories of strangers, but has always one in response ever fuller of marvel. When Stanley told him of the results of steam power and of the telegraph by which people could talk for thousands of miles, he slily asked “Whether or not the moon made different faces to laugh at us mortals on earth?”
He proved full of traditions and, if there was any foundation for them, Stanley left with a rare fund of geographic knowledge on hand. The mountain sixty miles northward, rising in triple cone and called M’Fumbiro, he said was in the country of the
Ruanda, a powerful state governed by an empress, who allows no stranger to enter. Her dominions stretch from the Muta Nzigé to Tanganyika. They contain another great lake, forty by thirty miles, out of which the Alexandra Nile flows. It is possible to ascend this channel into another sheet of water—Lake Kivu, out of which at its southern end flows another stream, the Rusizi, which flows into the north end of Tanganyika.