In this case there is but one main stream and as long as the lakes are the mere spreading out of that stream on low, flat lands, it must remain the same. But when you come to great reservoirs like the Albert and Victoria Nyanza and the Tanganika—into which a hundred streams, and perhaps twice that number of springs, flow—to go beyond such reservoirs to find the head of the stream is bringing geography down to a fine point. The outlet is plain—you have traced the river up till you see it roaring from its great feeder. This is very satisfactory, and should end all research after the source of the stream. But to insist on taking measurements of a dozen different rivers that flow into a lake a thousand miles in circumference, to find which is a mile longest or ten feet deepest, and thus determine the source of the outlet, is preposterous. A lake covering twenty-two thousand square miles, fed by a hundred rivers, is a reservoir of itself, and not an expansion of any one river. One might as well try to prove which is the greatest source or feeder of the Atlantic Ocean—the Amazon, Mississippi or Congo.
Thus we find Stanley, when he struck the Shimeeyu in Speke Gulf, declaring he had found the extreme southern source of the Nile; and now, when exploring another river of a larger volume on another side of the lake, he changes his mind and thinks he has made a great discovery in ascertaining at last the true source of the river. He found it over fifty feet deep, which showed what a volume of water it poured into the Victoria Nyanza. Descending it again, he entered another lake some thirteen miles long by eight wide. Exploring this, he was driven back by the natives when he attempted to land, who hailed him with shrill shouts and wild war-cries. The Kagera, through its entire length, maintains almost the same depth and volume.
HOT SPRINGS OF MTAGATA.
Returning to his generous host, he asked for guides to take him to the hot springs of Mtagata, the healing properties of which he had heard of far and wide from the natives. These were cheerfully given, and after a march of two days he reached them. Here he was met by an astonishing growth of vegetation. Plants of an almost infinite variety, covered the ground, growing so thick and crowding each other so closely, that they became a matted mass—the smaller ones stifled by the larger—and out of which trees shot up an arrow's-flight into the air, with "globes of radiant green foliage upon their stem-like crowns." He found a crowd of diseased persons here, trying the effect of the water. Naked men and women were lying promiscuously around in the steaming water, half-asleep and half-cooked, for the water showed a temperature of one hundred and twenty-nine degrees. The springs were, however, of different temperature. The hottest one issued from the base of a rocky hill, while four others, twenty degrees cooler, came bubbling up out of black mud, and were the favorites of the invalids. Stanley camped here three days, and bathed in the water and drank it, but could perceive no effect whatever on his system. Returning to his friend Rumaniki, he prepared to start on his journey south to Lake Tanganika, and finish its explorations.
Having discovered that the Kagera River formed a lake eighty miles long, and was a powerful stream a long distance from its mouth, he resolved, as it flowed from the south, to follow it up and try to find its source. A broad wilderness lay before him, the extent of which he did not accurately know, and he packed ten days' provisions on the shoulders of each man of the expedition, and bidding the soft-voiced pagan king, by whom he had been treated so kindly, a warm good-bye, he entered the forest and kept along the right bank of the stream. This was the 27th of March, and for six days he marched through an uninhabited wilderness, with nothing to break the monotony of the journey. At the end of that time he came to the borders of Karagwe and to the point where the Akanyaru River entered the Kagera. He dared not explore this river, for the natives that inhabit both banks are wild and fierce, having a deadly hatred of all strangers. They are like the long-legged race of Bumbireh, and he did not care to come in collision with them. They possess many cattle, and if one sickens or dies, they do not attribute it to accident, but believe it has been bewitched, and search the country through to find the stranger who has done it, and if he is found, he dies.
All the natives of the region are passionately fond of their cows, and will part with anything sooner than with milk. Stanley says that his friend Rumaniki, with all his generosity, never offered him a teaspoonful of milk, and if he had given him a can of it, he believes his people would have torn him limb from limb. He thinks that half of their hostility arises from the fear of the evil effect that the presence of strangers will have on their cattle. Hence they keep a strict quarantine on their frontiers. It is not strange that they should cherish this stock carefully, for it is their sole means of subsistence.
This long journey through various tribes is singularly barren of incident. On the route he lost his last dog, Bull, who had bravely held out in all their long wanderings, but at last he gave up and laid down and died, with his eyes fixed on the retiring expedition. He also met the redoubtable Mirambo, and found him not the blood-thirsty monster he had been represented to be, but a polite, pleasant-mannered gentleman, and generous to a fault. They made blood brotherhood together, and became fast friends. At length, in the latter part of May, he reached Ujiji, where he formerly found Livingstone. The following extract from a private letter of Stanley's, written to a friend while at Lake Victoria, gives a domestic picture that is quite charming, he says that "Kagehyi is a straggling village of cane huts, twenty or thirty in number, which are built somewhat in the form of a circle, hedged around by a fence of thorns twisted between upright stakes. Sketch such a village in your imagination, and let the centre of it be dotted here and there with the forms of kidlings who prank it with the vivacity of kidlings under a hot, glowing sun. Let a couple of warriors and a few round-bellied children be seen among them and near a tall hut which is a chief's, plant a taller tree, under whose shade sit a few elders in council with their chief; so much for the village.
"Now outside the village, yet, touching the fence, begin to draw the form of a square camp, about fifty yards square, each side flanked with low, square huts, under the eaves of which, plant as many figures of men as you please, for we have many, and you have the camp of the exploring expedition, commanded by your friend and humble servant. From the centre of the camp you may see Lake Victoria, or that portion of it I have called Speke Gulf, and twenty-five miles distant you may see table-topped Magita, the large island of Ukerewe, and toward the northwest a clear horizon, with nothing between water and sky to mar its level. The surface of the lake which approaches to within a few yards of the camp is much ruffled just at present with a northwest breeze, and though the sun is growing hot, under the shade it is agreeable enough, so that nobody perspires or is troubled with the heat. You must understand there is a vast difference between New York and Central African heat. Yours is a sweltering heat, begetting languor and thirst—ours is a dry heat, permitting activity and action without thirst or perspiration. If we exposed ourselves to the sun, we should feel quite as though we were being baked. Come with me to my lodgings, now. I lodge in a hut little inferior in size to the chief's. In it is stored the luggage of the expedition, which fills one-half. It is about six tons in weight, and consists of cloth, beads, wire, shells, ammunition, powder, barrels, portmanteaus, iron trunks, photographic apparatus, scientific instruments, pontoons, sections of boat, etc., etc. The other half of the hut is my sleeping, dining and hall-room. It is dark as pitch within, for light cannot penetrate the mud with which the wood-work is liberally daubed. The floor is of dried mud, thickly covered with dust, which breeds fleas and other vermin to be a plague to me and my poor dogs.