"'Captain Speke replied. They were not mistaken; and if they had pursued their journey fifty miles further, they would undoubtedly have found themselves at the northern borders of this lake.
"'Mr. Macqueen said that other travellers—Don Angelo, for instance—had been within one and a half degrees of the equator, and saw the mountain of Kimborat under the Line, and persisted in the statement, adding that travellers had been up the river till they found it a mere brook. He felt convinced that the large lake alluded to by Captain Speke was not the source of the Nile; it was impossible it could be so, for it was not at a sufficiently high altitude.
"'The paper presented to the Society, when fully read in conjunction with the map, will clearly show that the Bahr-el-Abiad had no connection with Kilimanjaro, that it has no connection whatever with any lake or river to the south of the equator, and that the swelling of the river Nile proceeds from the tropical rains of the northern torrid zone, as was stated emphatically to Julius Cæsar by the Chief Egyptian Priest, Amoreis, two thousand years ago.
"'In nearly 3° N. lat. there is a great cataract, which boats cannot pass. It is called Gherba. About halfway (fifty miles) above, and between this cataract and Robego, the capital of Kuenda, the river becomes so narrow as to be crossed by a bridge formed by a tree thrown across it. Above Gherba no stream joins the river either from the south or south-west.'"
[4] "When Jack returned to Kázeh, he represented Ukerewe and Mazita to be islands, and although in sight of them, he had heard nothing concerning their connection with the coast. This error was corrected by Salim bin Rashid, and accepted by us. Yet I read in his 'Discovery of the Supposed Sources of the Nile:' 'Mansur, and a native, the greatest traveller of the place, kindly accompanied and gave me every obtainable information. This man had traversed the island, as he called it, of Ukerewe from north to south. But by his rough mode of describing it, I am rather inclined to think that instead of its being an actual island, it is a connected tongue of land, stretching southwards from a promontory lying at right angles to the eastern shore of the lake, which being a wash, affords a passage to the mainland during the fine season, but during the wet becomes submerged, and thus makes Ukerewe temporarily an island.' The information, I repeat, was given, not by the 'native,' but by Salim bin Rashid. When, however, the latter proceeded to correct Jack's confusion between the well-known coffee mart Kitara, and 'the island of Kitiri occupied by a tribe called Watiri,' he gave only offence, consequently Kitiri has obtained a local habitation in Blackwood and Petermann."
[5] "The large river Tumbiri, mentioned by Dr. Krapf as flowing towards Egypt from the northern counterslope of Mount Kenia, rests upon the sole authority of a single wandering native. As, moreover, the word T'humbiri or Thumbili means a monkey, and the people are peculiarly fond of satire in a small way, it is not improbable that the very name had no foundation of fact. This is mentioned, as some geographers—for instance, Mr. Macqueen ('Observations on the Geography of Central Africa,' Proceedings of the R.G.S. of London, May 9, 1859)—have been struck by the circumstance that the Austrian missionaries and Mr. Werne ('Expedition to discover the Source of the White Nile, in 1840-41') gave Tubirih as the Bari name of the White Nile at the southern limit of their exploration."
[6] Richard long mourned the loss of his friend, whom Captain Speke, on his second journey with Colonel Grant—whether unable to assist I know not—left to be killed by the negroes of Mirámbo, his African enemy, in the bush.—I. B.
[7] Richard was a strong-willed, outspoken, and grievously injured man, under the greatest provocation ever put forth. He behaved with dignity, calmness, and generosity, above all praise.—I. B.