The map of 1864, printed by Mr now Sir Samuel Baker in the Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, affirms the Asua to have been a dry channel 150 yards wide when he crossed it, in Jan. 9, 1864, but rolling 15 feet deep in the wet season. He can hardly be speaking of the drain from the Baringo Lake, which must be large and perennial, and which therefore must be sought farther north, unless it anastomoses with some other stream. M. d’Arnaud, the French engineer sent in 1840-1841 by Mohammed Ali Pasha to explore the Upper Nile, reported (Journal Royal Geographical Society, vol. xviii. p. 73) that about 30 leagues south of where the expedition was stopped by shallow water in N. lat. 4° 42′ 42″, and therefore in N. lat. 3° 12′, the several branches unite, the chief one flowing from the east.
Nº 1 BURTON & SPEKE. May 1858
Nº 2 SPEKE. 1859
Nº 3 SPEKE & GRANT. 1863
Nº 4 SIR S. W. BAKER. 1864
The Baringo Palus must act reservoir to the whole N. Western declivities of Doenyo Ebor, whose snows have given it a name. Ptolemy (iv. 8) distinctly mentions the χίονας, or (melted) snows which feed the Nile; and though he places them in S. lat. 12° 30′, he is correct as to the existence of snowy feeders. Some years ago a Swiss traveller drew my attention to the fact that glacier-water would explain the term White river as opposed to Blue river. The quantity of melted snow or glacier-water which finds its way to the true Nile may be comparatively inconsiderable, but that little may perhaps modify the colourless complexion of rain-water when its suspended matter has been deposited, and distinguish it from the pure azure of a stream issuing from a Lake Geneva. In 1857 Captain Speke, an experienced Himalayan, easily detected, when drinking from the Pangar-ni or Rúfu river, the rough flavour of snow water.