The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile, And Explorations of the Nile Sources

by Sir Samuel White Baker

The exit of the Nile from the lake was plain enough, and if the broad channel of dead water were indeed the entrance of the Victoria Nile (Somerset), the information obtained by Speke would be remarkably confirmed. Up to the present time all the information that I had received from Kamrasi and his people had been correct. He had told me that I should be about twenty days from M'rooli to the lake; I had been eighteen. He had also told me that the Somerset flowed from Karuma direct to the lake, and that, having joined it, the great Nile issued from the lake almost immediately, and flowed through the Koshi and Madi tribes. I now saw the river issuing from the lake within eighteen miles of Magungo; and the Koshi and the Madi countries appeared close to me, bordering it on the west and east. Kamrasi being the king, it was natural that he should know his own frontier most intimately; but, although the chief of Magungo and all the natives assured me that the broad channel of dead water at my feet was positively the brawling river that I had crossed below the Karuma Falls, I could not understand how so fine a body of water as that had appeared could possibly enter the Albert lake as dead water. The guide and natives laughed at my unbelief, and declared that it was dead water for a considerable distance from the junction with the lake, but that a great waterfall rushed down from a mountain, and that beyond that fall the river was merely a succession of cataracts throughout the entire distance of about six days' march to Karuma Falls. My real wish was to descend the Nile in canoes from its exit from the lake with my own men as boatmen, and thus in a short time to reach the cataracts in the Madi country; there to forsake the canoes and all my baggage, and to march direct to Gondokoro with only our guns and ammunition. I knew from native report that the Nile was navigable as far as the Madi country to about Miani's tree, which Speke had laid down by astronomical observation in lat. 3 degrees 34 minutes; this would be only seven days' march from Gondokoro, and by such a direct course I should be sure to arrive in time for the boats to Khartoum. I had promised Speke that I would explore most thoroughly the doubtful portion of the river that he had been forced to neglect from Karuma Falls to the lake. I was myself confused at the dead water junction; and, although I knew that the natives must be right—as it was their own river, and they had no inducement to mislead me—I was determined to sacrifice every other wish in order to fulfil my promise, and thus to settle the Nile question most absolutely. That the Nile flowed out of the lake I had heard, and I had also confirmed by actual inspection; from Magungo I looked upon the two countries, Koshi and Madi, through which it flowed, and these countries I must actually pass through and again meet the Nile before I could reach Gondokoro. Thus the only point necessary to swear to, was the river between the lake and the Karuma Falls.

I had a bad attack of fever that evening, and missed my star for the latitude; but on the following morning before daybreak I obtained a good observation of Vega, and determined the latitude of Magungo 2 degrees 16 minutes due west from Atada or Karuma Falls. This was a strong confirmation that the river beneath my feet was the Somerset that I had crossed in the same latitude at Atada, where the river was running due west, and where the natives had pointed in that direction as its course to the lake. Nevertheless, I was determined to verify it, although by this circuitous route I might lose the boats from Gondokoro and become a prisoner in Central Africa, ill, and without quinine, for another year. I proposed it to my wife, who not only voted in her state of abject weakness to complete the river to Karuma, but wished, if possible, to return and follow the Nile from the lake down to Gondokoro! This latter resolve, based upon the simple principle of "seeing is believing," was a sacrifice most nobly proposed, but simply impossible and unnecessary.

We saw from our point at Magungo the Koshi and Madi countries, and the Nile flowing out of the lake through them. We must of necessity pass through those countries on our road to Gondokoro direct from Karuma via Shooa, and should we not meet the river in the Madi and Koshi country, the Nile that we now saw would not be the Nile of Gondokoro. We knew, however, that it was so, as Speke and Grant had gone by that route, and had met the Nile near Miani's tree in lat. 3 degrees 34 min. in the Madi country, the Koshi being on its western bank; thus, as we were now at the Nile head and saw it passing through the Madi and Koshi, any argument against the river would be the argumentum ad absurdum. I ordered the boats to be got ready to start immediately.

The chief gave me much information, confirming the accounts that I had heard a year previous in the Latooka countries, that formerly cowrie shells were brought in boats from the south, and that these shells and brass coil brackets came by the lake from Karagwe. He called also several of the natives of Malegga, who had arrived with beautifully prepared mantles of antelope and goatskins, to exchange for bracelets and glass beads. The Malegga people were in appearance the same as those of Unyoro, but they spoke a different language.

The boats being ready, we took leave of the chief, leaving him an acceptable present of beads, and we descended the hill to the river, thankful at having so far successfully terminated the expedition as to have traced the lake to that important point Magungo, which had been our clue to the discovery even so far away in time and place as the distant country of Latooka. We were both very weak and ill, and my knees trembled beneath me as we walked down the easy descent. I, in my enervated state, endeavouring to assist my wife, we were the "blind leading the blind;" but had life closed on that day we could have died most happily, for the hard fight through sickness and misery had ended in victory; and, although I looked to home as a paradise never to be regained, I could have lain down to sleep in contentment on this spot, with the consolation that, if the body had been vanquished, we died with the prize in our grasp.

On arrival at the canoes we found everything in readiness, and the boatmen already in their places. A crowd of natives pushed us over the shallows, and once in deep water we passed through a broad canal which led us into the open channel without the labour of towing through the narrow inlet by which we had arrived. Once in the broad channel of dead water we steered due east, and made rapid way until the evening. The river as it now appeared, although devoid of current, was an average of about 500 yards in width. Before we halted for the night I was subjected to a most severe attack of fever, and upon the boat reaching a certain spot I was carried on a litter, perfectly unconscious, to a village, attended carefully by my poor sick wife, who, herself half dead, followed me on foot through the marshes in pitch darkness, and watched over me until the morning. At daybreak I was too weak to stand, and we were both carried down to the canoes, and, crawling helplessly within our grass awning, we lay down like logs while the canoes continued their voyage. Many of our men were also suffering from fever. The malaria of the dense masses of floating vegetation was most poisonous; and upon looking back to the canoe that followed in our wake, I observed all my men sitting crouched together sick and dispirited, looking like departed spirits being ferried across the melancholy Styx. The river now contracted rapidly to about 250 yards in width about ten miles from Magungo. We had left the vast flats of rush banks, and entered a channel between high ground, forming steep forest-covered hills, about 200 feet on either side, north and south: nevertheless there was no perceptible stream, although there was no doubt that we were actually in the channel of a river. The water was clear and exceedingly deep. In the evening we halted, and slept on a mud bank close to the water. The grass in the forest was very high and rank; thus we were glad to find an open space for a bivouac, although a nest of mosquitoes and malaria.

On waking the next morning, I observed that a thick fog covered the surface of the river; and as I lay upon my back, on my angarep, I amused myself before I woke my men by watching the fog slowly lifting from the river. While thus employed I was struck by the fact, that the little green water-plants, like floating cabbages (Pistia Stratiotes, L.), were certainly, although very slowly, moving to the west. I immediately jumped up, and watched them most attentively; there was no doubt about it; they were travelling towards the Albert lake. We were now about eighteen miles in a direct line from Magungo, and there was a current in the river, which, however slight, was nevertheless perceptible.

Our toilette did not take long to arrange, as we had thrown ourselves down at night with our clothes on; accordingly we entered the canoe at once, and gave the order to start.

The woman Bacheeta knew the country, as she had formerly been to Magungo when in the service of Sali, who had been subsequently murdered by Kamrasi; she now informed me that we should terminate our canoe voyage on that day, as we should arrive at the great waterfall of which she had often spoken. As we proceeded the river gradually narrowed to about 180 yards, and when the paddles ceased working we could distinctly hear the roar of water. I had heard this on waking in the morning, but at the time I had imagined it to proceed from distant thunder. By ten o'clock the current had so increased as we proceeded, that it was distinctly perceptible, although weak. The roar of the waterfall was extremely loud, and after sharp pulling for a couple of hours, during which time the stream increased, we arrived at a few deserted fishing huts, at a point where the river made a slight turn. I never saw such an extraordinary show of crocodiles as were exposed on every sandbank on the sides of the river; they lay like logs of timber close together, and upon one bank we counted twenty-seven, of large size; every basking place was crowded in a similar manner. From the time we had fairly entered the river, it had been confined by heights somewhat precipitous on either side, rising to about 180 feet. At this point the cliffs were still higher, and exceedingly abrupt. From the roar of the water, I was sure that the fall would be in sight if we turned the corner at the bend of the river; accordingly I ordered the boatmen to row as far as they could: to this they at first objected, as they wished to stop at the deserted fishing village, which they explained was to be the limit of the journey, farther progress being impossible.

However, I explained that I merely wished to see the fall, and they rowed immediately up the stream, which was now strong against us. Upon rounding the corner, a magnificent sight burst suddenly upon us. On either side the river were beautifully wooded cliffs rising abruptly to a height of about 300 feet; rocks were jutting out from the intensely green foliage; and rushing through a gap that cleft the rock exactly before us, the river, contracted from a grand stream, was pent up in a narrow gorge of scarcely fifty yards in width; roaring furiously through the rock-bound pass, it plunged in one leap of about 120 feet perpendicular into a dark abyss below.