We resolved to try a new political influence at court. Grant had taken to the court of Karagué a jumping-jack to amuse the young princess, but it gave offence here as a breach of etiquette.
Finally we bade Mtésa good-bye. I flattered him with admiration of his shooting, his country, and the possibilities of trade in the future, to which he replied in good taste. We then rose with an English bow, placing the hand on the heart while saying adieu, and there was a complete uniformity in the ceremonial, for whatever I did, Mtésa in an instant mimicked with the instinct of a monkey.
IV.—The Source Confirmed At Last
The final stage of our toilsome travelling was now reached, and we started northward, but as it appeared all-important to communicate quickly with Petherick, who had promised to await us with boats at Gondokoro, and Grant's leg being so weak, I arranged for him to go direct with my property, letters, etc., for dispatch to Petherick. I should meanwhile go up the river to its source or exit from the lake and come down again navigating as far as practicable. Crossing the Luajerri, a huge rush drain three miles broad, which is said to rise in the lake and fall into the Nile, I reached Urondogani.
Here, at last I stood on the brink of the Nile; most beautiful was the scene, nothing could surpass it! It was the very perfection of the kind of effect aimed at in a highly-kept park, with a magnificent stream from 600 to 700 yards wide, dotted with islets and rocks, the former occupied by fishermen's huts, the latter by sterns and crocodiles basking in the sun—flowing between fine high, grassy banks, with rich trees and plaintains in the background, where herds of the nsunnu and hartebeest could be seen grazing, while the hippopotami were snorting in the water and florikan and guinea-fowl rising at our feet.
The expedition had now performed its functions. I saw that old Father Nile, without any doubt, rises in the Victoria N'yanza! I told my men they ought to shave their heads and bathe in the holy river, the cradle of Moses, the waters of which, sweetened with sugar, men carried all the way from Egypt to Mecca and sell to the pilgrims. But Bombay, who is a philosopher of the Epicurean school, said:
"We don't look on those things in the same fanciful manner that you do, we are contented with all the common-places of life and look for nothing beyond the present. If things don't go well, it is God's will; and if they do go well, that is His will also."
I mourned, however, when I thought how much I had lost by the delays in the journey having deprived me of the pleasure of going to look at the north-east corner of the N'yanza to see what connection there was with it and the other lake where the Waganda went to get their salt, and from which another river flowed to the north making "Usoga an island." But I felt I ought to be content with what I had been spared to accomplish.
The most remote waters or tophead of the Nile is the southern end of the lake, situated close on the third degree of south latitude, which gives to the Nile the surprising length in direct measurement, rolling over thirty-four degrees of latitude, of above 2,300 miles or more than one-eleventh the circumference of our globe. I now christened what the natives term "the stones" as Ripon Falls after the nobleman who presided over the Royal Geographical Society when my expedition was got up, and the arm of water from which the Nile issued Napoleon Channel, in token of respect to the French Geographical Society who gave me their gold medal for discovering the Victoria N'yanza.
After a long journey to Gani we reached the habitation of men, knots of native fellows perched like monkeys on the granite blocks awaited us, and finally at Gondokoro we got first news of home and came down by boat to Khartum. Of course, in disbanding my followers, my faithful children, I duly rewarded them, franked them home to Zanzibar, and they all promptly volunteered to go with me again.