Early in May we left Latooka, and crossed a high mountain chain by a pass 2,500 feet in height into the beautiful country of Obbo. This is a fertile plateau, 3,674 feet above sea-level, with abundance of wild grapes and other fruits, yams, nuts, flax, tobacco, etc.; but the travelling was difficult owing to the high grass. The people are pleasant-featured and good-natured, and the chief, Katchiba, maintains his authority by a species of hocus-pocus, or sorcery. He is a merry soul, has a multiplicity of wives—a bevy in each village—so that when he travels through his kingdom he is always at home. His children number 116, and the government is quite a family affair, for he has one of his sons as chief in every village. A native of Obbo showed me some cowrie-shells which he said came from a country called Magungo, situated on a lake so large that no one knew its limits. This lake, said I, can be no other than Luta N'zige which Speke had heard of, and I shall take the first opportunity to push for Magungo.
We returned to Latooka to pick up our stores and rejoin Ibrahim, but were detained by the illness of Mrs. Baker and myself and the loss of some of my transport animals. The joint caravan left Latooka on June 23 for Unyoro, Mrs. Baker in an improvised palanquin. The weather was wretched. Constant rains made progress slow; and the natives of the districts through which we passed were dying like flies from smallpox. When we at last reached Obbo we could proceed no further.
My wife and I were so ill with bilious fever that we could not assist each other; my horses, camels and donkeys all died. Flies by day, rats and innumerable bugs by night in the miserable hut where we were located, lions roaring through the dark, never-ending rains, made for many weary months of Obbo a prison about as disagreeable as could be imagined. Having purchased some oxen in lieu of horses and baggage animals, we at length were able to leave Obbo on January 5, 1864, passing through Farājoke, crossing the river Asua at an altitude of 2,875 feet above sea-level, and then on to Fatiko, the capital of the Shooa country, at an altitude of 3,877 feet.
III.—Discovery of the Nile's Sources
Shooa proved a land flowing with milk and honey. Provisions of every kind were abundant and cheap. The pure air invigorated Mrs. Baker and myself; and on January 18 we left Shooa for Unyoro, Kamrasi's country. On the 22nd we struck the Somerset River, or the Victoria White Nile, and crossed it at the Karuma Falls, marching thence to M'rooli, Kamrasi's capital, at the junction of the Kafoor River with the Somerset, which was reached on February 10. Here we were detained till February 21, with exasperating excuses for preventing us going further, and audacious demands from Kamrasi for everything that I had, including my last watch and my wife! We were surrounded by a great number of natives, and, as my suspicions of treachery appeared confirmed, I drew my revolver, resolved that if this was to be the end of the expedition it should also be the end of Kamrasi. I held the revolver within two feet of his chest, looked at him with undisguised contempt, and told him that if he dared to repeat the insult I would shoot him on the spot. My wife also made him a speech in Arabic (not a word of which he understood), with a countenance as amiable as the head of a Medusa. Altogether, the mise en scène utterly astonished him, and he let us go, furnishing us with a guide named Rabongo to take us to M'wootan N'zige, not Luta N'zige, as Speke had erroneously suggested. In crossing the Kafoor River on a bridge of floating weeds, Mrs. Baker had a sunstroke, fell through the weeds into deep water, and was rescued with great difficulty. For many days she remained in a deep torpor, and was carried on a litter while we marched through an awful broken country. The torpor was followed by brain fever, with its attendant horrors. The rain poured in torrents; and day after day we were forced to travel for want of provisions, as in the deserted villages there were no supplies. Sometimes in the forest we procured wild honey, and rarely I was able to shoot a few guinea-fowl. We reached a village one night following a day on which my wife had had violent convulsions. I laid her down on a litter within a hut, covered her with a Scotch plaid, and I fell upon my mat insensible, worn out with sorrow and fatigue. When I woke the next morning I found my wife breathing gently, the fever gone, the eyes calm. She was saved! The gratitude of that moment I will not attempt to describe.
On March 14 the day broke beautifully clear; and, having crossed a deep valley between the hills, we toiled op the opposite slope. I hurried to the summit. The glory of our prize burst suddenly upon me! There, like a sea of quicksilver, lay, far beneath, the grand expanse of water, a boundless sea horizon on the south and south-west, glittering in the noon-day sun; and on the west, fifty or sixty miles distant, blue mountains rose from the bosom of the lake to a height of 7,000 feet above its level. It is impossible to describe the triumph of that moment. Here was the reward for all our labour—for the years of tenacity with which we had toiled through Africa. England had won the sources of the Nile!
I was about 1,500 feet above the lake; and I looked down from the steep granite cliff upon those welcome waters, upon that vast reservoir which nourished Egypt, and brought fertility where all was wilderness, upon that great source so long hidden from mankind; that source of bounty and of blessing to millions of human beings; and, as one of the greatest objects in Nature, I determined to honour it with a great name. As an imperishable memorial of one loved and mourned by our gracious queen, and deplored by every Englishman, I called this great lake "The Albert N'yanza." The Victoria and the Albert Lakes are the two sources of the Nile.
IV.—Exploring the Great Lake
The zigzag path of the descent to the lake was so steep and dangerous that we were forced to leave our oxen with a guide, who was to take them to Magungo, and wait for our arrival. We commenced the descent of the steep pass on foot. I led the way, grasping a stout bamboo. My wife, in extreme weakness, tottered down the pass, supporting herself on my shoulder, and stopping to rest every twenty paces. After a toilsome descent of about two hours, weak with years of fever, but for the moment strengthened by success, we gained the level plain below the cliff. A walk of about a mile through flat sandy meadows of fine turf, interspersed with trees and bush, brought us to the water's edge. The waves were rolling upon a white pebbly beach. I rushed into the lake, and, thirsty with fatigue, with a heart full of gratitude, I drank deep from the sources of the Nile. Within a quarter of a mile of the lake was a fishing village named Vacovia, in which we now established ourselves.
At sunrise of the following morning I took the compass to the borders of the lake to survey the country. It was beautifully clear; and with a powerful telescope I could distinguish two large waterfalls that cleft the sides of the mountains like threads of silver. My wife, who had followed me so devotedly, stood by my side pale and exhausted—a wreck upon the shores of the great Albert Lake that we had so long striven to reach. No European foot had ever trod upon its sand, nor had the eyes of a white man ever scanned its vast expanse of water. We were the first; and this was the key to the great secret that even Julius Caesar yearned to unravel, but in vain!