"I, and my father before me," he said, "have been to blame for not sufficiently making ourselves acquainted with the serious responsibility we had undertaken. I have seen with my own eyes that my estates are sadly mismanaged, and I have reason to complain that your conduct has been both selfish and unjust; selfish, in thinking solely of your own interests—and unjust, in saddling me with your faults. We cannot act longer together, Mr. Hennessey, and you will be good enough to prepare your accounts, so as that they may be duly audited as soon as possible. I will remain the guest of Sir Brian McMurrough, at whose house I am for some little time to be found."
Hennessey left the court-house, degraded and dismissed, leaving with him "his hat with the pound of bullets in it." "I always knew it was Miles Casidy the driver put them m [{853}] it by Hennessey's order," said Andy Monahan, "and more be token be hinted as much himself yesterday after the seventh glass."
Sir William Jessop went back to the Black Abbey in triumph; and never left it until he had made Eva McMurrough his bride, so that the estates still run with the "auld stock," and Sir Brian and Father John, who is almoner-general to Sir William, are as happy as kings.
MISCELLANY.
The Source of the Nile. —Mr. S. W. Baker read a paper before the "Royal Geographical Society," London, giving an "Account of the Discovery of Lake Albert Nyanza." The author commenced by saying that he began in 1861 the preparation of an expedition, in the hope of meeting Speke and Grant at the sources of the Nile. He employed the first year in exploring the tributaries of the Atbara, and afterward proceeded to Khartoum, to organize his party for the great White Nile. In December, 1862, he started from Khartoum with a powerful force, embarked on board three vessels, and including twenty-nine animals of transport, camels, horses, and asses. Pursuing his course, he entered upon a dreary waste of water and reedy banks, where he soon lost his only European attendant, who was killed by fever. The remainder of the party safely reached Gondokoro, which is a wretched place, occupied only occasionally by traders seeking for slaves and ivory. After fifteen days the firing of guns announced some new arrivals, and a party arrived, among whom were two Englishmen, who proved to be Captains Speke and Grant, clothed in humble rags, but with the glory of success upon them. Captain Speke told him the natives declared that a large lake existed to the westward, which he believed would turn out to be a second source of the Nile, and that he himself had traced the river up to 2° 20' N., when it diverged to the west, and he was obliged to leave it. Mr. Baker undertook to follow up the stream, and made his arrangements to join a trading party going southward. The trade along the White Nile really consisted of cattle-stealing, slave-catching, and murder, and the men whom he was obliged to engage at Khartoum were the vilest characters. He had applied through the British consul at Alexandria to the Egyptian government for a few troops to escort him; but the request was refused, although an escort was granted to the Dutch ladies upon the request of the French consul. After Speke and Grant had left him, his men mutinied and tried to prevent his proceeding into the interior. His forty armed men threatened to fire upon him, and the Turkish traders whom he intended to accompany set off without him, and forbade him to follow in their track. At that time, beside his wife, he had but one faithful follower. But he managed to get back the arms from the recalcitrants, and induced seventeen of the men to go with him to the eastward, although none would undertake to go to the south. It was imperative that he should advance, and he followed the trading party who had threatened to attack him, and to excite the Ellyria tribe, through whom he must pass, against him. However, the chief of the trading party was brought over, and on the 17th of March, 1862, they safely arrived in the Latooka country, 110 miles east of Gondokoro. That country was one of the finest he had ever seen, producing ample supplies of grain and supporting large herds. The towns are large and thickly populated, and the inhabitants are a warlike but friendly race, who go naked, and whose chief distinction is their hair, which they train into a kind of natural helmet. The bodies of those of the tribe who are killed in fight are not buried, but those who die naturally are buried in front of the house in which they had dwelt, and at the expiration of a fortnight the bodies are exhumed, the flesh removed, and the bones put in earthen [{854}] pots, which are placed at the entrance of the towns. Like all the tribes of the White Nile, the Latookas seemed entirely devoid of any idea of a Supreme Being. Indeed, the only difference between them and the beasts is that they can cook and light a fire. There are forests abounding with elephants, but cattle cannot live there on account of the "tsetse" fly. The chief was an old man, who was held to possess the power of producing or restraining rain by a magic whistle; but one day Mr. Baker happening to whistle upon his fingers in a loud key, the natives assumed that he had a power to control the elements, and frequently called upon him to exercise it. From Latooka he proceeded to Kamrasi's country, across an elevated region, the water-shed of the Sobat and White Nile rivers. From the ridge he descended into the valley of the Asua, which river Captain Burton regarded as the main stream of the White Nile, but which, when Mr. Baker crossed it in January, did not contain enough water to cover his boots. On arriving at Shooa, a large number of the porters deserted him, but he pushed on for Enora. He crossed Karuma Falls in the same boat which had carried Captain Speke across, but he was detained for some days by the disinclination of the King Kamrasi to allow strangers to pass over, and it was only when Mr. Baker had exhibited himself on an elevated spot in full European costume that he received the desired permission. It appeared that a trading party, headed by one Debono, a Maltese, who had escorted Speke and Grant, had made a foray upon Kamrasi's country, and Mr. Baker was therefore looked upon with suspicion. From Karuma Falls the Nile flows due west, a rapid stream, bordered with fine trees. King Kamrasi, who was a well-dressed and cleanly person, although a great coward, was very suspicious, and sought to prevent Mr. Baker continuing his journey by representing that the great lake was six month's journey—a statement which Mr. Baker, himself ill, with his wife prostrate from fever, and his attendants refractory, received as a fatal blow to all his hopes. Learning, however, from a native salt-dealer that the lake could be reached in something like ten days, he induced Kamrasi, by the present of his sword, to drink blood with his head man, and to allow them to depart. In crossing the Karan river on the way to the lake Mrs. Baker was struck down by a sunstroke, and remained almost insensible for seven days, during which time the rain poured down in torrents. On the eighteenth day after leaving Kamrasi they came in sight of the looked-for lake, a limitless sheet of blue water sunk low in a vast depression of the country. He descended the steep cliffs, 1,500 feet in height, leading Mrs. Baker by the hand, and, reaching the clean sandy beach, drank of the sweet waters. The western shore, sixty miles distant, consisted of ranges of mountains 7,000 feet in height. Upon achieving the object of their journeys, Mr. Baker named the lake Albert Nyanza. That lake, together with that of Victoria Nyanza, may be accepted as the great reservoir of the Nile. Embarking in canoes upon the lake, the party proceeded for thirteen days to the point where the upper river from Karuma Falls enters the lake by a scarcely perceptible current, while the lake itself suddenly turned westward; but its boundaries in that direction, as well as those of its southern termination, are unknown. The Nile issued from the lake precisely as the natives had reported to Speke and Grant, and from its exit the river is navigable as far as the narrows near the junction of the Asua. The author saw altogether from elevations three-fourths of the course of the Nile between its issue from the lake to Miani's Tree. Mr. Baker's progress up the Upper or Karuma river was stopped, at fifteen miles distance, by a grand waterfall, which had been named Murchison Falls, in honor of the distinguished president of the Geographical Society. Upon their return to Kamrasi's country the travellers were detained nearly twelve months, the king being so impressed with the skill and knowledge of his European visitors that he could not be persuaded to let them leave him. Ultimately the travellers managed to get free, and, after a variety of difficulties with their attendants and the traders, arrived safely at Alexandria.