THE EAST AFRICAN EXPEDITION OF 1857-1859.
‘All truth must be ultimately salutary, and all deception
pernicious.’—FRANCIS JEFFREY.
At length came the moment for departure—June 17, 1858. We had learned
what we wanted to learn on the seaboard, whilst at Zanzibar Island no
further information was to be procured. The rains had ended on June 5:
the harvest was coming on, and trading parties were returning to the
coast—every day three or four boats passed outward-bound under the
windows of the Consulate.[49] Our preparations were hurriedly made.
Cogent reasons, however, compelled me to move quamprimum, and evidently
delay, even for a week, might have been fatal to my project. Lieut.-Col.
Hamerton’s health rapidly declined: he was compelled to lead the life of
a recluse, and his ever-increasing weakness favoured the cause of our
ill-wishers. Local politics became more confused, and the succession
troubles more imminent, whilst the Sayyid’s Government, deceived by our
silence during the rains into a belief that the Panga-ni fever had
cooled our ardour, lost all interest in the enterprise, and required to
be aroused from its apathy by a stiff reminder.
My old friend, the late Mr James Macqueen, has declared that the
expedition was ‘organized upon erroneous and fallacious principles—with
large parties of armed men, with numerous attendants, and extensive
supplies.’ I can reply only that my model was the normal coast-caravan,
and certainly with less apparatus we should have made less progress. We
were not, however, favoured by fortune; and, as Baron Melchior de Grimm
sagely observes, ‘there is nothing in this life’—especially in African
travel—‘but luck, good or bad.’ The Kafilah-bashi was still Said bin
Salim, who, upon receiving from Lieut.-Col. Hamerton an advance of $300,
and the promise of a gold watch after return, in case of good conduct,
at once pleaded a mortgage upon his plantations to the extent of $500.
We were compelled to compound the matter for $250, before he could
precede us to the coast, with his four slave musketeers, one lad, and
two girls. The Baloch escort was, according to popular rumour, picked up
in the Bazar: it began with a dozen, and it ended with seven muskets,
not including the monocular Jemadar Mallok. They wanted everything
imaginable,—debts to be paid, rice, lead, gunpowder, light matchlocks,
$8 for an ass, and slaves to serve them. The Banyan Ramji supplied us
with nine ruffians, whose only object was to lay out their, or his,
money as profitably as possible in slaves; indeed, this seemed to be the
end and aim of our whole native party. Upon the coast we engaged as
porters 36 Unyamwezi negroes, men who usually behave well, but who are
uncommonly ready to follow bad example. As the number was deficient, we
supplied the place of more with some 30 baggage-asses, which added not a
little to our troubles and losses.
Lieut.-Col. Hamerton listened with pleasure to my suggestion that he
might at once change air, from the close, foul, fetid town, and
superintend our departure from the coast. The Sayyid’s kindness was
unwearied: he came to bid us adieu, and manned for us, with a crew of
20, his own corvette, the Artemise, Captain Mohammed bin Khamis. The
latter having been educated in England, where he had learned to observe
and survey, and imbued by ‘letters’ with the restless impulse of
European civilization, had once proposed to the Royal Geographical
Society himself to explore the Lake Regions; and had he been
trustworthy, he might have done work valuable as that of Capt.
‘Montgomerie’s Pandits.’ His father, Khamisi wa Tani, was the
‘intelligent Sawahili or Mohammedan native of the Eastern coast of
Africa,’ who had so notably cajoled Mr Cooley. This ‘mild and unassuming
man’s’ antecedents were of the worst description. Born at Lamu, he
became headman of the drummers at Zanzibar, and afterwards a slaver,
according to M. Guillain, who terms him ‘spirituel et rusé coquin.’ In
this capacity he ‘had travelled much on the mainland, he had visited
many distant parts of the East, and could converse in fourteen
languages.’ Turpilucricupidus then became Capt. Owen’s interpreter along
the Eastern coasts of Arabia and Africa. His voyage in 1835 to London,
where Shaykh Khamis bin Usman at once became an ‘African Prince,’ arose
not ‘for the purpose of assorting the first cargoes shipped direct to
Zanzibar,’ but from the stern necessity of temporarily leaving that
Island with his head in loco, he having defrauded his master, the
Sayyid, to the extent of $18,000. His ingenuity did not fail him in our
country, where his revelations touching the Lake Regions and the unknown
interior were delivered and chronicled with a gravity which excites
laughter. Returning home, ‘the Liar,’ as he was popularly termed by his
countrymen, received the Sayyid’s pardon. He then became a kind of
lackey and maître d’hotel, factotum and Figaro in native houses, the
‘palace’ included, when Europeans were entertained. He has ever since
devoted his talents to making himself as wealthy, and his friends as
poor, as possible. I had been especially warned against him, on account
of the prominent part which he took in spreading reports which led to
the murder of M. Maizan, and it is not pleasant to see one’s
fellow-countrymen so notably ‘humbugged.’
We found a general rendezvous at Kaole Urembo, which was attended by
Ladha Damha, Chief of the Customs, the ‘’Ifrít’ Ramji, and the
ex-Sarhang ‘General Tom:’ the Messrs Oswald also ran over in their
four-gun schooner, the Electric Flash. On June 26, 1857, we bade adieu
to Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, whose distressing alternations of insomnia,
debility, and irritability had been apparently increased by the voyage.
He dropped a tear as he said farewell, and solemnly blessed us, adding
that we should meet no more in this world, and that he quitted it
without regret. Thus it proved. He struggled against his fate, but he
succumbed on July 5, the victim of a chronic liver complaint. Various
reports of his death reached us in the interior, but it was not
confirmed by letter till eleven months afterwards.
The work of exploring now began in real earnest. I have, however, no
intention of inflicting upon the reader a rechauffé of our expedition,
which has been described by me in four volumes,[50] and of which notices
have been given in another three,[51] by Captains Speke and Grant. My
principal object in alluding to them is to offer the judgment and the
after-thoughts matured by a whole decade, as well as to show what has
been done since. The risk of this, the first attempt, has been stated to
be nil by a man who never trusted himself a mile away from the coast,
and whose tenderness for his personal safety has ever been more than
notorious. In writing our adventures I was careful not to make a
sensation of danger; but future travellers, warned by the fate of MM.
Maizan and Roscher, not to speak of Lieut. Stroyan, of Baron von der
Decken’s party, nor of M. von Heuglin in the Somali country, and the
detention of Dr Livingstone, will do well not to think that, when about
to explore Central Africa, they are setting out upon a mere promenade.
The repeated complaints respecting our petty troubles, which to readers
appeared exaggerated, were true to my feeling at the time. The death of
Sayyid Saíd had been our first blow; the second was the non-arrival of
Dr Steinhaeuser; and the third was the loss of our excellent friend
Lieut.-Col. Hamerton, whose presence at head-quarters would have
forwarded our views in various ways. I have preserved copies of letters
written to Banyans and others, who, after fair promises, completely
neglected us. M. Ladislaus Cochet and Capt. Mansfield did their best;
but as we had not taken counsel with them before departure, their
efforts were, of course, limited. And the cholera which, unknown to us,
had fallen upon the Island, decimating its population, naturally enough
prevented the sufferers from bestowing attention upon a distant
enterprise. The neglect, however, told upon our escort, and to manage
them would have taxed the wisdom of Solomon and the patience of Job. The
monoculous Jemadar, shortly after our return, persuaded Baron von der
Decken to appoint him chief of his party when on route from Kilwa to the
Nyassa or Southern Lake: as might be expected, that expedition did not
reach half way. Concerning the ‘Sons of Ramji’ I find amongst my papers
the following memo.:
‘Msene district, Jan. 14, 1858.
‘To Sheth Ramji,
‘The full term for which he engaged the eight slaves, Kidogo,
Jako, Mbaruk, Waledi, Mboni, Muhinna, Buyuni, and Hayja, having
now expired, we give them their dismissal. From the commencement
of the march their insolence of manner and their independence of
action have been so troublesome to us, and so disastrous to our
progress, that we feel no compunction in thus summarily dismissing
them.
(Signed) ‘CAPTAINS BURTON & SPEKE.’
Under different circumstances we should have been spared the
hardship and suffering of all ‘up-hill work,’ of labouring against
the stream of events. We might then easily have returned via Egypt
to Europe, as I firmly intended, and as my companion—aided by the
experience of the past, and travelling under the most favourable
auspices—was able to do on his second expedition. Once thoroughly
laid open, no African road is difficult, unless temporary obstacles,
such as famines or bandit raids, oppose progress, and the hard crust
of the coast being broken, the interior offers comparatively few
obstacles. But, I repeat, in wayfaring, as in warfare, opportunity
is everything: better an ounce of fortune’s favours than a ton of
genius or merit.
We followed the Arab line of traffic, first laid open to Lake
Tanganyika by Sayf bin Said el Muameri, about 1825. The existence of
a beaten path in Africa has its advantages and its disadvantages.
The natives are accustomed to travellers; they no longer perpetually
attribute to them supernatural and pernicious powers, nor do they,
except amongst the worst tribes, expect every manner of evil to
follow the portent: it is not difficult to engage hands, nor is it
impossible to collect information concerning regions which cannot be
visited. At the same time, contact with the slave-dealer has
increased cupidity and has diminished hospitality: the African loses
all sense of savage honour, without learning to replace it by
commercial honesty, and all his ingenuity is devoted to the
contrivance and the carrying out of ‘avanies.’ But where, on the
other hand, the explorer must hew his own way—such was the case with
Paul du Chaillu from the Gaboon region, and with myself up the Congo
river—and where there is no prescriptive right of transit even for
pay, the adventure waxes far more difficult and dangerous. Here we
see the African at home, an unmitigated savage, unmodified by
acquaintance with the outer world, dwelling in the presence of his
brethren, and rich in all the contrarieties of the racial character.
His suspicions and his desires are at once aroused. His horror of
new things struggles with his wish to make the most of them; he has
no precedent for his demands, and consequently he has no sense of
their absurdity. A caravan is to him a ‘Doummoulafong,’ or thing
sent to be eaten, as Mungo Park’s second expedition was called. A
Portuguese officer has been asked $120 by the Wamakúa for permission
to visit a hill behind Mozambique, distant some 25 miles from the
sea. At the Yellalah, or Rapids of the Congo river, I was required
to pay, before leave to advance could be given, a fee in goods which
would have amounted to £200. And expense is not the main obstacle to
the success of these exceptional expeditions: the merest accident
with a fire-arm may render progress impossible, and may endanger the
lives of the whole party.
The most troublesome features of the beaten path to the white face
are the exorbitant demands of the negro chiefs. They know that the
slave-dealer, if over-taxed, will open some other and rival line.
But they see the European for the first time; they never expect, nor
perhaps do they desire, ever to see him again; and their only object
is to gauge his generosity by extracting from him as much as
possible. This is the severest trial of temper, for the explorer
well knows that the end of his outfit is the end of his journey.
Whilst he recognizes the absolute necessity of economy, the
disappointed chief, in high dudgeon, urges his rights, perhaps with
threats; and certainly causes all manner of delays and difficulties.
The native in charge of the caravan fears awkward consequences,
especially at times of war or draught, of famine or pestilence, and
complies with the demand in secret, if prevented from acting openly,
out of his own purse if not from the public funds. The over-worked
traveller, scolding, storming, and getting up temper to blood-heat
when required, cannot watch every string of beads or yard of cloth;
and some day a report is brought to him that he is running short,
when perhaps the most interesting part of his journey is within
sight, and yet, for want of means, cannot be explored.
We found also an unmitigated evil in the universal practice of
desertion. The fickle and inconsequent negro slave must, they say,
run away once in his life, and, like the liar of the Persian Joe
Miller, he will do so at the most awkward of times. The impulsive,
irritable, and violent Murungwanah (libertus) is equally apt to
abscond, especially after disputes with his fellows, and he
generally adds injury to injury by carrying away his pack. The
undisciplinable free porters disappear en masse if commons wax
short, if loads be too heavy, if a fight be threatened, or if
wasting of ammunition be forbidden. Under similar circumstances the
turbulent Baloch mutiny and march off. During our 18 months’ march
there was not, in the party of 80, an individual who did not at some
time or other desert or attempt to desert us. The Second Expedition,
despite all its advantages of more abundant supplies and of ample
support from Zanzibar, fared not a whit better: we find in it 123
desertions duly chronicled.
For three months and a half our heart-wearing work was cheered only
by two stimulants, the traveller’s delight in seeing new scenes
unfold themselves before his eyes and the sense of doing a something
lastingly useful to geographers. We were also opening for Europeans
a new road into the heart of Africa, a region boundless in
commercial resources, and bounded in commercial development only by
the stereotyped barbarism of its inhabitants; and we hoped that
those who might follow us would be able to turn many of the
obstacles through which we were compelled to cut a way. In November,
1857, we perforce halted for rest and to reorganize the party at
Kazeh in Unyamwezi, some 350 direct geographical miles from the
coast. The site was the most pleasant that we had hitherto seen, a
plateau (S. lat. 5° and E. long. G. 33°) in the depths of the
Tropics, but made temperate by altitude (3000 to 4000 feet above sea
level), studded with hills rising abruptly from fertile grassy
plains, and broken by patches of cultivation, by valleys, and by
forests of the richest growth.
At this half-way house the Expedition was hospitably received by the
warm-hearted Arabs, Snay bin Amir, Saíd bin Majid, old Saíd bin Ali,
the sons of Salim bin Rashid, Muhinna bin Sulayman, and other
notabilities of the great central mart. They housed us and supplied
all our wants—I know not what we should have done without their
friendly aid—and the geographical information which they gave me
directly led to what many have held to be the most important feature
of the exploration. The Second Expedition also records its
obligations in the matter of hands and rations. It found, however,
Kazeh turned, into an agricultural depôt, the neighbouring villages
ruined, and the people starving. The merchants had refused to pay a
tax imposed upon them by Manwa Sera, son of the Fundi Kira, lord of
Unyanyembe, in the days when I visited it, and the young chief, who
was very popular, had been supplanted by his half-brother Msikiwa.
Hence a war resulting in the death of my poor friend, the brave Snay
bin Amir, who, being too proud and perhaps not young enough to run
from the hosts of enemies, lay down when abandoned by his negroes
and took his chance, that is to say, was slaughtered. Manwa Sera
then threatened to attack Kazeh, and the Arabs begged Capt. Speke
not to abandon hosts, whose warm and generous hospitality he
repeatedly acknowledges. The reply was that ‘he had a duty to
perform as well as themselves, and that in a day or two he would be
off.’ Some men would not have treated so lightly a heavy debt of
gratitude, but such compunctions are often fatal to success. Capt.
Speke, I doubt not, really believed that ‘the interests of old
England were at stake:’ he had not hesitated for a moment in
throwing over a Himalayan friend who was to have accompanied him,
nor did he deem himself otherwise but justified in separating from a
companion subject to African fever recurring every fortnight.
We were detained a month at Kazeh. Purple skies, westerly gales, and
furious thunderstorms, showed that the Masika Mku, or Great Rains,
were about to break, and the change was evident after the high cold
easterly winds which, during the six months of rainless season,
sweep the elevated basin. Our gang was paid off and another was not
easily collected: porters during the dry, these men became peasants
in the wet weather. With infinite trouble, and only by the aid of
the Arabs, we were able to leave Kazeh on December 8, during the
height of the S. West monsoon. The march of 180 direct geographical
miles was to us the most disastrous of all. The downfall was copious
and unintermitting, storms burst over us with such thunder and
lightning as I have never witnessed before or since, the flooding
rivers necessitated ferry-boats, and the land, declining and
draining to the westward, became one Great Dismal Swamp. Deduced in
strength by persistent fevers, we could not resist the drenchings
and sunburnings, the long day marches and the nights spent in
unhealthy and sometimes deserted villages. My companion complained
of blindness which hardly permitted him to read a watch, and I
suddenly found myself helpless with paraplegia, a paralysis of the
extremities, which, according to Capt. Smee, often follows febrile
attacks at Zanzibar.
After a total of some 537 rectilinear geographical miles[52] from
the coast, we ascended, on Feb. 13, 1858, the well-wooded range
which bounds the eastern waters of the ‘Sea of Ujiji,’ and from the
western declivity we sighted—very imperfectly, it must be owned—the
fair expanse of a lake whose name was then unknown to us. Some
months afterwards, when reading Dr Livingstone’s first expedition, I
found (chap. xxiv.) that the traveller meeting a party of Zanzibar
Arabs at Naliele in the centre of the continent, heard of the
‘Tanganyenka,’ a ‘large shallow lake over which canoes were punted.’
At that time, however, I had sent to England the picturesque native
name ‘Tanganyika,’ the ‘meeting-place of waters.’[53] The sight was
a cordial: this one gleam of success consoled us, made us forget the
petty annoyances, the endless worry, the hardship, and the sickness
which we had endured for it; and we felt a sensible relief from the
grinding care which the prospect of failure must ever present.
Yet even the bright view of the blue waters had its dark side: we
had left the Louisa behind, and we saw no way of navigating this
lake. Reaching, on February 14, 1858, Kawele of the Ujiji district,
a market village and a depot for ivory and slaves on the eastern
side, and about the northern third of the Tanganyika, we housed our
goods and began to cast about for canoes. The only dau or sailing
craft belonged to Shaykh Hamid, an Arab trader then living at
Kasenge, a little insular station near the Western shore. After
making all necessary inquiries, I despatched, on May 3, my companion
with a party of 26 men: he crossed the Tanganyika, but in vain—the
proprietor would not convoy us round the lake, though we offered him
£100 for a fortnight’s cruise. Captain Speke here met with a strange
accident: a beetle crept into his ear, and being awkwardly killed,
caused for 6 to 7 months deafness and suppuration: it acted,
however, as a counter-irritant, and to a certain extent gave him
back his sight. My companion afterwards complained loudly of being
unable to accompany Hamid to the Uruwwa[54] district, where
merchants traded for ivory and copper: we should thus have spanned
half the Continent, and our line could easily have been connected
with Dr Livingstone’s route through Angola. As, however, on that
journey Hamid and all his slaves were murdered, and their property
was plundered by the people, my companion had not much to regret.
Hamid, moreover, gave information which made us wild to reach the
upper end of the Tanganyika Lake. He had been so near its northern
head that he had felt the outward drift of the
stream. The rains were still heavy; but as our supplies were running
short, we resolved to make the attempt in any way. Kannena, the
Chief of Ujiji, proved himself an ill-disposed and ungovernable
savage, ever attempting to thwart our plans, and evidently holding
that we were quite at his mercy. But wishing to bring ivory from
Uvira, he was persuaded to escort us with two canoes. Our excursion
northwards occupied 15 days, eight being the usual time; and it was
not a ‘pleasure-trip.’
At Uvira my hopes of discovering the Western Nile Reservoir, and of
solving the problem which has puzzled some 30 centuries, were rudely
dashed to the ground. The Warundi savages, who had stopped Hamid
near the northern end of the lake, were hostile to the Wajiji, and
we could not proceed to the north where the mountains walling-in the
water seemed to converge. Similarly the second expedition, during
five months spent with the King of Ugande, was unable to sight the
‘Victoria Nyanza,’ distant five hours’ walk. Capt. Speke ascended
perhaps 150 feet, but from so low an altitude he could obtain no
general view of the land north of the Tanganyika, and he laid down a
narrow valley. Presently receiving a visit from the three stalwart
sons of the Sultan Maruta, the subject of the mysterious stream
which all my informants, Arab as well as African, had made to issue
from the lake, and which for months we had looked upon as the
western head-stream of the Nile, was at once brought forward. All
declared (probably falsely) that they had visited it; all asserted
that the Rusizi river enters into, instead of flowing from, the
Tanganyika, and presently Sidi Bombay, by way of the coldest
consolation (‘little goat, don’t die, spring comes!’), declared that
Hamid had meant the reverse of what he said. I felt sick at heart.
The African’s account of stream-direction is often diametrically
opposed to fact; seldom the Arab’s—in this point I differ totally
from Capt. Speke. But our Wajiji would not suffer us to remain at
Uvira, much less to penetrate northwards: we were compelled
hurriedly to return; and thus, as has before been related, the
mystery remained unsolved. I distinctly deny that any ‘misleading by
my instructions from the Royal Geographical Society as to the
position of the White Nile,’ made me unconscious of the vast
importance of ascertaining the direction of the Rusizi river. The
fact is, we did our best to reach it, and we failed.
I returned home with the conviction that the Tanganyika is a still
lake. This view, however, appeared a strange hydrographical puzzle
to geographers, who were not slow to combat it. Messrs Vaux and
Galton, and my kind friend Mr Findlay, who has never ceased to
impress the public with what he holds to be the true state of the
case, doubted that an immense reservoir 250 miles long, situated at
a considerable altitude in the African zone of almost constant rain,
whose potable waters are free of saline substances washed down by
its tributaries from the area of drainage, and which shows no marks
of great accession of level, can maintain these conditions without
efflux. The most natural explanation was to make the Marungu,
Luapula, or Runangwa river, at the southern extremity of the
Tanganyika, act outlet, and drain it to the Nyassa or Kilwa Lake,
bearing S. 55° East, and distant 340 to 350 miles. The universal
testimony of the natives to its being an influent formed in the mind
of my companion (Journal, p. 90) six years afterwards ‘the most
conclusive argument that it does run out of the lake.’ It did not
appear equally conclusive to others.
The absence of all connection, however, between the Tanganyika and
the Nyassa Lakes was proved by Dr Livingstone’s second expedition
and by the excellent paper ‘on the probable ultimate sources of the
Nile’ (Mr Alexander Geo. Findlay, F.R.G.S., read June 3, 1867). The
latter showed that no considerable stream draining an area of at
least 3000 square British miles, or a country as large as England
and France combined, enters Nyassa from the north. Since that time
Dr Livingstone has placed (Letters to Dr Kirk, July 8, 1868, and to
the Earl of Clarendon, July, 1868) the Nile sources between S. lat.
10° and 12°, north of the great Serra Muxinga of the Portuguese
travellers Lacerda, Monteiro, and Gamitto, nearly in the position
assigned to them by Ptolemy uncorrected for latitude.[55] About 400
miles south of the southernmost extremity of the Nyanza or Northern
Lake, he finds ‘not one source, but upwards of 20 of them,’ and he
is under the impression that he had stood on the water-shed between
the Zambeze and either the Congo or the Nile. Mr Keith Johnston
jun.’s excellent paper[56] shows that the Serra Muxinga, of which
more presently, may represent that portion of the Rocky Mountains
which send forth the Missouri, the Columbia, and the Colorado. And
he apparently would drain the northern fall to the Congo river,
whereas in the Mittheilungen it takes the direction of the Albert
Nyassa, and the labours of Capt. George, R.N., would throw the water
into the Tanganyika.
Thus the theory of the southern effluent lost favour, and that which
made the Rusizi a northern influent soon shared the same fate. In
1863 Capt. Speke converted it into a lake or a ‘broad,’ of which he
had heard the year before, lying between the Tanganyika and the Luta
Nzige, Mwutan or Albert Nyassa. Presently Sir Samuel Baker (1864)
caused the southern extremity of the Luta Nzige, which he placed
2200 feet above sea-level, to over-lap the Rusizi. ‘I therefore
claim,’ concludes Mr Findlay, ‘for Lake Tanganyika the honour of
being the SOUTHERNMOST RESERVOIR OF THE NILE until some more
positive evidence, by actual observation, shall otherwise determine
it.’
To this view the geographical public offered two objections. The
first was that the northern end of the Tanganyika is encircled by
the ‘concave of the Mountains of the Moon.’ This was easily removed,
as the reader of these pages will see, by a collation of the several
maps forwarded by the Expedition from the interior. The first,
bearing date May, 1858, was sent from Kazeh on July 2, 1858: it
showed the results of our discovery (in February, 1858) and of the
information supplied to me by narratio obliqua through the Arabs and
Africans of Unyanyembe. Having no theory to support, it laid down,
what we saw or thought we saw, an open longitudinal valley running
northwards from the Tanganyika Lake. But that which my companion
brought home in June, 1859, bore signs of great change, especially
in a confused mass of mountains completely investing the northern
third of the long narrow crevasse: this by degrees resolved itself
into a huge horseshoe, which was incontinently dubbed the ‘Mountains
of the Moon, about 6000 feet.’ In his second expedition (Journal, p.
263) Capt. Speke declares that the range had been laid down ‘solely
on scientific geographical reasons,’ in fact, out of the depths of
his self-consciousness, and he supplemented it with a Lake Rusizi. I
saw it growing up under his hands, as copy followed copy: I
repeatedly objected to it, yet it managed to deform the maps of
Central Africa for years afterwards. It threw us once more back into
the romantic geography of the Arabs, who wove into one line Jebel
Kumri, and transferred north of the equator the scattered ranges
which Ptolemy (iv. 9) disposed at the antarctic end of his habitable
Africa. These, going from east to west, are represented by Barditon
Oros (S. lat. 16°) Meskhe or Ineskki, the Region of Agysimba (S.
lat. 13°), Xipha or Ziphar (S. lat. 8° 20′ 5″), Daukhis Oros (S.
lat. 13°), and Ion, the mountain of the Hesperian Æthiopians (S.
lat. 8° 20′ 5″).
The second objection was the elevation of the Tanganyika Lake. Its
low level in the great central plateau proved, however, to be a mere
mistake: only one observation was made, and that gave but 1844 feet
above the sea. But presently Mr Findlay found a pencil memorandum by
Capt. Speke, showing that when he again reached the coast our
thermometer, a common bath instrument, used because all the others
had been broken, boiled at 214° (F.) instead of 212° (F.). Moreover,
the observations of Sir Samuel Baker, carefully compared with those
of the second expedition, decisively proved that 1000 feet must be
added, placing the Tanganyika and the Nyanza on nearly the same
level. Again, Dr Livingstone reports from Bangweolo (July, 1868) of
the Liemba Lake, that he would have set it down as an arm of the
Tanganyika, but that its surface is 2800 feet above sea-level,
‘while Speke makes it 1844 only.’ Finally, the great African
traveller, who has now been long resident in the regions west of the
Tanganyika Lake, always writes of it as if he considered the
connection between it and the Luta Nzige established. Thus the
altitude of Lake Tanganyika was raised to 2800 feet, which would
easily carry its waters to the Nile. ‘It may appear strange,’ as Mr
Galton has remarked, ‘that there should be an error of a thousand
feet of altitude suspected in the observations of an explorer, but
the method of operating in uncivilized countries is quite different
from that employed at home.’ Evidently Capt. Speke allowed the
altitude of the lake to lie uncorrected for the same reason which
made him raise his ‘Lunæ montes.’ This will also answer M. Parthey
(June 2, 1864, Royal Academy of Sciences, Berlin).
A few words concerning the Moon Mountain, in which are the
Ptolemeian Nile sources. It is placed in S. lat. 12° 30′, which, by
applying the reduction as before proposed, we should convert to S.
lat. 6° 30′, and between East long. 57° and 67°, which, if taken
from S. Antonio (Antão), as the late Mr Hogg suggested, would be =
E. long. G. 30° to 40.° Its northern slope drains to the lake under
the parallels of S. lat. 6° and 7°, and separated by about 8° of
meridional distance. In many maps is added a third, or equatorial
lake, which may be the Baharingo, or Baringo, and indeed in chap.
xvii. (lib. i.) we find a plural form τὰς λίμνας, possibly showing a
knowledge of two large and sundry smaller features. The great
Unyamwezi Upland, using the name at its fullest extent, is bounded
both north and south by huge latitudinal blocks and chains of
mountains. The equatorial is the Highland of Karagwah, extending
eastward to the Æthiopic Olympus Kilima-njaro. The southern,
corresponding with Ptolemy’s parallels, is the great chain and
plateau, whose apex is the Serra Muxinga or Muchingwe, named by the
explorer Dr de Lacerda Cordelheira Antonina, in honour of his
prince. Lying in about S. lat. 12°, this feature, ranging from 3000
to 6000 feet high, may evidently be the divide of the Nile, the
Congo, and Zambezean basins; whilst the north-eastern projection
feeds with four considerable streams the Lake Liemba, discovered by
Dr Livingstone on April 2, 1867, and supposed to connect with the
Tanganyika by the River Marungu. The altitude of the Serra was
estimated in 1831 by Messrs Monteiro and Gamitto at a Portuguese
league (= about 19,700 feet) above sea-level, palpably exaggerated,
as in winter (August 10) neither ice nor snow was found upon it.
They describe the head as nearly always enveloped in clouds, and as
by far the loftiest summit in that part of Africa; the profile rises
steeply and abruptly from the table-land, commanding an extensive
prospect northward, and the ridge is broken by terrible and
dangerous precipices. Snow in this part of the continent may be
alluded to by João de Barros, who declares that in the Matouca
country, though situated between the equator and the tropic of
Capricorn, the natives die of cold. Later Portuguese historians
declare the Lupata to be a snowy range, probably referring, not to
the gorge of that name, but to the great block with which it is
connected. Dr Livingstone represents this, his latest discovery, to
cover a space south of the Tanganyika some 350 miles square, dotted
with lakes, and traversed on the eastern side by the River Chambeze,
which was first mentioned by Dr de Lacerda, and which has hitherto
been confounded with the Zambeze. The Greek term ‘Mountain of the
Moon’ may, I have already suggested, be derived from ‘Unyamwezi,’ an
empire whose position between the Tanganyika and the Nyanza group is
laid down in the map of Duarte Lopez (A. D. 1578–1587). The name of
this extensive region is still contracted upon the coast to Mwezi,
meaning the Moon, and thus we might translate Ptolemy, Mountain of
Unyamwezi. Similarly, the ancients derived the Erythrean Sea from
the Sea of Edom and of Himyar, both signifying Red: Diascorias was a
corruption of Dwipa Sokotra, and, to quote no more, Dr Beke has
shown how the Ptolemeian Iabadíou (Java-dwipa) became Barley Island
without growing barley.[57]
Finally, if we reject Unyamwezi and Muxinga as the original Lunar
Mountains, we must seek the latter with Dr Beke in the icy peaks of
the Æthiopic Olympus, prolonged to the Highlands of Karagwah.
A longer delay at Uvira than we had intended greatly improved my
health: the state of our finances, however, compelled us to set out
without delay from Ujiji to Kazeh. The rains had ceased on May 15,
and the return (June 11) by a straighter and more southerly road,
was far less unpleasant than the up-march. After a short interval
for repose, and for recovering his sight and hearing, Capt. Speke
volunteered to explore a lake reported to lie north, and known to
the Arabs as ‘Ukerewe,’ or Island-land. I had heard of it in
Zanzibar Island as a water called ‘Karagoa,’ parallel with and one
month west of the Sea of Ujiji. A signal disappointment at the
‘Ziwa’[58] of Ugogo, which proved to be a mere pond, made me suspect
the informants: yet Snay bin Amir and Musa Mzuri had both visited
the mountain regions to its west, and their observations were
represented in the sketch map, 1858, which, I repeat, is far less
incorrect than the exaggerated growth of 1859.[59] I was, however,
delighted with the prospect of a month’s leisure for inquiry amongst
the intelligent Arabs. It was also necessary to copy out notes,
which ill health had left in confusion, and to learn something about
the southern as well as the northern regions. Moreover, if truth
must be told, I sighed for the
‘Beata Solitudo
Sola Beatitude’
of the Pisan Cortosa. A critic in Colburn’s New Monthly Magazine
(The Nile Basin), remarks, ‘It was when travelling with Burton that
Speke first discovered Lake Nyanza, and his less fortunate
fellow-traveller seems never to have forgiven the brilliancy of an
achievement which left him comparatively in the shade.’ Mean,
indeed, must be the man who thus gratuitously imputes the meanest of
motives to another! What interest can the leader of an expedition
have in reducing his field of exploration, of not doing his best, of
not discovering as much as Fate allows him to discover? May he not
expect, like the general of an army, at least to share in the glory
won by the arms of his lieutenants? Capt. Speke was provided with a
gang of 34 guards, servants, and porters: he much wanted the little
Shaykh Said, but the latter wept privily at the prospect of meeting
death by want and hardship, and I allowed him to remain at Kazeh,
lest his intrigues might work mischief. Though my companion was a
match for ‘Sidi Bombay,’ he was a child in the hands of the tricky
Arab.
Captain Speke made a most spirited march. On August 3rd he sighted
the ‘Nyanza Lake,’ to which he gave 3740 feet of altitude; and he
returned, after covering in 47 days (June 9th to August 25th) 300
direct and 425 indirect geographical miles. He brought back the
information that this great equatorial reservoir was known to the
people as Nyanza, a generic term which, like Nyassa, means a sea, a
stream, or a lake. Standing 250 feet above its level, he saw 20 to
22 (not ‘over a hundred’) miles of surface, hardly enough to command
a liquid horizon between the islets which he called Mazita, Ukerewe,
and Majid.
Presently, by comparing Arab accounts, I found in Capt. Speke’s
diary sundry uncertainties of detail, such as making Mazita, and
perhaps Ukewere, insular instead of peninsular features. Nor could I
hear a word beyond the old legend current amongst African tribes,
from Somaliland to the Mozambique, touching white men and ships
navigating a lake or a river in the interior. The Kazeh people, as I
ascertained by consulting them, Knoblecher in hand, equally ignored
the familiar tribal names of Nyam-Nyam, Rungo, Mundu, Dor, Jur, Kek,
Nuehr, and the Shilluks, West, with the Dinkas, East of the Nile.
Their Bari was simply ‘Bahri’—Accolæ of the sea or river. But Capt.
Speke had discovered on ‘that broad open lake,’ not only the
‘sources of some great river,’ not only the Palus Orientalis Nili,
but ‘_The_ Sources of the Nile’: he had raised the veil of Isis, he
had settled for ever the ‘mystery of old Nilus’ origin.’ The subject
soon proved too sore for discussion, and evidently at that time my
companion began to prepare for a future campaign, by lavishly
retouching his maps, and by barring the Upper Tanganyika from any
possible connection with the northern basin.
During the second expedition Capt. Speke left Kazeh in May, 1861,
and travelled to the N. West, without ever sighting the ‘broad
surface.’ Living with King Rumanika of Karagwah, he might have
visited it, but he did not. He then turned nearly due north, and on
January 28th, 1862, he first viewed, from Mashonde, a water which he
instinctively determined to be _the_ Nyanza. In vain the petty chief
Makaka (Journal, p. 130) assured him that ‘there were two lakes, and
not one’: as vainly others made the Mwerango, or Kafu river, rise
from a range in the centre of the so-called lake, and ‘did not know
what Nyanza he meant.’ These, and other remarks naïvely recorded,
could not disperse foregone conclusions; and the explorer never
attempted to ascertain by inspection if his preconceived ideas were
correct.
We can therefore accept only the southern part of the Nyanza
discovered by Capt. Speke, when I despatched him from Kazeh; and the
marshy reed-margined and probably shallow N. Western water, which he
sighted in January and July, 1862. The result is a blank occupying
nearly 29,900 square miles, and of the recognized and official form
of the assumed Victoria Nyanza I may observe, that it is a triangle,
whose arms, viewed by one standing at the southern apex, trended N.
East and N. West; the extremities, 240 miles distant, being
connected arbitrarily by a horizontal base running nearly due
East-West a little north of the Equator. Finally, Captain Speke made
his own lake a physical impossibility. Within little more than 60
miles from east to west he has given it three main effluents, the
Mwerango, the Luajerri, and the Nile or Napoleon channel, to say
nothing of the Myo Myanza, the Murchison Creek, the Usoga stream,
together with the Asúa river from the Baringo. It is wonderful that
our 19th century maps continue to print such a phenomenon. What will
posterity say of this magnum opus?
After Captain Speke’s return we debated, in frequent conferences
with the Arabs, the advisability of remaining at Kazeh till fresh
supplies could be procured from Zanzibar, thus enabling us to visit
the northern kingdoms—Karagwah, Uganda, and Unyoro. Our good friends
unanimously advised us to reserve the exploration for another
journey. The lake was, unlike the Tanganyika, unnavigated; to travel
along the S. Eastern shores was, they said, impossible owing to the
ferocity of the pastoral tribes, and the mutual jealousies of great
despots on the western banks would necessitate a large outfit, and
perhaps years of delay. Their advice appearing sound, I applied
myself to the ways and means of marching upon Kilwa, thus avoiding a
return by the same road, which led us into Unyamwezi. But as the
former project was dismissed because we could not depend upon
assistance from Zanzibar, so the latter was frustrated by the
unmanageable obstinacy of our porters. I wanted exceptional
resources for bribing them into compliance, and our leave of absence
having ended, it was judged imprudent to attempt that expenditure of
time, which in these regions alone compensates for extensive outlay
of capital.
The East African Expedition bade adieu to Unyanyembe on Sept. 26,
1858, and after a march eventless except in delays and difficulties
caused by desertion and sickness, by the drought and the famine then
desolating the land, it reached in early February, 1859, the little
maritime village Konduchi. From the slope of red hill we hailed with
delight the first gleam of the Indian Ocean, and my companion
thanked me with effusion for the efforts which I had made in
enabling him to travel with me. Verily ‘there were nights and days
before us,’ and we thought little of what presently was to be the
consequence!
The results of the East African Expedition of 1857–1859, which, with
the aid of many friends—their names will be found in the preceding
pages—was organized wholly by myself, may thus be briefly summed up.
When ignorant of the country and knowing little of its languages,
preceded only by a French officer, who was murdered shortly after he
landed, and under other immense disadvantages, especially the deaths
of Sayyid Said and Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, I led the most
disorderly of caravans into the heart of Intertropical Africa, and
succeeded in discovering the Tanganyika, and the southern portion of
what is now called the Victoria Nyanza Lake. The road was thus
thoroughly laid open: those who would follow me had only to read
vol. xxxi. (Journal of the Royal Geographical Society) and the ‘Lake
Regions of Central Africa,’ to learn all they require concerning
seasons and sickness, industry and commerce, what outfit and
material were necessary, what guides, escort, and porters were
wanted, what obstacles might be expected, and what facilities would
probably offer themselves. My labours thus rendered easy the ingress
of future expeditions, which had only to tread in my steps. Dr Beke,
the traveller who deserves all praise for having suggested a
feasible way to explore the Nile Sources, kindly found ‘reason to
call this emphatically a memorable Expedition.’ My friend Mr
Findlay’s estimate is still more flattering: ‘The first East African
Expedition has had scant justice done to it of late, seeing that it
was the finest harvest, and that by much the most abundant one, of
those brilliant discoveries in Eastern Africa so eminently fostered
by the Royal Geographical Society.’
One wise in his generation whispered into my ear before returning to
England, ‘Boldly assert that you have discovered the source of the
Nile—if you are right, tant mieux, if wrong, you will have made your
game before the mistake is found out!’ I need hardly explain why the
advice was rejected, nor does it befit me to complain that Honesty,
in my case at least, has not hitherto proved the best policy.
Meruisse satis!
* * * * *
Since these lines were penned Time has again proved himself the
Avenger. The valuable notes on the Geography of Eastern Africa
forwarded by Mr Wakefield enable me to show, almost with a
certainty, that the 29,900 square miles assigned as the area to the
‘Victoria Nyanza’ contain at least four, and probably a greater
number, of separate waters.
Mr Keith Johnston, jun., who appended remarks to the paper in
question, observes (p. 333) that ‘the arguments which Captain Burton
used in recommending a division of the Nyanza had not a sufficient
basis of proof to give them moment, is shown by the acceptance of
the lake as one sheet of water by the whole geographical world.’ The
mapper will readily understand that it is much more convenient to
have a lake neatly traced, and painted sky-blue like the Damascus
swamps, than to split it up as I did: a volume published by the late
Mr Macqueen and myself (The Nile Basin. London: Tinsleys, 1864) gave
a sketch of what was actually seen by the second expedition, and the
aspect of disjecta membra is not inviting. Afterwards, however (p.
334), Mr Johnston remarks, ‘Captain Burton’s recommendation would
seem to receive some slight support from the new information
obtained by Mr Wakefield,’ to which I add that the language might
have been less hesitating. The ‘Notes on the Geography of Eastern
Africa’ establish the existence of two new lakes.
The first is that which we named from hearsay, Bahari ya Ngo or
Bahari Ngo (Sea, i. e. water of Ngo): Mr Wakefield prefers ‘Baríngo,
or _canoe_,’ possibly so called from its form.[60] Route No. 5, from
‘Lake Nyanza’ to Lake Baringo, proves conclusively that Lake Baringo
is _not_ a vast salt marsh, or perhaps a sort of back-water,
‘connected with the Victoria Nyanza by a strait, at the same
distance from the East of Ripon Falls as the Katonga river is to the
West.’ Nor is it a lake without effluent: in this matter it has
evidently been confused with the lately heard of saline Lake
Naïrvasha or Balibali, S. West of Doenyo Ebor (Mont Blanc), alias
Kenia. Native report supplies it with the Northern Nyarus, an
outfall, the old Thumbiri or Tubirih, and Meri, afterwards called
Usua, and Asua, the latter two words probably corrupted from Nyarus.
Far more important, however, is the new lake which Mr Wakefield’s
informant, Sadi bin Ahedi, ignoring Nyanza, calls ‘Nyanja’ and
‘Bahari ya Pili,’ or second Sea, not, as we are expressly warned,
because inland of the first sea or Indian Ocean, but clearly because
leading to a first, and, lastly, called ‘Bahari ya Ukára,’ this
being the name of the region on the East shore. Here we at once
detect the origin of the ancient Garava, and the modern Ukerewe
which the Wanyamwezi applied to the oriental portion of the supposed
‘Victoria Nyanza.’ Respecting the width of the Nyanja or Ukára Lake,
Sadi declared that it could be crossed by canoes in 6 full days,
paddling from sunrise to sunset, and that if the men went right on,
night and day, the voyage was accomplished in three days. But the
native craft used upon those dangerous mountain waters never dare to
cross them: the voyager may rush over the narrow parts of the
Tanganyika, but nothing would induce him to attempt the physical
impossibility of navigating without chart or compass beyond reach
and sight of shore. It is an absurdity to suppose a canoe-cruise
across; it is evident that a coasting-cruise is meant. The total
hours, assuming the day to be 12 without halts, would amount to 72.
Upon the Tanganyika I estimated the rate at little more than 2 knots
an hour, which would make in round numbers 140 miles. Protracting
this course from Bahari-ni, Sadi’s terminus on the Eastern shore, at
the rate of 3 knots an hour, and without allowing for the windings
of the shore, the end would strike the entrance of ‘Jordan Nullah,’
off the ‘Bengal Archipelago.’ But even 140 miles require reduction:
an estimate of the mean amount of error distributed over the whole
of Mr Wakefield’s Routes gives an exaggeration of 1.24 : 1; and of
course when laying down the length of these distant and dangerous
cruises exaggeration would be excessive. We may therefore fairly
assume the semi-circumference of the Ukara Lake at 120 miles, and
the total circumference at 240.
As regards its breadth we read (p. 310): ‘Standing on the eastern
shore Sadi said he could descry nothing of land in a western
direction except the very faint outline of a mountain summit far,
far away on the horizon.’ This passage is valuable. The level and
sandy eastern shore of the Ukara or Nyanja Lake about Bahari-ni,
where Sadi sighted it, is in E. long. (G.) 35° 15′. The easternmost,
that is to say, the nearest point of the Karagwah highlands, or, as
Captain Speke writes it, Karague, is in E. long. (G.) 32° 30′. Thus
the minimum width is 165 miles, while man’s vision would hardly
cover a score. Here, again, we have room for a double instead of a
single lake. When Sadi declared that he ‘travelled 60 days
(marches?) along the shore without perceiving any signs of its
termination,’ he spoke wildly, as Africans will, and when he
reported that the natives with whom he conversed were unable to give
him any information about its northern or southern limit, we can
only infer that in those parts of the African interior neither
tribes nor individuals trust themselves in strange lands, especially
when they had a chance of meeting the Wasuku. A lake 120 direct
geographical miles in length, that is to say, a little shorter than
the Baringo is supposed to be, will amply satisfy all requirements
in this matter. Finally, if Sadi’s report be correct, namely, that
eight or nine years ago (before 1867?) a large vessel with sails,
and a crew of white egg-eaters—Africans have learnt by some curious
process to connect Europeans with oöphagy—navigated the waters, it
is evident that this lake cannot be Captain Speke’s Nyanza, and that
the visitors cannot have made it viâ his ‘White Nile,’ with its
immense obstructions. But it may be that of which he heard (Journal,
p. 333) from the ‘Kidi officers,’ who reported a high mountain to
rise behind the Asua (Nyarus?) river, and the existence of a lake
navigated by the Gallas in very large vessels. We now understand why
King Mtesa (p. 294) offered to send the traveller home in one month
by a frequented route, doubtless through the Wamasai and the other
tribes living between the Nyanja and the Nyanza. Thus Irungu, Chief
of Uganda, expressed his surprise (Journal, p. 187) that Captain
Speke had come all the way round to Uganda when he could have taken
the short and safe direct route—across the middle of his lake—viâ
Umasai and Usoga, by which an Arab caravan had travelled.
The third water is evidently the Nyanza, of which I first heard at
Kazeh, whence Captain Speke was despatched on a reconnoitre between
July 9th and August 25th, 1858. After returning, he reported that
this water, being nearly flush with the surface of the level country
to the south, bears signs of overflowing for some 13 miles during
the rains. The second expedition showed no traces of flood on the
marshy lands to the north and N. West of the lake. This fact,
combined with 400 feet difference of level in the surface of the
‘Victoria Nyanza,’ speaks for itself. We are justified in suspecting
a fourth lake, along whose banks Capt. Speke travelled northwards to
Uganda: and there must be more than one, if all his effluents be
correctly laid down.
Briefly to resume. Mr Wakefield’s very valuable notes teach us—
1. That the Baringo is a lake distinct from the ‘Victoria Nyanza,’
with a northern effluent, the Nyarus, and therefore it is fresh
water.
2. That the Nyanja, Ukara, Ukerewe, Garawa, or Bahari ya Pili, is a
long, narrow formation, perhaps 30 miles broad, with 240 miles of
circumference, and possibly drained to the Nile by a navigable
channel.
3. That the Nyanza is a water, probably a swamp, but evidently
distinct from the two mentioned above, flooding the lands to the
south, showing no signs of depth, and swelling during the low season
of the Nile, and vice versâ.
And finally we cannot but conclude that the Northern and N.
Western portions of the so-called ‘Victoria Nyanza’ must be
divided into three independent broads or lakes, one of them
marshy, reed-margined, and probably shallow, in order to account
for the three effluents within a little more than 60 miles.
NOTE.
I have printed, as an Appendix to Volume I., a paper which was read
out by me before the Royal Geographical Society, on Monday, December
11, 1871. It dwells at greater length upon the interesting theme
here sketched, and it enters into certain philological details which
may be interesting to students of Kisawahili.
-----
Footnote 49:
Mr Cooley (Geography, p. 29) informs us that the native porters start
on their down journey ‘in March or April, probably at the end of the
heavy rains, and return in September.’ He thus greatly restricts the
period. Of course the season varies to some extent at every part; but,
as a rule, to March and April add May and June, and for September read
November and December. Dr Krapf is less incorrect (Travels, &c., p.
421); M. Guillain is equally so (vol. iii. 374).
Footnote 50:
The Lake Regions of Central Africa, 2 vols. 8vo. Longmans, 1860.
Memoir on the Lake Regions of Central Equatorial Africa, Journal
of the Royal Geographical Society, 1 vol. No. xxxi. of 1860. The
Nile Basin, 1 vol. Tinsleys. London, 1869.
Footnote 51:
Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile. Blackwood,
1863. What led to the Discovery of the Source of the Nile.
Blackwood, 1864. A Walk across Africa, by Capt. Grant. Blackwood,
1864. The papers inform me that Captain now Col. Grant, C. B., is
engaged upon a botanical work which will illustrate the valuable
collection brought home by him in 1863.
Footnote 52:
The first expedition placed Kazeh in E. long. (G.) 33° 3′ 0″
The second ” ” ” 33 1 34
——— ——— ———
Difference 0 1 26
——— ——— ———
The first expedition placed Ujiji in E. long. (G.) 30° 0’ 0″
The second ” ” ” 29 54 30
——— ——— ———
Difference 0 5 30
These close results place Captain Speke’s positions beyond all
possibility of cavil.
Footnote 53:
In Mr Wakefield’s routes (loc. cit.) we find ‘To
Mtanganyíko.—Kisáwahílí, meaning the place of _mingling_ or
_mixture_ (rendezvous).’ I cannot, however, but suspect that the
word is a misprint for Mtanganyika. At any rate it will completely
support my assertions versus Mr Cooley and the town of Zanganica,
where no such things as towns exist.
Footnote 54:
Mr Cooley (p. 13, Memoir of the Lake Regions of East Africa
reviewed) declares that ‘the name Warua is the Sawáhily equivalent
of Milúa, and that the Miluana, as the Awembe are also called,
signifies mixed or half-bred Milúa;’ he moreover identifies them
with the ‘Alunda, who, with the Arungo, including apparently the
Wakatata or Wakatanga, are all Wathembwe or subjects of the
Cazembe.’ He finds that I have written Uruwwa, ‘with greater show
of originality and rigorous Arabism,’ the fact being that I wrote
down what the Arabs told me. Col. J. A. Grant (Athenæum, April 9,
1870) identifies Uruwwa with Dr Livingstone’s Rua, where tribes
live ‘in under-ground houses said to be 30 miles long.’
Footnote 55:
Mr Findlay remarks, ‘The length of the Nile’s course from
Gondokoro to its mouth, following its major winding, is about 2400
geog. miles (= 2780 British miles). From Gondokoro, near to which
it was generally agreed, ten years ago, that the southernmost head
of the Nile would be found, to the south end of the Tanganyika
Lake, is 830 geog. miles (= 960 British miles). If the source be
near the Muxinga range, it must be 270 geog. miles (= 312 British
miles) still farther south, so that its total course will be 3500
geog. (= 4050 British) miles, almost unparalleled by any other
river’ (loc. cit. note. p. 16).
Footnote 56:
‘A map of the Lake Regions of Eastern Africa, showing the Sources
of the Nile recently discovered by Dr Livingstone, with Notes on
the Exploration of this Region, its physical Features, Climate,
and Population.’ London, 1870.
Footnote 57:
The Sources of the Nile (p. 83). London: Madden, 1860.
Footnote 58:
This word means a lake or pond, not the ‘river of the lake.’ Its
plural is not Wáziwa—wa being the animate prefix—but Maziwa (e. g.
Maziwa Mengi, many lakes). It is not used by the Wasawahili to
signify the south. An Arab would not make the plural Ziwáhah (but
Ziwát or Ziwáín, if he attempted such barbarism); nor would he
want to use the adjective ‘Ziwáí.’ These five errors occur in as
many lines. (Geography of N’yassi, 24, 25.)
Footnote 59:
Yet, curious to say, the map of May, 1858, was drawn from hearsay,
and that of June, 1859, after the southern part of the lake
region, now known as the ‘Victoria Nyanza,’ had been discovered by
Capt. Speke. In the former, however, he added the ‘Mountains of
the Moon,’ and prolonged the long parallelogram from N. lat. 2° to
N. lat. 3° 20′, a country known by the reports of the Egyptian
expedition of 1840, of Dr Peney, and of MM. Miami and Vincent
Angelo.
Footnote 60:
This birds-eye view and comprehensive idea of shape regarding a
feature so considerable does not appear to me African.