extremity, although people had sometimes travelled in
canoes, coasting along its shores by the Karagud district
to as far, I believe, as the Line.* His wife, a
pretty crummy little creature of the Wanyoro tribe,
came farther from the north than anybody present,
and gave me the names of many districts in the
Uganda country, which, she says, lies along the seashore.
She had never heard of there being any end
to the lake, and supposed, if any way of going round
it did exist, she would certainly have known it. I t is
well known that there is no communication between
the east and west shores of the lake, excepting by a
few occasional canoe-parties coasting along the southern
end, because the waters are so very broad they dare
not ventured That there can be no high mountain-
range intersecting the N’yanza from the watercourses
which we hear of north of the equator, as some people
have supposed, is evident from the numerous accounts
given of the kingdom of Uganda being so flat and
marshy from the equator to 2° or 3° north latitude;
whilst I must have seen any, did they exist, on the
south side of the equator, being only 150 miles from
it when standing on its southern shore. Now, judging
from all the information given us by the several
Egyptian expeditions and missionaries sent up the Nile,
who came across small hills in 4-|° north latitude and
* The King of Uganda has sent presents by boat to Machunda, Sultan
of Ukerewe, coasting along the western shore of the lake. Mt&a told
me this himself, and asked me if I knew Machunda personally.
f The Waganda also send boats for salt to the Bahari (Lake) Ngo,
at the north-east comer of the lake.
32° east longitude, which are intersected by the Nile in
the same way that the East Coast Eange is intersected
by the interior plateau rivers (Lufiji and Kingani), as
we saw on our passage inwards from Zanzibar ; and
further, by the Arabs telling us that all the country
on the same meridian, from the Line up to the second
parallel north latitude, is flat and full of watercourses;
and then again, by knowing the respective heights of
the N’yanza on the one side, being nearly 4000 feet,
and the Nile’s bed in latitude 5°.N., or beyond the
small hills alluded to, being under 2000 feet,—it
would indeed be a marvel if this lake is not the fountain
of the Nile.* The reason why those expeditions
sent up the Nile have failed in discovering thè N’yanza,
is clearly attributable to the important rapids which
must exist in consequence of this great variation of
altitude between the north end of the N’yanza (which,
let us suppose, is on the equator) and the position, in
4 44/ north latitude, at which the expeditions and
missions arrived, the rise of the river being 2000 feet
in 300 miles.
Indeed, by all accounts of the country lying between
the N yanza, as seen by the Arabs in Uganda, and let
us say Gondokoro, a mission station on the Nile, in
north latitude 4 44/, which was occupied by two
Austrian missionaries, Knoblecher and Dooyak, we
find it is somewhat analogous to what we observed
between the low Mrima or maritime plain in front of
* On my return to England I constructed a map representing this
view, and lectured on the same in presence of Captain Burton, who
then raised no objections to what I said.