the project was given up, and we commenced the passage
of the river at a reach four hundred yards long,
having paid beforehand twenty strings of beads for
my men, and an extra handful of cowries were given
by the Waganda to the ferrymen. Poling for twenty
yards through a winding channel cleared of the tall
papyrus, and not broader than our canoe, we reached
the stream, fully eighty yards across, judged to be
five to six fathoms deep, looking as if any man-of-war
could sail up, and flowing majestically at the rate of
about three miles an hour. The strength of the current
was so great that we had to pole up its right
bank inside the fringe of papyrus for thirty yards,
and then the two ferrymen, with a paddle each, made
the canoe glide across diagonally down to the opposite
channel in the reeds, which they reached with great
precision. Poling for fifty to eighty yards was now
adopted, landing upon mire which nearly sucked us
into its hold; beyond this, the old line of the river
rose abruptly like a railway embankment. At that
level the country extended far away in a pleasant
grassy plain, giving it the appearance of an Indian
parade-ground; but the footing was treacherous, being
full of ant-holes, and dotted with cactus-trees, white-
ant mounds, with their usual vegetation, thistle-looking
plants, and a scarlet-flowering shrub. In the distance
to the north were rocky hills.
We observed that the waters of the Kitangule
are accumulated from the lakes Karague, Kagsera,
Kishakka, Ooyewgomah, and water from Utumbi.
This river is, beyond comparison, the greatest body of
water met with from the south of the Victoria Nyanza
all round its western shore to its most northerly point,
where the Nile was seen by Speke to make its exit
from the lake. I t reminded me, when ferrying it, of
the Hoogly ten miles above Calcutta. Every other
stream entering the lake was walked across, none had
to be ferried; and they were so numerous that nine
and ten might be forded in as many miles ; this was
a daily occurrence when marching on the western
shore of the lake. The accumulation of these streams,
and the rivulets (no rivers) known from Arab information
to be in the eastern or unexplored portion of
the Victoria Nyanza, form a boundless sea of 20,000
square miles, never traversed from one side to the
other. All these arteries throw in an immense mass
of water, and though the greatest of them is the
Kitangule, still it is 160 miles distant by water from
the point whence the Nile issues from its parent reservoir,
the Lake Nyanza, at 21 miles north latitude.
The country between the Kitangule and the Ka-
tonga, a distance of 100 miles, is a parallel series of
grassy spurs tapering down to the lake’s shores on
the east. There are many beautiful spots on the
route—high grounds from which, for a quarter of the
horizon, are seen the waters of the lake, or the country
undulating and park-like, covered with tall waving
grasses, and overlooked by rocks. The curves, sweeps,
and inclines of the hills often blended together in
great beauty—-never making the path inconveniently
steep or too long in ascent or descent. All the cultivation
was on these slopes, as the plains between
them, sometimes six miles across, were ankle-deep in
water and mud in this month of May; or where the
valley was narrow, water would have accumulated in
a drain four feet deep, across which the Waganda