In my turn, I told Petherick lie had missed a good thing
by not going up the river to look for m e ; for, had he done
so, he would not only have had the best ivory-grounds to
work upon, but, by building a vessel in Madi above the
cataracts, he would have had, in my belief, some hundred
miles of navigable water to transport his merchandise.
In short, his succouring petition was most admirably
framed, had he stuck to it, for the welfare of both of us.*
We now received our first letters from home, and in
one from Sir Roderick Murchison I found the Royal Geographical
Society had awarded me their “ founder’s medal”
for the discovery of the Victoria N’yanza in 1858.
* See Petherick’s succouring petition, addressed to the Eight Hon. Lord
Ashburton, President of the Koyal Geographical Society, in the Proceedings
of that Society, dated 19th June 1860.
T h e -Nile "below J u n c tio n of th e Aaua River.
CONCLUSION.
My journey down to Alexandria was not without adventure,
and carried me through scenes which, in other
circumstances, it might have been worth while to describe.
Thinking, however, that I have already sufficiently
trespassed on the patience of the reader, I am
unwilling to overload my volume with any matter that
does not directly relate to the solution of the great problem
winch I went to solve. Having now, then, after a
period of twenty-eight months, come upon the tracks of
European travellers, and met them face to face, I close
my Journal, to conclude with a few explanations, for the
purpose of comparing the various branches of the Nile
with its affluents, so as to show their respective values.
The first affluent, the Bahr el Ghazal, took us by surprise
; for instead of finding a huge lake, as described in
our maps, at an elbow of the Nile, we found only a small
piece of water resembling a duck-pond buried in a sea of
rushes. The old Nile swept through it with majestic
grace, and carried us next to the Geraffe branch of the
nver’ Aw;second affluent, which we found flowing
mto the Nile with a graceful semicircular sweep and good
s i current, apparently deep, but not more than fifty
yards broad.
Next in order came the main stream of the Sobat, flow-
1f to tke Nile in the same graceful way as the Geraffe
which m breadth it surpassed, but in velocity of current
2 Q