Grant won the Victoria source of the great White
Nile; and I have been permitted to succeed in completing
the Nile Sources by the discovery of the
great reservoir of the equatorial waters, the Albert
N’yanza, from which the river issues as the entire
White Nile.
Having thus completed the work after nearly five
years passed in Africa, there still remains a task before
me. I must take the reader of .these volumes by the
hand, and lead him step by step along my rough path
from the beginning to the end; through scorching
deserts and thirsty sands; through swamp, and jungle,
and interminable morass; through difficulties, fatigues,
and sickness, until I bring him, faint with the wearying
journey, to that high cliff where the great prize shall
burst 'upon his view—from which he shall look down
upon the vast Albert L ake, and drink with me from
the Sources of the Nile !
I have written * h e ! ” How can I lead the, more
tender sex through dangers and fatigues, and passages,
of savage life ? A veil shall be thrown over many
scenes of brutality that I was forced to witness, but
which I will not force upon the reader; neither will I
intrude anything that is not actually necessary in the
description of scenes that unfortunately must be passed
through in the journey now before us. Should anything
offend the sensitive mind, and suggest the unfitness
of the situation for a woman s presence, I must
beseech my fair readers to reflect, that the pilgrim s
wife followed him, weary and footsore, through all his
difficulties, led, not by choice, but by devotion; and
that in times of misery and sickness her tender care
..saved his life .and prospered the expedition.
“ 0 woman, in our hours of ease
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,
And variable as the shade
By the light quivering aspen made;
When pain and anguish wring the brow,
A ministering angel thou! ”
In the journey now before us I must request some
exercise of patience during geographical details that
may be wearisome; at all events, I will adhere to facts,
and avoid theory as much as possible.
The Botanist will have ample opportunities of stray