my expedition as terminated by having met them, and
by their having accomplished the discovery of the Nile
source; but upon my congratulating them with all my
heart, upon the honour they had so nobly earned,
Speke and Grant with characteristic candour and generosity
gave me a map of their route, showing that they
had been unable to complete the actual exploration of
the Nile, and that a most important portion still remained
to be determined. I t appeared that in N. lat.
2° 17', they had crossed the Nile, which they had tracked
from the Victoria Lake; but the river, which from its
exit from that lake had a northern course, turned suddenly
to the west from Karuma Falls (the point at
which they crossed it at lat. 2° 17'). They did not see
the Nile again until they arrived in N. lat. 3° 32', which
was then flowing from the W.S.W. The natives and
the T^ing of Unyoro (Kamrasi) had assured them that
the Nile from the Victoria N’yanza, which they had
crossed at Karuma, flowed westward for several days’
journey, and at length fell into a large lake called the
Luta N’zige; that this lake came from the south, and
that the Nile on entering the northern extremity almost
immediately made its exit, and as a navigable river continued
its course to the north, through the Koshi and
Madi countries. Both Speke and Grant attached great
importance to this lake Luta N’zige, and the former
CHAP. II.] ANOTHER LAKE REPORTED TO EXIST. 103
was much annoyed that it had been impossible for
them to carry out the exploration. He foresaw that
stay-at-home geographers, who, with a comfortable
arm-chair to sit in, travel so easily with their fingers
on a map, would ask him why he had not gone from
such a place to such a place ? why he had not followed
the Nile to the Luta N’zige lake, and from the lake to
Gondokoro ? As it happened, it was impossible for
Speke and Grant to follow the Nile from Karuma :—
the tribes were fighting with Kamrasi, and no strangers
could have got through the country. Accordingly they
procured their information most carefully, completed
their map, and laid down the reported lake in its supposed
position, showing the Nile as both influent and
effluent precisely as had been explained by the natives.
Speke expressed his conviction that the Luta N’zige
must be a second source of the Nile, and that geographers
would be dissatisfied that he had not explored it.
To me this was most gratifying. I had been much
disheartened at the idea that the great work was accomplished,
and that nothing remained for exploration;
I even said to Speke, “ Does not one leaf of the laurel
remain for me ? ” I now heard that the field was not
only open, but that an additional interest was given to
the exploration by the proof that the Nile flowed out
of one great lake, the Victoria, but that it evidently