until we stood upon the summit o f a grassy
r id g e at the height o f 5600 feet b y aneroid.
Not until we had descended about a mile to
the v a lle y o f Uyagoma did I recognize the importance
o f this ridge as the water-parting between
one o f the feeders o f Lake Victoria and
the source o f the Malagarazi, the principal affluent
o f L ak e Tanganika.
Though b y striking across Uhha due west or
to the south-west we should again have reached
the Alexandra Nile and the affluents o f the
Alexandra Lake, our future course was destined
never to cross another stream or rivulet that
supplied the great river which flows through
the land o f E g y p t into the Mediterranean Sea.
From the 17th January 1875 up to 7th A p ril
1876 we had been engaged in tracing the e x treme
southern sources o f the Nile, from the
marshy plains and cultivated uplands where they
are born, down to the mighty reservoir called
the Victoria Nyanza. W e had circumnavigated
i Ijfev entire expanse ; penetrated to every bay,
inlet, and creek; become acquainted with almost
e v e ry variety o f wild human nature— the mild
and placable, the ferocious and impracticably
savage, the hospitable and the inhospitable, the
generous-souled as well as the ungenerous; we
had viewed their methods o f war, and had witnessed
them imbruing their hands in each other’s
blood with savage triumph and gle e; We had
RETROSPECT.
been five times sufferers b y their lust for war
and murder, and had lost many men through
their lawlessness and ferocity; we had trave e
hundreds o f miles to and fro on foot along the
northern coast o f the Victorian Sea, and, fina y>
had explored with a large force the strange
countries lying between the two lakes Muta
Nzige and the Victoria, and had been permitte
to gaze upon the arm o f the lake named b y me
“ Beatrice Gulf,” and to drink o f its sweet waters-
W e had then returned from farther quest in t at
direction, unable to find a peaceful resting-place
on the lake shores, and had struck south from
the Katonga lagoon down to the Alexandra Ni e,
the principal affluent o f the Victoria Lake, w c
drains nearly all the waters from the west and
south-west. W e had made a patient survey o
over one-half o f its course, and then, owing to
want o f the means to feed the rapacity o f the
churlish tribes which dwell in the vicinity o t e
Alexandra Nyanza, and to our reluctance to
force our w a y against the will o f the natives*
opposing unnecessarily our rifles to their spears
and arrows, we had been compelled, on the 7th
April, to bid adieu to the lands which supply
the Nile, and to turn our faces towards the Tan-
S&I have endeavoured to g iv e a faithful p ortrayal
o f nature, animate and inanimate, m a
its strange peculiar phases, as th ey were un