Now if I wished to discard the opinion of the people of Bari, as being contrary to my conviction, like d’Abbadie has done with respect to the views of the natives, because they were opposite to his theory, I would not say anything of the rashness of the “Knight of the Source,” nor envy him the fame which is due to him as an indefatigable traveller, and the _croix d’honneur_ awarded to him for this presumed discovery; that is, supposing that the stream we had before us on the island of Tshanker wound to the _east_ from the south under the rocks of Lugi and Kalleri (evidently harbingers of a high mountainous region), and then flowed humbly under the mountain-chain of Logoja, to seek its origin from the fourth to about the eighth degree of north latitude. The river, however, does not accommodate itself to this course, but steps forth boldly from its rocky gates, as a mountain-stream. The ascending ground, and the rocks scattered in the river above the island, shew that the fall must increase considerably in the mountainous region—as even the rocky wall of Kàlleri forms a vast waterfall at the rainy season—which might make us conclude that there is a lake lying high, in which an extensive mountain plateau pours its waters, or perhaps even serves as a periodical channel far above the Nile. The greater gradation of the river-bed, necessarily following its entrance into the rocky territory, must at last make the Forest of Babia an enormous height, in a progressive ratio; and the latter, though at a distance of four to five degrees, must be connected with mountain-ridges, to lead the stream into a high longitudinal valley lying to the south, as if into an aqueduct, so that it may not pour into the vast basin to the west, to which the Sobàt also is hastening. Without entering point by point into Antoine d’Abbadie’s accounts, which are not always clear, and the hypothesis of his defenders, I must assume that he abode not only in Inarya, the field of his study on the sources, but also in Kafa and Bonga, for he expressly says so. I can readily believe also, that the complication of rivers in the Forest of Babia cost him considerable pains to find out the _true_ source of the White Nile, against the _general and prevailing opinion there_; likewise, that he tried to discover, by means of verbal expressions, the relative quantity of water of the five tributaries, because otherwise he must have resided there three or four years, &c.