The subsequent pacific relations were uninterrupted except by an isolated
attempt at resistance by the Arabs that had been left in the country; but
this was promptly and vigorously put down by the Wangwana themselves
without any need of our intervention. What contributed largely to inspire
respect in the breasts of the Wangwana were a military road which the
Kavirondo and Nangi constructed from the Victoria Nyanza to the Masai road
on the Baringo lake, and a Masai colony of 3,000 _el-moran_ on the
Kavirondo and Uganda frontier. But on the whole, after the battle at the
Ripon falls, the mere sound of our name was sufficient to secure peace and
quiet in this part also of the interior of Equatorial Africa. All round the
Victoria Nyanza, whose shores from time immemorial had been the theatre of
savage, merciless fighting, humane sentiments and habits gradually
prevailed; and as a consequence a considerable degree of material
prosperity was developed with comparative rapidity among what had
previously been the wildest tribes.
Even apart from its size, the Victoria Nyanza is the most important among
the enormous lakes of Central Africa. It covers an area of more than 20,000
square miles, and is therefore, with the exception of the Caspian, the Sea
of Aral, and the group of large lakes in North America, the largest piece
of inland water in the world. It is larger than the whole of the kingdom of
Bavaria, and its depth is proportionate to its size, for the plummet in
places does not touch the ground until it has sunk 250 fathoms; it lies
4,400 feet above the sea-level--more than 650 feet above the Brocken, the
highest hill in Middle Germany. This lake is nearly encircled by ranges of
hills which rise from 1,500 to 5,000 feet above its surface; so that the
climate of the immediately contiguous country, which is healthy without
exception and quite free from swamp, is everywhere temperate, and in some
districts positively Arcadian. And this magnificent, picturesque, and in
many places highly romantic lake is the basin source of the sacred Nile,
which, leaving it at the extreme northern end by the Ripon falls, flows
thence to the Albert Nyanza, which is 1,500 feet lower, and thence
continues its course as the White Nile.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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