I had promised Speke that I would explore most thoroughly the doubtful portion of the river that he had been forced to neglect from Karuma Falls to the lake. I was myself confused at the dead-water junction; and although I knew that the natives must be right--as it was their own river, and they had no inducement to mislead me--I was determined to sacrifice every other wish in order to fulfil my promise, and thus to settle the Nile question most absolutely. That the Nile flowed out of the lake I had heard, and I had also confirmed by actual inspection; from Magungo I looked upon the two countries, Koshi and Madi, through which it flowed, and these countries I must actually pass through and again meet the Nile before I could reach Gondokoro. Thus the only point necessary to settle was the river between the lake and the Karuma Falls. The boats being ready, we took leave of the chief of Magungo, leaving him an acceptable present of beads, and descended the hill to the river, thankful at having so far successfully terminated the expedition as to have traced the lake to that important point, Magungo, which had been our clew to the discovery even so far away in time and place as the distant country of Latooka. We were both very weak and ill, and my knees trembled beneath me as we walked down the easy descent. I, in my enervated state, endeavoring to assist my wife, we were the "blind leading the blind;" but had life closed on that day we could have died most happily, for the hard fight through sickness and misery had ended in victory; and although I looked to home as a paradise never to be regained, I could have lain down to sleep in contentment on this spot, with the consolation that, if the body had been vanquished, we died with the prize in our grasp. On arrival at the canoes we found everything in readiness, and the boatmen already in their places. Once in the broad channel of dead water we steered due east, and made rapid way until the evening. The river as it now appeared, although devoid of current, was on an average about 500 yards in width. Before we halted for the night I was subjected to a most severe attack of fever, and upon the boat reaching a certain spot I was carried on a litter, perfectly unconscious, to a village, attended carefully by my poor sick wife, who, herself half dead, followed me on foot through the marches in pitch darkness, and watched over me until the morning. At daybreak I was too weak to stand, and we were both carried down to the canoes, and crawling helplessly within our grass awning we lay down like logs while the canoes continued their voyage. Many of our men were also suffering from fever. The malaria of the dense masses of floating vegetation was most poisonous, and upon looking back to the canoe that followed in our wake I observed all my men sitting crouched together sick and dispirited, looking like departed spirits being ferried across the melancholy Styx.