I was deeply mortified when I gazed upon this lovely view, and reflected upon the impossibilities that had prevented my success. Had the White Nile been open as formerly, I should have transported the necessary camels from Khartoum, and there would have been no serious difficulty in the delivery of the steamers to this point. Two or three strong pioneer parties, with native assistance, would quickly have bridged over the narrow water-courses and have cleared a rough road through the forests as the carts advanced. It was useless to repine. I still hoped to accomplish the work. We now descended into the beautiful plain, to which I had given the name Ibrahimeyah, in honour of the father of his Highness the Khedive (Ibrahim Pacha). This point is destined to become the capital of Central Africa. The general depot for the steamers will be near the mouth of the Un-y-Ame river; which, after rising in the prairies between Fatiko and Unyoro, winds through a lovely country for about eighty miles, and falls into the White Nile opposite to Gebel Kuku. The trade of Central Africa, when developed by the steamers on the Albert N'yanza, will concentrate at this spot, whence it must be conveyed by camels for 120 miles to Gondokoro, until at some future time a railway may perhaps continue the line of steam communication. It is a curious fact that a short line of 120 miles of railway would open up the very heart of Africa to steam transport--between the Mediterranean and the equator, when the line from Cairo to Khartoum shall be completed! The No. 10 steamer that I had brought up to Gondokoro from Khartoum was originally built in England for the mail service (per Nile) between Alexandria and Cairo, at the time when the overland route was made by vans across the desert to Suez. This steamer had sailed from London, and had arrived complete at Alexandria. It appears almost impossible that she is now floating at an altitude of nearly 2,000 feet above the sea level; to which great elevation she has actually steamed from the Mediterranean. Thus, starting from a base line, and producing a line perpendicular to the sea level of 2,000 feet, she has climbed up the Nile to her present high position. Accepting the approximate length of the Nile in all its windings from the Mediterranean to N. lat. 4 degrees 38 minutes, at 3,000 miles in round numbers; this will give an average rise or fall in the river of nine inches per mile; which easily explains the position of the steamer at her most remote point below the last cataracts.