Using Colonel Baker’s own language,——“Long before I reached the spot I had arranged to give three English cheers in honor of the discovery, but now that I looked down upon the great inland sea lying nestled in the very heart of Africa, and thought how vainly mankind had sought these sources throughout so many ages, and reflected that I had been the humble instrument permitted to unravel this portion of the great mystery when so many greater than I had failed, I felt too serious to vent my feelings in vain cheers for victory, and I sincerely thanked God for having guided and supported us through all dangers to the good end. As I looked down from the steep granite cliffs upon those welcome waters, on that vast reservoir which nourished Egypt and brought fertility where all was wilderness, on that great source so long hidden from mankind; that source of bounty and of blessings to millions of human beings; and as one of the greatest objects in nature, I determined to honor it with a great name. As an imperishable memorial of one loved and mourned by our gracious Queen and deplored by every Englishman, I called the great lake ‘the Albert Nyanza.’ The Victoria and the Albert Lakes are the two sources of the Nile. My wife, who had followed me so devotedly, stood by my side, pale and exhausted——a wreck upon the shores of the great Albert Lake that we had so long striven to reach. No European foot had ever trod upon its sand, nor had the eyes of a white man ever scanned its vast expanse of water. We were the first; and this was the key to the great secret that even Julius Cæsar yearned to unravel, but in vain.” And now the lake is christened. We rush down to the shores and bathe our feet in its clear fresh waters. Then we prepare a frail canoe, large enough to carry our party of thirteen and manned with twenty oarsmen. In this we skirt the lake northward from where we first touch it at Vacovia. The journey is full of novelty. Every now and then we get a shot at a crocodile, or a hippopotamus, and herds of elephants are seen along the shores. Thunder storms are frequent, making the navigation dangerous. The heat at midday drives us into the shade. Our work hours are in the mornings and evenings. Here we pass under beetling precipices that line this eastern shore, down which jets of water——each a Nile source——are seen plunging from the height of a thousand feet. There we float through flat wastes of reeds, and water plants and floating rafts of vegetable matter in every stage of growth and decay.