Stanley in Africa: The Wonderful Discoveries and Thrilling Adventures of the Great African Explorer, and Other Travelers, Pioneers and MissionariesBoyd, James P. (James Penny)
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Stanley in Africa: The Wonderful Discoveries and Thrilling Adventures of the Great African Explorer, and Other Travelers, Pioneers and Missionaries
Boyd, James P. (James Penny)
Africa, Central -- Description and travel; Stanley, Henry M. (Henry Morton), 1841-1904
In concluding this long journey we must ever regret that Colonel Baker
did not do more to make sure of the honors of his discovery. Since then
Gordon Pasha and M. Gessi have navigated Albert Nyanza. They curtailed
the proportions it showed on first maps, and proved that, as Lady Baker
supposed, it had a southern inlet, which was traced for a hundred miles
till it ended in a mighty ambatch swamp, or collection of stagnant
waters, which may be counted as the Lake Nzige of the natives, and of
which Colonel Baker so often heard.
These travellers also settled forever one of the delusions under which
Livingstone ever labored, and that was, that the sources of the Nile must
be sought as far south as the great Lake Tanganyika, and even further.
Since then, other travellers have traced the whole course of the Victoria
Nile to Lake Victoria Nyanza, discovering on their way a new lake,
Ibrahim. And this brings us to Victoria Nyanza again, which must be
studied more fully, for after all we may not have seen in Albert Nyanza,
so much of an ultimate Nile reservoir as we thought. It is hard too, of
course, to rob our travels of their glory, but we cannot bear laurels at
the expense of after discovered truth.
It was in 1858 that Speke and Grant, pushing their perilous way westward
from Zanzibar on the east coast of Africa, discovered and partly
navigated Lake Tanganyika, probably the greatest fresh water reservoir in
Central Africa. On their return journey, and while resting at Unyanyembe,
Speke heard from an Arab source of a still larger lake to the north.
Grant was suspicious of the information, and remained where he was,
while Speke made a trial. After a three weeks march over an undulating
country, intersected by streams flowing northward, he came in view (July
30, 1858) of the head of a deep gulf expanding to the north. Pursuing
his journey along its eastern cliffs, he saw that it opened into an
ocean-like expanse of water, girted by forests on the right and left, but
stretching eastward and northward into space. He felt that he stood on a
Nile source, but could not inquire further then.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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