Stanley’s exploration of Victoria Nyanza confirmed in part, Speke’s discovery and theories. It showed that it was a Nile reservoir, though not an ultimate source, 21,000 square miles in extent. Excellent havens, navigable streams and fertile islands were revealed for the first time. Rich and beautiful countries are romantically pictured to us. After having paid court to King Mtesa a second time, as already described, the time came for Stanley to extend his journey. He chose to follow the line of the Equator westward with the hope of striking a southern extension of Baker’s Albert Nyanza. He departed from Mtesa’s old capital, Ulagalla, laden with presents and food, and accompanied by a hundred Uganda warriors. Stanley, in turn, gave bountiful parting presents, and even remembered the chief Lukongeh of Ukerewë, who showed his appreciation of this kindness by murdering the very next white visitors——Smith and O’Neill, as above narrated. Further on, near the boundary between Uganda and Unyoro, a body of 2000 Waganda spearmen joined Stanley, making a force of nearly 3000 souls——quite too large for practical exploration as the sequel proved. The path led through scenes of surpassing beauty and fertility, and of a character that changed from soft tropical luxuriance to Alpine magnificence. After getting away from the forest covered lowlands of the lake shore, they emerge into a rolling country dotted with ant hills and thinly sprinkled with tamarisks and thorny acacias. Then come rougher ways and wilder scenes. The land-swells are higher, the valleys deeper. Rocks break through the surface, and the slopes are covered with splintered granite. The streams that were warm and sluggish, are now cold and rapid. By and by mountains set in, at first detached masses and then clearly defined ranges, rising 9000 to 10,000 feet on the right hand and the left. Cutting breezes and chilly mists take the place of intense tropical heats. At length the monarch of mountains in this part of Africa comes into view and is named Mount Gordon Bennett. It lifts its head, at a distance of 40 miles north of their route, to a height of 15,000 feet, and seems to be a detached mass which overlooks the entire country. Its bases are inhabited by the Gambaragara, who have regular features, light complexions, and are the finest natives Mr. Stanley saw in Africa. Sight of them brought up the old question, whether an indigenous white race exists in Africa, as both Pinto and Livingstone seemed inclined to believe. But their wooly, or curly, hair was against them. They are a pastoral people and safe in their mountain fastnesses against attack. Snow often covered the top of their high mountain, which they said was an extinct crater and now the bed of a beautiful lake from whose centre rises a lofty column of rocks. The whole country is filled with hot springs, lakes of bubbling mud and other evidences of volcanic action.