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
“No; I tried to get there, but could not. I have no doubt that Tanganyika
as we see it here is really the Upper Tanganyika, that the Albert Nyanza
of Baker is the Lower Tanganyika, and that they are connected by a river.”
Poor fellow! Did ever mortal man cling so to a delusion, put such faith
in native stories and old traditions.
Stanley proposed to lend his assistance to the doctor, to settle the
question of Tanganyika’s northern outlet. The doctor consented; and now
began a journey, which was wholly unlike the doctor’s five year tramp. He
was in a boat and had a congenial and enthusiastic companion.
[Illustration: LIVINGSTONE AND STANLEY ON TANGANYIKA.]
Tanganyika, like the Albert Nyanza which pours a Nile flood, and Nyassa
which flows through the Shiré into the Zambesi, is an immense trough sunk
far below the table-land which occupies the whole of Central Africa.
Its surrounding mountains are high. Its length is nearly 500 miles, its
waters deep, clear and brackish. Whither does it send its surplus waters?
We have seen that Livingstone was sure it emptied through the Nile. This
was what he and Stanley were to prove. In November 1871, three weeks
after the two had so providentially met at Ujiji, they were on their
voyage in two canoes. They coasted till they came to what Burton and
Speke supposed to be the end of the lake, which turned out to be a huge
promontory. Beyond this the lake widens and stretches for sixty miles
further, overhung with mountains 7000 feet high. At length they reached
the northern extremity where they had been assured by the natives that
the waters flowed through an outlet. No outlet there. On the contrary
seven broad inlets puncturing the reeds, through which the Rusizi River
poured its volume of muddy water into the lake, from the north. Here
was disappointment, yet a revelation. No Nile source in Tanganyika——at
least not where it was expected to be found. Its outlet must be sought
for elsewhere. Some thought it might connect eastward with Nyassa. But
what of the great water-shed between the two lakes? Others thought
it might have its outpour this way and that. Livingstone, puzzled
beyond propriety, thought it might have an underground outlet into the
Lualaba, and even went so far as to repeat a native story in support of
his notion, that at a point in the Ugoma mountains the roaring of an
underground river could be heard for miles.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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