"This is really the geological history of this region simply told. Ridge after ridge, basin after basin, from Western Ugogo to the Nyanza, tells the same tale; but it is not until we enter Central Urimi, that we begin to marvel at the violence of the process by which nature has transformed the face of the land. For here the perennial springs and rivulets begin to unite and form rivers, after collecting and absorbing the moisture from the water-shed; and these rivers, though but gentle streams during the dry season, become formidable during the rains. It is in Central Urimi that the Nile first begins to levy tribute upon Equatorial Africa, and if you look upon the map and draw a line east from the latitude of Ujiji to longitude thirty-five degrees you will strike upon the sources of the Leewumbu, which is the extreme southern feeder of the Victoria Nyanza. "In Iramba, between Mgongo Tembo and Mombiti, we came upon what must have been in former times an arm of the Victoria Nyanza. It is called the Lumamberri Plain, after a river of that name, and is about forty miles in width. Its altitude is three thousand seven hundred and seventy-five feet above the sea and but a few feet above Victoria Nyanza. We were fortunate in crossing the broad, shallow stream in the dry season, for during the _masika_ or rainy season the plain is converted into a wide lake. "The Leewumbu River, after a course of a hundred and seventy-five miles, becomes known as the Monaugh River, in Usukuma. After another run of a hundred miles, it is converted into Shimeeyu, under which name it enters the Victoria east of this port of Kagehyi. Roughly the Shimeeyu may be said to have a length of three hundred and fifty miles." CHAPTER XII. EXPLORATION OF THE VICTORIA NYANZA. Stanley felt, as he stood and looked off on the broad expanse of water, like one who had achieved a great victory, and he said that the wealth of the universe could not then bribe him to turn back from his work. The boat of a white man had never been launched on its surface, and he longed to see the Lady Alice afloat, that he might change the guesses of Livingstone, Speke and others, into certainty. He had started to complete Livingstone's unfinished work, and now he was in a fair way to do it. How much Cameron, who was somewhere in the interior on the same mission, had accomplished, he did not know, he only knew that with no boat at his command, like the Lady Alice, that he had transported through so many hundreds of miles of jungle, his movements would be very much crippled.