On the conclusion of peace, Mtesa gave me two thousand three hundred men for an escort. With these we travelled west from the north-west corner of Lake Victoria and discovered the giant mountain Gordon Bennett, in the country of Gambaragara, and halted near Lake Muta-Nzige. But as the Wanyoro gathered in such numbers as to make it impossible to resist them, we retreated back to Lake Victoria. We then bade adieu to the Waganda, and travelled south until we came to Lake Tanganyika. We launched our boat on that lake, and, circumnavigating it, discovered that there was only a periodical outlet to it. It is, at this present time, steadily flowing out by the Lukuga River, westward to the Lualaba, until, at some other period of drought, the Tanganyika shall again be reduced, and the Lukuga bed be filled with vegetation. Thus, by the circumnavigation of the two lakes, two of the geographical problems I had undertaken to solve were settled. The Victoria Nyanza I found to be one lake, covering a superficial area of 21,500 square miles. The Tanganyika had no connection with the Albert Nyanza; and, at present, it had no outlet. Should it continue to rise, as there was sufficient evidence to prove that for at least thirty years it had been steadily doing, its surplus waters would be discharged by the Lukuga River into the Lualaba. There now remained the grandest task of all, in attempting to settle which Livingstone had sacrificed himself. Is the Lualaba, which he had traced along a course of nearly thirteen hundred miles, the Nile, the Niger, or the Congo? He himself believed it to be the Nile, though a suspicion would sometimes intrude itself that it was the Congo. But he resisted the idea. ‘Anything for the Nile,’ he said, ‘but I will not be made black man’s meat for the Congo!’ I crossed Lake Tanganyika with my expedition, lifted once more my gallant boat on our shoulders, and after a march of nearly two hundred and twenty miles arrived at the superb river on the banks of which Livingstone had died. Where I first sighted it, the Lualaba was fourteen hundred yards wide--a noble breadth, pale grey in colour, winding slowly from south and by east. In the centre rose two or three small islets, green with the foliage of trees and the verdure of sedge. It was my duty to follow it to the ocean, whatever might hap during the venture. We pressed on along the river to the Arab colony of Mwana-Mamba, the chief of which was Tippu-Tib, a rich Arab, who possessed hundreds of armed slaves. He had given considerable assistance to Cameron. A heavy fee, I thought, would bribe him to escort me some distance, until the seductions of Nyangwe would be left far behind. ‘I suppose, Tippu-Tib, you would have no objections to help me, for a good sum?’ ‘I don’t know about that,’ he said, with a smile; ‘I have not many men with me now. Many are at Imbarri, others are trading in Manyuema.’ ‘How many men have you?’ ‘Perhaps three hundred,--say two hundred and fifty.’