When ready to be baked seven or eight of the bottles are placed together and covered with a pile of dry grass, which is set on fire. Only a gentle heat is needed, and wood-fires are not used, as the high temperature would crack the bottles. Captain Speke says a good workman will make four large pots in a day. Their picturesqueness and perfect shape often surprise the stranger. In some regions the pottery turns black when baked, while in others it becomes red, on account of the iron in the soil. We will leave Frank engaged in the inspection of specimens of African workmanship, and return to Doctor Bronson and his nephew, whom we left at the head of the White Nile, beginning the exploration of the Albert N'yanza. CHAPTER XVI. THE ALBERT N'YANZA.--ACCOUNT OF ITS DISCOVERY.--INCIDENTS OF THE FIRST DAY'S VOYAGE. [Illustration: LAKE SCENE IN CENTRAL AFRICA.] The _Khedive_ was headed for the western shore of the lake, or rather she turned her prow in a westerly direction, as she steamed away from the head of the Bahr-el-Abiad, or White Nile. Doctor Bronson said that the village Magungo, at the mouth of the Victoria Nile, was not more than twenty-five miles away in the opposite direction. Frank looked with his glass, and easily made out the indentation in the shores of the lake that marked the point where the river flows into the Albert N'yanza. As they sat on the deck, sheltered by the double awning above them, Doctor Bronson told his nephew the history of the discovery of the Albert N'yanza. "It is very strange," said he, "that only in very recent times has any one known of the existence of this lake. Some of the negroes had told the Arab traders who used to come to Gondokoro for ivory that there was a great body of water a long distance to the south, but their accounts of it were very much confused; and farthermore, as there was no prospect that a lake would yield ivory, the traders paid little heed to the story. "When Speke and Grant explored the Victoria N'yanza, in 1862, they heard of this lake, but were not permitted to visit it. Their information was not altogether clear, but it was sufficient to convince them that there was a body of water between the Victoria N'yanza and the lakeless Nile. They left the Somerset River, or Victoria Nile, at Kuruma Falls, a few miles below the present station of Foueira, and did not see the river again until they were between the third and fourth parallels of north latitude. They were then nearly a hundred miles below the point where we now are, and, of course, there was no place on their route where a single glimpse of the lake could be obtained.