The Life of Gordon, Volume IBoulger, Demetrius Charles
History
The Life of Gordon, Volume I
Boulger, Demetrius Charles
Generals -- Great Britain -- Biography; Gordon, Charles George, 1833-1885
Expanding Dr Schweinfurth's remarks, he explained that "it was
contended that the Nile did not flow out of Lake Victoria, and thence
through Lake Albert, and so northward, but that one river flowed out
of Lake Victoria and another out of Lake Albert, and that these two
rivers united and formed the Nile. This statement could not be
positively denied, inasmuch as no one had actually gone along the
river from Foweira to Magungo. So I went along it with much suffering,
and settled the question. I also found that from Foweira or Karuma
Falls there was a series of rapids to Murchison Falls, thus _by
degrees_ getting rid of the 1000-feet difference of level between
Foweira and Magungo." While mapping this region, Gordon one day
marched eighteen miles through jungle and in pouring rain, and on each
of the four following days he also walked fifteen miles--and the month
was August, only a few miles north of the Equator, or, in other words,
the very hottest period of the year. Having established the course of
the Nile and its navigability to the Murchison Falls close to the
Victoria Nyanza, General Gordon gave what he thought was a finishing
touch to this exploring expedition by effecting an arrangement with
King Mtesa.
But in order to explain the exact significance of this step, and the
consequent disappointment when it was found that the arrangement was
illusory and destitute of practical value, it is necessary to go back
a little, and trace the course of events in the Uganda region.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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