Italy having assumed an unacknowledged protectorate over Abyssinia, subsidised expedition after expedition, nominally for scientific research. Among the best equipped of these undertakings, and the most fruitful in geographical results, was an expedition under Vittorio Bottego, L. Vannutelli, and C. Citerni, which explored the head-waters of the Sobat (Baro, Akobo, etc.) in the southern Abyssinian highlands, and also the waters of the Didessa (Dabessa), which is the southernmost tributary of the Blue Nile. In 1898 the celebrated Captain (now Colonel) J. B. Marchand, who had made a most remarkable journey across the Nyam-nyam country in the western Nile basin from the Mbomu (a northern affluent of the Welle-Ubangi), across the Nile watershed to the Sue River, and down the Sue to the Bahr-al-Ghazal and Fashoda, left Fashoda[116] in consequence of the agreement between France and Great Britain, and travelled to Abyssinia more or less along the course of the Sobat River, thus, first of all Europeans, practically connecting the southern provinces of Abyssinia with the White Nile by a direct journey up the valley of the Sobat or Baro. Marchand’s explorations were supplemented by those of MM. de Bonchamps and Michel. [Illustration: _Photo by Pierre Petit & Fils._] COLONEL J. B. MARCHAND.] These explorers were soon followed in the same direction by the late Captain M. S. Wellby. Captain Wellby also made a most interesting journey from Abyssinia to Lake Rudolf, down the east coast of Lake Rudolf to Lake Baringo and the Uganda Protectorate, and then northwest through the Turkana country, which lies to the west of Lake Rudolf. Here Captain Wellby found himself on the Nile-Rudolf water-parting. To the west of the Turkana, in the Karamojo country, he crossed an important stream named the Ruzi,[117] which was flowing in a general way northwest. Farther north he encountered another river also named Ruzi, which might or might not be the same, but which in doubt he called Ruzi II. From the second of these Ruzis he eventually reached the main Sobat. Thenceforth he believed that in one or other of the Ruzis he had discovered the southernmost affluent, or perhaps the headwaters of the Sobat River. His theory, however, was strongly contested by Major H. H. Austin, who, in company with Major R. G. T. Bright, travelled over the greater part of the Sobat system in 1900–1901, giving us for the first time a fairly accurate survey of that river, and of its southern affluents, especially the Pibor-Akobo, which for length of course, though not in volume, might lay claim to be the main Sobat River. The Akobo rises in the mountains to the north of Lake Rudolf, its source being very close to the stream of the Omo, the principal feeder of Lake Rudolf. It does receive an affluent from the south, which is named by Major Austin “Neubari,” but this stream is at present unexplored in its lower course. It might turn out to be