round the northern shores of the Victoria Nyanza (four to five thousand feet), and falls gradually till it reaches the somewhat low level (two thousand feet) of the Upper Nile valley. The escaping waters of the Victoria Nyanza formed another great lake (Kioga-Kwania) immediately to the north on the other side of the Uganda ridge. This lake again drained off eventually to the original (Albertine) Nile. The site of its former bed is covered at the present day with vast marshes and with the straggling, many-armed lake of Kioga-Kwania. [Illustration: THE BIRTH OF THE VICTORIA NILE, AT THE RIPON FALLS.] The Albertine Nile, which some geographers think was the original main stream of the river, rises under the name of Ruchuru on the northern slopes of that great volcanic mass called the Mfumbiro mountains. These mountains have arisen in recent times in the middle of a rift valley which, seemingly, included Lake Kivu. The same fault may also contain the basin of Tanganyika, but this lies at a much lower level than Kivu. From Kivu (which no doubt once drained towards the Nile before the volcanic dam arose on the north) there would have been a gentle slope downward and northward (only partially stemmed by the extraordinary peninsula of Ruwenzori) to the basin of the Albert Nyanza. The Ruchuru enters Lake Albert Edward,--creates that lake, in fact,--and the Albert Edward Nyanza has a northern gulf or tributary lake known as Dweru, which receives much of the drainage of Ruwenzori, and transmits the melted snows of this Central African Caucasus to the basin of the Albert Edward. From the north end of Albert Edward the Albertine Nile issues again under the conventional name of the Semliki. The Semliki flows round the abrupt western slopes of Ruwenzori into Lake Albert Nyanza, from the northern end of which important basin (which lies at an altitude of 2,100 feet above the sea), the Mountain Nile, formed by the great twin lakes, whose existence was remotely known to the ancients, starts on its career. [Illustration: ON LAKE ALBERT EDWARD (NORTH-WEST COAST).]