On the 15th of August, 1874, having shipped the Europeans, boats, and dogs, and general property of the expedition—which, through the kindness of Mr. Henry Bayley, of the Peninsular and Oriental Company, and Mr. William Mackinnon, of the British India Steam Navigation Company, were to be taken to Zanzibar at half-fares—I left England for the east coast of Africa to begin my explorations. EXPLANATION. PART II. THE SOURCES OF THE NILE. “Yet still no views have urged my ardour more Than Nile’s remotest fountains to explore; Then say what source the famous stream supplies, And bids it at revolving periods rise; Show me the head from whence since time begun The long succession of his waves have run; This let me know, and all my toils shall cease, The sword be sheathed, and earth be blessed with peace.” _Pharsalia_ (_Cæsar loq._). In the fifth century, before the Christian era began, Herodotus, the first great African traveller, wrote about the Nile and its sources as follows:— “Respecting the nature of this river, the Nile, I was unable to gain any information, either from the priests or any one else. I was very desirous, however, of learning from them why the Nile, beginning at the summer solstice, fills and overflows for a hundred days; and when it has nearly completed this number of days, falls short in its stream, and retires; so that it continues low all the winter, until the return of the summer solstice. Of these particulars I could get no information from the Egyptians, though I inquired whether this river has any peculiar quality that makes it differ in nature from other rivers. Being anxious, then, of knowing what was said about this matter, I made inquiries, and also how it comes to pass that this is the only one of all rivers that does not send forth breezes from its surface. Nevertheless, some of the Greeks, wishing to be distinguished for their wisdom, have attempted to account for these inundations in three different ways; two of these ways are scarcely worth mentioning, except that I wish to show what they are. One of them says that the Etesian winds are the cause of the swelling of the river, by preventing the Nile from discharging itself into the sea. But frequently the Etesian winds have not blown, yet the Nile produces the same effects; besides, if the Etesian winds were the cause, all other rivers that flow opposite to the same winds must of necessity be equally affected and in the same manner as the Nile; and even so much the more, as they are less and have weaker currents; yet there are many rivers in Syria, and many in Libya, which are not all affected as the Nile is. The second opinion shows still more ignorance than the former, but, if I may so say, is more marvellous. It