Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo, Volume 2Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
History
Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo, Volume 2
Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
Africa, West -- Description and travel; Congo River -- Description and travel; Ethnology -- Africa, West
The wilful misrepresentation is couched in these words: "The
reports obtained by Livingstone are if anything favourable to the
unity of the Victoria Nyanza (Ukerewe, Ukara,) because along with
it he names only such lakes as were already known to have a
separate existence from it." As several were recognized, ergo it
is one! Dr. Livingstone heard from independent sources that the
so-called Victoria Nyanza is a lake region, not a lake; his
account of the Okara (Ukara), and the three or four waters run
into a single huge sheet, is substantially the same as that
which, after a study of the Rev. Mr. Wakefield's Reports I
offered to the Royal Geographical Society, and which I
subsequently published in "Zanzibar City, Island, and Coast."
You, Dr. Behm, are apparently satisfied with a lake drained by an
inverted delta of half-a-dozen issues--I am not. Nor can I agree
with you that "whether the Victoria Nyanza is one lake or several
is a point of detail of less importance," when it has disfigured
the best maps of Africa for nearly a score of years. The last
intelligence concerning the "unity" of the lake is from Colonel
C. C. Long, a staff-officer in the service of His Highness the
Khedive, who was sent by Colonel Gordon on a friendly mission to
King Mtesa of Uganda. With permission to descend "Murchison
Creek," and to view "Lake Victoria Nyanza," Colonel Long, after a
march of three hours, took boat. He sounded the waters of the
lake, and found a depth of from 25 to 35 feet; in clear weather
the opposite shore was visible, appearing "to an unnautical eye"
from 12 to 15 miles distant; nor could this estimate be greatly
wrong. After much negotiation and opposition he obtained leave to
return to Egyptian territory by water, and on the way, in north
latitude 1° 30', he discovered a second lake or "large basin," at
least 20 to 25 miles wide. The geography is somewhat hazy, but
the assertions are not to be mistaken.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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