What Led to the Discovery of the Source of the NileSpeke, John Hanning
History
What Led to the Discovery of the Source of the Nile
Speke, John Hanning
Horn of Africa -- Description and travel; Nile River; Tanganyika, Lake
start again, and in an hour cross the mouth of the little river Hebué.
Unfortunately these streams add nothing to the beauty of the scenery;
and were it not for the gaps in the hills suggesting the probable
course of rivers, they might be passed without notice, for the mouths
are always concealed by bulrushes, or other tall aquatic reeds; and
inland they are just as closely hidden by forest vegetation. In half
an hour more we enter a small nook called Luguvu Khambi, very deep,
and full of crocodiles and hippopotami. On landing, we fire the usual
alarm-guns--a point to which our captain is ever strictly
attentive--cook our dinners, and turn in for the night. Here I picked
up four varieties of shells--two univalves and two bivalves--all very
interesting from being quite unknown in the conchological world. There
were numbers of them lying on the pebbly beach.
7th.--We started at dawn as usual; but again at sunrise, the wind
increasing, we put in for the shore, for these little cranky boats can
stand no sea whatever. Here a herd of wild buffaloes, horned like the
Cape ones, were seen by the men, and caused some diversion: for,
though too blind myself to see the brutes at the distance that the
others did, I loaded and gave them chase. Whilst tracking along, I saw
fresh prints of elephants, which, judging from their trail, had
evidently just been down to drink at the lake; and sprang some
antelopes, but could not get a shot. The sea going down by noon, we
proceeded, and hugged a bluff shore, till we arrived at Insigazi, a
desert place, a little short of Kabogo, the usual crossing-point.
Although the day was now far advanced, the weather was so promising,
whilst our stores were running short, that impatience suggested a
venture for the opposite shore to Kivira, an island near it, and
which, with the Uguhha heights in the background, is from this
distinctly visible. This line is selected for canoes to cross at, from
containing the least expanse of water between the two shores, between
Ujiji and the south end. The Kabogo Island, which stands so
conspicuously in the missionaries' map that hung on the Royal
Geographical Society's walls in 1856, is evidently intended for this
Kabogo or starting-point, near which we now are, and is so far rightly
placed upon their map as representing the half-way station from Ujiji
to Kasengé, two places on opposite sides of the lake, whither the Arab
merchants go in search of ivory. For Kabogo, as will be seen by my
map, lies just midway on the line always taken by boats travelling
between those two ports--the rest of the lake being too broad for
these adventurous spirits. In short, they coast south from Ujiji to
Kabogo, which constitutes the first half of the journey, and then
cross over.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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