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
28th.--We started up coast early, and at 10 A.M. put in amongst some
reeds opposite the Luguvu river, as the wind, rain, and waves had very
nearly swamped the boat, and drenched us all from head to foot. I
pitched the tent in the canoe, to protect me from the storm, but it
only served to keep the wind from blowing on my wet clothes and
chilling me, for wave after wave washed over the gunwale, and kept me
and all my kit constantly drenched through. Three lingering miserable
hours were passed in this fashion; for there was no place to land in,
and we could not venture forward. The sea abated in the afternoon, and
we gained Mgiti Khambi. After a day's halt, the weather being stormy,
and everything being wet and comfortless, we hailed with delight the
succeeding sunny day, and, making good our time, reached the old tree
on the right bank of the mouth of the Ruché by 9 P.M.
31st.--We arrived at Ujiji by breakfast-time, when I disclosed to
Captain Burton, then happily a little restored, the mortifying
intelligence of my failing to procure the dhow. This appeared doubly
distressing to him, for he had been led to expect it by Khamis, whom I
passed at Kabizia, and who had delivered Hamed's letter, stating that
the dhow was at his service. Hamed's manoeuvring with the dhow bears
much the appearance of one anxious to obtain the credit of generosity
without incurring the attendant inconvenience of its reality.
Otherwise I cannot divine what good his procrastinations and the means
he took for keeping me near him so long could have been to him; for he
made no overtures to me whatever. Bombay now thought, when it was too
late, that if I had offered to give him 500 dollars' worth of cloth,
landed at his house, he could not have resisted the offer. I give this
notice for the advantage of any future explorers on the lake. I could
not form a true estimate of the lake's average breadth, in consequence
of the numberless bays and promontories that diversify the regularity
of its coast-line; but I should say that from thirty to forty miles is
probably near the truth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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