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
The N'yanza, as we now see, is a large expansive sheet of water, flush
with the basial surface of the country, and lies between the Mountains
of the Moon (on its western side), having, according to Dr Krapf,
snowy Kænia on its eastern flank. Krapf tells us of a large river
flowing down from the western side of this snowy peak, and trending
away to the north-west in a direction, as will be seen by the map,
leading right into my lake. Now, returning again to the western side,
we find that the N'yanza is plentifully supplied by those streams
coming from the Lunæ Montes, of which the Arabs, one and all, give
such consistent and concise accounts; and the flowings of which, being
north-easterly, must, in course of time and distance, commingle with
those north-westerly off-flowings, before mentioned, of Mount Kænia.
My impression is, after hearing everybody's story on the matter, that
these streams enter at opposite sides of the lake, on the northern
side of the equator, and are consequently very considerable feeders to
it. To help at once in the argument that the N'yanza exists as a large
sheet of water to the north of the equator, I will anticipate a story
recorded in my diary, by adverting to it before its order of
succession. On the return to Unyanyembé, a native of Msalala told me
that he had once travelled up the western shore of the N'yanza to the
district of Kitara, or Uddu-Uganda, where, he says, coffee grows, and
which place, by fair computation of the distances given as their
travelling rates, I believe to be in about 1° north lat. To the east
of this land, at no great distance from the shore, he described the
island of Kitiri as occupied by a tribe called Watiri, who also grow
coffee; and there the sea was of such great extent, and when winds
blew was so boisterous, that the canoes, although as large as the
Tanganyika ones (which he had also seen), did not trust themselves
upon it.
The lake has the credit of being very deep, which I cannot believe. It
certainly presents the appearance of the temporary deposit of a vast
flood overspreading a large flat surface, rather than the usual
characteristics of a lake or inland sea lying in a deep hollow, or
shut in, like the Tanganyika, by mountains.[68] The islands about it
are low hill-tops, standing out like paps on the soft placid bosom of
the waters, and are precisely similar to those amongst which I have
been travelling; indeed, any part of the country inundated to the same
extent would wear the same aspect.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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