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
When near these coffee plantations, he (our informer) visited an
island on the lake, called Kitiri, occupied by the Watiri, a naked lot
of beings, who subsist almost entirely on fish and coffee. The Watiri
go about in large canoes like the Tanganyika ones; but the
sea-travelling, he says, is very dangerous. In describing the
boisterous nature of the lake, he made a rumbling, gurgling noise in
his throat, which he increased and diversified by pulling and tapping
at the skin covering the apple, and by puffing and blowing with great
vehemence indicated extraordinary roughness of the elements. The sea
itself, he said, was boundless. Kanoni now told me that the Muingira
Nullah lies one day's journey N.N.W. of this, and drains the western
side of the Msalala district into the southern end of the N'yanza
creek. It is therefore evident that those extensive lays in the Nindo
and Salawé districts which we crossed extend down to this periodical
river, which accounts for there being so many wild animals there:
water being such an attractive object in these hot climes, all animals
group round it. Kanoni is a dark, square, heavy-built man, very fond
of imbibing pombé, and, like many tipplers, overflowing with
human-kindness, especially in his cups. He kept me up several hours
to-night, trying to induce me to accept a bullock, and to eat it in
his boma, in the same manner as I formerly did with his brother. He
was much distressed because I would not take the half of my
requirements in cattle from him, instead of devoting everything to his
brother Kurua; and not till I assured him I could not stay, but
instead would leave Bombay and some Beluches with cloth to purchase
some cows from his people, would he permit of my turning in to rest.
It is strange to see how very soon, when questioning these negroes
about anything relating to geography, their weak brains give way, and
they can answer no questions, or they become so evasive in their
replies, or so rambling, that you can make nothing out of them. It is
easily discernible at what time you should cease to ask any further
questions; for their heads then roll about like a ball upon a wire,
and their eyes glass over and look vacantly about as though vitality
had fled from their bodies altogether. Bombay, though, is a singular
exception to this rule; but then, by long practice, he has become a
great geographer, and delights in pointing out the different features
on my map to his envying neighbours.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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