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
25th.--We left Ulékampuri at 1 A.M., and marched the last eighteen
miles into Kazé under the delightful influence of a cool night and a
bright full moon. As the caravan, according to its usual march of
single file, moved along the serpentine footpath in peristaltic
motion, firing muskets and singing "the return," the Unyanyembé
villagers, men, women, and children, came running out and flocking on
it, piercing the air with loud shrill noises, accompanied with the
lullabooing of these fairs--which, once heard, can never be mistaken.
The crowd was composed in great part of the relatives of my porters,
who evinced their feelings towards their adult masters as eagerly as
stray deer do in running to join a long-missing herd. The Arabs, one
and all, came out to meet us, and escorted us into their depôt.
Captain Burton greeted me on arrival at the old house, and said he had
been very anxious for some time past about our safety, as numerous
reports had been set afloat with regard to the civil wars we had had
to circumvent, which had impressed the Arabs as well as himself with
alarming fears. I laughed over the matter, but expressed my regret
that he did not accompany me, as I felt quite certain in my mind I had
discovered the source of the Nile. This he naturally objected to, even
after hearing all my reasons for saying so, and therefore the subject
was dropped. Nevertheless, the Captain accepted all my geography
leading from Kazé to the Nile, and wrote it down in his
book--contracting only my distances, which he said he thought were
exaggerated, and of course taking care to sever my lake from the Nile
by _his_ Mountains of the Moon.
It affords me great pleasure to be able to report the safe return of
the expedition in a state of high spirits and gratification. All
enjoyed the salubrity of the climate, the kind entertainments of the
sultans, the variety and richness of the country, and the excellent
fare everywhere. Further, the Beluches, by their exemplary conduct,
proved themselves a most efficient, willing, and trustworthy guard,
and are deserving of the highest encomiums; they, with Bombay, were
the life and success of everything, and I sincerely hope they may not
be forgotten.
The Arabs told me I could reach the N'yanza in fifteen to seventeen
marches, and I returned in sixteen, although I had to take a
circuitous line instead of a direct one. The provisions, too, just
held out. I took a supply for six weeks, and completed _that_ time
_this_ day. The total road-distance there and back is 452 miles,
which, admitting that the Arabs make sixteen marches of it, gives them
a marching rate of more than fourteen miles a- day.
The temperature is greater at this than at any other time of the year,
in consequence of its being the end of the dry season; still, as will
be seen by the annexed register of one week, the Unyamuézi plateau is
not unbearably hot.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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