now appeared, and declared that if we started early on the following morning we should be able to wash in the lake by noon! That night I hardly slept. For years I had striven to reach the sources of the Nile." In my nightly dreams during that arduous voyage I had always failed, but after so much hard work and perseverance the cup was at my very lips, and I was to drink at the mysterious fountain before another sun should set-at that great reservoir of Nature that ever since creation had baffled all discovery. 'I had hoped, and prayed, and striven through all kinds of difficulties, in sickness, starvation, and fatigue, to reach that hidden source; and when it had appeared impossible, we had both determined to die upon the road rather than return defeated. Was it possible that it was so near, and that to-morrow we could say accomplished"? "the work is 14th March. The sun had not risen when I was spurring my ox after the guide, who, having been promised a double handful of beads on arrival at the lake, had caught the enthusiasm of the moment. The day broke beautifully clear, and having crossed a deep valley between the hills, we toiled up the opposite slope. I hurried to the summit. The glory of our prize burst suddenly upon me! There, like a sea of quicksilver, lay far beneath the grand expanse of water, -a boundless sea horizon on the south and southwest, glittering in the noon-day sun; and on the west, at fifty or sixty miles' distance, blue mountains rose from the bosom of the lake to a height of about 7000 feet above its level. 'It is impossible to describe the triumph of that moment; here was the reward for all our labour-for the years of tenacity with which we had toiled through Africa. England had won the sources of the Nile! Long before I reached this spot, I had arranged to give three cheers with all our men in English style in honour of the discovery, but now that I looked down upon the great inland sea lying nestled in the very heart of Africa, and thought how vainly mankind had sought these sources throughout so many ages, and reflected that I had been the humble instrument permitted to unravel this portion of the great mystery when so many greater than I had failed, I felt too serious to vent my feelings in vain cheers for victory, and I sincerely thanked God for having guided and supported us through all dangers to the good end. I was about 1500 feet above the lake, and I looked down from the steep granite cliff upon those welcome waters-upon that vast reservoir which nourished Egypt and brought fertility where all was wilderness-upon that great source so long hidden from mankind; that source of bounty and of blessings to millions of human beings; and as one of the greatest objects in nature, I determined to honour it with a great name. As an imperishable memorial of one loved and mourned by our gracious Queen and deplored by every Englishman, I called this great lake "the Albert N'y yanza.' The Victoria and the Albert lakes are the two sources of the Nile. The "The zigzag path to descend to the lake was so steep and dangerous that we were forced to leave our oxen with a guide, who was to take them to Magungo and wait for our arrival. We commenced the descent of the steep pass on foot. I led the way, grasping a stout bamboo. My wife in extreme weakness tottered down the pass, supporting herself upon my shoulder, and stopping to rest every twenty paces. After a toilsome descent of about two hours, weak with years of fever, but for the moment strengthened by success, we gained the level plain below the cliff. A walk of about a mile through flat sandy meadows of fine turf interspersed with trees and bush, brought us to the water's edge. The waves were rolling upon a white pebbly beach: I rushed into the lake, and thirsty with heat and fatigue, with a heart full of gratitude, I drank deeply from the Sources of the Nile.' We have in the number of the 'Quarterly Review,' to which we have before referred, freely expressed our sense of the importance of this great geographical discovery, together with our view of its bearings on the great problem of the source of the Nile. That much remains yet to be accomplished before the honour of having discovered the sources of the Nile can be unhesitatingly assigned to any explorer is unquestionable. Captain Speke was as positive that he had discovered 'the source of the Nile' in the Victoria Nyanza as Mr. Baker is that the Albert Nyanza is the fountain head; or rather, to use his own language, 'the great basin of the Nile, that receives every drop of water, even from the passing shower to the roaring mountain torrent, that drains from Central Africa towards the North,' 'the one great reservoir into which everything must drain,' and which monopolises the head-waters of the Nile' (vol. ii. pp. 103, 104). He denominates the river which flows into the Albert Nyanza from the Victoria Nyanza the 'Somerset River,' and it is so marked on the map of his route which Captain Speke put into the hands of Mr. Baker at Gondokoro, which certainly seems to indicate that Captain Speke did not himself believe that river to be the Nile. He alone, it has been said, discovers who proves; and the proof of the discovery of the source of the Nile is as yet far from complete. We do not know the extent of the Albert Nyanza to the north-west, nor are we in possession of any precise information with respect to its effluent, which, in conformity with physical laws, we should naturally expect to find at one of its extremities rather than at its side. The lake at Magungo, the furthest northerly point reached by Mr. Baker, contracts to about seventeen miles in width, and further north appeared a tail-like continuation' of the water and a valley of high reeds, and through this valley Mr. Baker Baker informs us the Nile flows; but he does not, if we rightly understand him, affirm that he actually saw the stream itself, or that it was possible to see it from a distance of eighteen miles, and the lake he distinctly says extended for an unknown distance further to the north-west.* We are most grateful to Mr. Baker for his heroic perseverance, and are aware that it was absolutely impossible for him to fulfil his own wish, which was to descend the Nile in canoes from its exit from the lake, with his own men as boatmen ;' but it is to be regretted that he was thus prevented by uncontrollable circumstances from completing his researches on the Albert Nyanza, and that he has for the present left its connexion with the Nile to rest on evidence short of actual and positive proof. Tradition, not less than modern discovery, certainly points to the high probability of the ultimate issue of the Nile from a lake, or rather from a chain of lakes. Ptolemy assigns its origin to two lakes connected with each other. The Arabian geographers, although it is not to be supposed that they were able to determine the situation of places by correct astronomical observations, have in their rude maps of equatorial Africa uniformly represented the Nile as emanating from a lake. The recent discoveries, as far as they go, remarkably confirm the general accuracy of these mediæval geographers, and it can scarcely be doubted that the Arabian settlers on the east coast of Africa had become more or less accurately acquainted with the interior of the continent, and with its inhabitants. We stated in a former paper on this subject, that an Arabian map of about the year 800 had been recently brought to light from Lelewel's 'Géographie du Moyen Age,' representing the source of the Nile as being in a lake. A still later map, by an Arabian geographer, Edrisi, (A.D. 1154), has recently been published in a German work, in which three * To prevent mistakes we subjoin Mr. Baker's words:- Due N. and N.E. the country was a dead flat, and, as far as the eye could reach, was an extent of bright green reed, marking the course of the Nile as it made its exit from the lake' (p. 133). The exit of the Nile from the lake was plain enough' (p. 134). I now saw the river issuing from the lake within eighteen miles from Magungo' (p. 135). We saw from our point at Magungo the Koshi and Madi countries, and the Nile flowing out of the lake through them. We must of necessity pass through those countries on our road to Gondokoro direct from Karuma, viú Shova; and should we not meet the river in the Madi and Koshi country, the Nile that we now saw could not be the Nile of Gondokoro. We knew, however, that it was so, as Speke and Grant had gone by that route, and had met the Nile near Miani's tree, in lat. 3° 34', in the Madi country, the Koshi being on its western bank; thus, as we were now at the Nile head, and saw it passing through, &c. &c.' (p. 137). †The Nile. Speke and Grant. Quarterly Review,' No. 227. 'Geschichte der Erdkunde bis auf A. von Humboldt und Karl Ritter, von. Oscar Pesohel.' München, 1865. great great lakes are represented as connected with each other, and the Nile as issuing from the most northerly. This, as indicating the three great lakes, the Victoria Nyanza, the Tanganyika, and the Albert Nyanza, corresponds with modern explorations, so far as they have yet gone, and the map may be regarded, if the engraving be substantially accurate, as a confirmation of the hypothesis we had formerly ventured to put forth of the connexion of those great lakes with each other. The Albert Nyanza exceeds in grandeur any of the great lakes that have been discovered in the interior of Africa. It is surrounded by mountains, 7000 feet in height on its western side, and is, according to Mr. Baker's estimate, at least sixty miles in width from the point where he first saw it, and of great but unknown extent. It must undoubtedly be considered as a very important feature in the basin of the Nile. Even at the great distance which Mr. Baker stood from the opposite shore he could plainly distinguish waterfalls which, seen from a distance of sixty miles, must belong to very considerable streams. Gorges were also visible, through which, doubtless, other large rivers flow. Of the countries to the west of the lake very little information was obtained beyond the fact of the existence of a great kingdom called Malegga, governed by a powerful king who possessed canoes and carried on a trade with the opposite coast. The furthest southern point reached by Mr. Baker was lat. 1° 13', from whence he navigated the lake along its eastern shore for thirteen days, when he arrived at Magungo, the spot where the river Somerset, which flows from the Victoria Nyanza, enters the Albert Nyanza. This stream was found to be still water for a distance of twelve miles from its embouchure. On ascending it further the banks became loftier and more picturesque, and the roar of a waterfall was heard in the distance. Upon rounding a corner of a cliff a magnificent sight suddenly burst upon the view. Between wooded hills, three hundred feet in height, and compressed within a gorge scarcely fifty yards in width, the river made a clear leap of a hundred and twenty feet perpendicular into the abyss below. This great waterfall Mr. Baker named the Murchison Falls. After a detention of two months in a pestilential country, in which both Mr. Baker and his wife suffered cruelly from privation and fever, the real King of Unyoro, Kamrasi himself, condescended to show himself.* Mr. Baker, to appear in as favourable * This was about the same spot whence they had started upon their journey to the lake. a light a light as possible, doffed his ragged garments and arrayed himself in full Highland costume. The King of Unyoro, who was sitting in a kind of porch in front of a hut, hardly condescended to look at his visitor for more than a moment, then turning to his attendants, made some remark that appeared to Mr. Baker to amuse them considerably, as they all grinned 'as little men are wont to do when a great man makes a bad joke.' Mr. Baker describes the king as a remarkably fine man, with a handsome face and a dark-brown complexion, but with a peculiarly sinister expression of countenance. beautifully clean in his person, and was dressed in a mantle of black and white goat-skins. The king fully maintained the character which Captain Speke had given of him, namely, that of an importunate and insatiable beggar, demanding Mr. Baker's Highland suit as a proof of friendship, then his rifle and his watch. Mr. Baker, while residing at the court of King Kamrasi, rendered an important service by hoisting the British ensign on the occasion of an attack on his capital by a band of Turks, in alliance with a native tribe, who retired on being informed that the country was under the protection of the Queen of Great Britain. The king was astounded at the effect which the display of the British flag had produced, and accordingly asked for it as a talisman against future aggressions. We have very briefly followed Mr. Baker through his long journey and exciting adventures. His return to Gondokoro from Kamrasi's country was almost a triumphal march. The quantity of ivory which the leader of the Turkish expedition had obtained from him, in a great degree through the good offices of Mr. Baker, required seven hundred porters to carry it and the provisions. This narrative of Mr. Baker's wanderings in the centre of Africa is the most picturesque description of the country and its inhabitants that has yet been presented to the world. It is written in excellent taste and in an animated and vigorous style. It abounds with striking incidents, remarkable situations, sporting adventures, and valuable geographical information. The best parts of the English character have rarely been more admirably exemplified than by Mr. Baker in his manifold trials, perplexities, and privations. Deterred by no difficulties, self-possessed in the midst of danger, inflexible in resolution, and with a keen perception of character and a consummate skill in turning it to account, he possessed a combination of qualities, the absence of one of which might have rendered the enterprise a failure, and led to the sacrifice not only of his own life but of one far more precious |