ins of the Nile,
fountains which it is impossible to fathom: half the water runs
northward into Egypt; half to the south towards Ethiopia."

Four fountains rising so near to each other would readily be supposed to
have one source, and half the water flowing into the Nile and the other
half to the Zambesi, required but little imagination to originate,
seeing the actual visitor would not feel bound to say how the division
was effected. He could only know the fact of waters rising at one spot,
and separating to flow north and south. The conical tops to the mound
look like invention, as also do the names.

A slave, bought on Lualaba East, came from Lualaba West in about twelve
days: these two Lualabas may form the loop depicted by Ptolemy, and
upper and lower Tanganyika be a third arm of the Nile.

Patience is all I can exercise: these irritable ulcers hedge me in now,
as did my attendants in June, but all will be for the best, for it is in
Providence and not in me.

The watershed is between 700 and 800 miles long from west to east, or
say from 22 deg. or 23 deg. to 34 deg. or 35 deg. East longitude. Parts of it are
enormous sponges; in other parts innumerable rills unite into rivulets,
which again form rivers--Lufira, for instance, has nine rivulets, and
Lekulwe other nine. The convex surface of the rose of a garden
watering-can is a tolerably apt similitude, as the rills do not spring
off the face of it, and it is 700 miles across the circle; but in the
numbers of rills coming out at different heights on the slope, there is
a faint resemblance, and I can at present think of no other example.

I am a little thankful to old Nile for so hiding his head that all
"theoretical discoverers" are left out in the cold. With all real
explorers I have a hearty sympathy, and I have some regret at being
obliged, in a manner compelled, to speak somewhat disparagingly of the
opinions formed by my predecessors. The work of Speke and Grant is part
of the history of this region, and since the discovery of the sources
of the Nile was asserted so positively, it seems necessary to explain,
not offensively, I hope, wherein their mistake lay, in making a somewhat
similar claim. My opinions may yet be shown to be mistaken too, but at
present I cannot conceive how. When Speke discovered Victoria Nyanza in
1858, he at once concluded that therein lay the sources of the Nile. His
work after that was simply following a foregone conclusion, and as