es, take what you can by force." Syde's
bloodshed is now pretty large, and he is becoming afraid for his own
life; if he ceases not, he will himself be caught some day.

Ill of fever two days. Better and thankful.

[Whilst waiting to start for Ujiji, Livingstone was intently occupied
on the great problem of the Nile and the important part he had taken
so recently in solving it: he writes at this date as follows:--]

The discovery of the sources of the Nile is somewhat akin in
importance to the discovery of the North-West Passage, which
called forth, though in a minor degree, the energy, the
perseverance, and the pluck of Englishmen, and anything that does
that is beneficial to the nation and to its posterity. The
discovery of the sources of the Nile possesses, moreover, an
element of interest which the North-West Passage never had. The
great men of antiquity have recorded their ardent desires to know
the fountains of what Homer called "_Egypt's heaven-descended
spring._" Sesostris, the first who in camp with his army made and
distributed maps, not to Egyptians only, but to the Scythians,
naturally wished to know the springs, says Eustathius, of the
river on whose banks he flourished. Alexander the Great, who
founded a celebrated city at this river's-mouth, looked up the
stream with the same desire, and so did the Caesars. The great
Julius Caesar is made by Lucan to say that he would give up the
civil war if he might but see the fountains of this far-famed
river. Nero Caesar sent two centurions to examine the "_Caput
Nili_." They reported that they saw the river rushing with great
force from two rocks, and beyond that it was lost in immense
marshes. This was probably "native information," concerning the
cataracts of the Nile and a long space above them, which had
already been enlarged by others into two hills with sharp conical
tops called Crophi and Mophi--midway between which lay the
fountains of the Nile--fountains which it was impossible to
fathom, and which gave forth half their water to Ethiopia in the
south, and the other half to Egypt in the north: that which these
men failed to find, and that which many great minds in ancient
times longed to know, has in this late age been brought to light
by the patient toil and laborious perseverance of Englishmen.[66]

In laying a contribution to this discovery at the feet of his