obtain boats, which,
when they did come, proved to be mere trees neatly hollowed out in
the shape of canoes. At last we were under way, and day after day we
journeyed along the shore of the lake, stopping occasionally at small
villages, and being delayed now and then by deserting boatmen.

The discomforts of this lake voyage were great; in the day we were
cramped in our small cabin like two tortoises in one shell, and at
night it almost invariably rained. We were accustomed to the wet, but no
acclimatization can render the European body mosquito-proof; thus we had
little rest. It was hard work for me; but for my unfortunate wife, who
had hardly recovered from her attack of coup de soleil, such hardships
were most distressing.

On the thirteenth day from Vacovia we found ourselves at the end of our
lake voyage. The lake at this point was between fifteen and twenty miles
across, and the appearance of the country to the north was that of a
delta. The shores upon either side were choked with vast banks of reeds,
and as the canoe skirted the edge of that upon the east coast we could
find no bottom with a bamboo of twenty-five feet in length, although the
floating mass appeared like terra firma. We were in a perfect wilderness
of vegetation. On the west were mountains about 4000 feet above the lake
level, a continuation of the chain that formed the western shore from
the south. These mountains decreased in height toward the north, in
which direction the lake terminated in a broad valley of reeds.

We were informed that we had arrived at Magungo, and after skirting the
floating reeds for about a mile we entered a broad channel, which
we were told was the embouchure of the Somerset River from Victoria
N'yanza. In a short time we landed at Magungo, where we were welcomed
by the chief and by our guide Rabonga, who had been sent in advance to
procure oxen.

The exit of the Nile from the lake was plain enough, and if the broad
channel of dead water were indeed the entrance of the Victoria Nile
(Somerset), the information obtained by Speke would be remarkably
confirmed. But although the chief of Magungo and all the natives assured
me that the broad channel of dead water at my feet was positively the
brawling river that I had crossed below the Karuma Falls, I could
not understand how so fine a body of water as that had appeared could
possibly enter the Albert Lake as dead water. The guide and natives
laughed at my unbelief, and