elves.

At sunrise of the following morning I took the compass to the borders of
the lake to survey the country. It was beautifully clear; and with a
powerful telescope I could distinguish two large waterfalls that cleft
the sides of the mountains like threads of silver. My wife, who had
followed me so devotedly, stood by my side pale and exhausted--a wreck
upon the shores of the great Albert Lake that we had so long striven to
reach. No European foot had ever trod upon its sand, nor had the eyes of
a white man ever scanned its vast expanse of water. We were the first;
and this was the key to the great secret that even Julius Caesar yearned
to unravel, but in vain!

Having procured two canoes, we started on a voyage of exploration
northward on the lake. Along the east coast, with cliffs 1,500 feet in
height, we discovered a waterfall of 1,000 feet drop, formed by the
Kaiigiri River emptying itself in the lake. On shore there were many
elephants, and in the lake hundreds of hippopotami and crocodiles. We
made narrow escapes of shipwreck on several occasions; and on the
thirteenth day of our voyage the lake contracted to between fifteen and
twenty miles in width, but the canoe came into a perfect wilderness of
aquatic vegetation. On the western shore was the kingdom of Malegga, and
a chain of mountains 4,000 feet high, but decreasing in height towards
the north. We reached the long-sought town of Magungo, and entered a
channel, which we were informed was the embouchure of the Somerset
River, from the Victoria N'yanza, the same river we had crossed at
Karuma. Here we found our guide Rabonga and the riding oxen. The town
and general level of the country was 500 feet above the water. A few
miles to the north was a gap in the Malegga range; due N. E. the country
was a dead flat; and as far as the eye could reach was an extent of
bright green reeds marking the course of the Nile as it made its exit
out of the lake. The natives refused most positively to take me down the
Nile outlet on account of their dread of the Madi people on its banks. I
determined, therefore, to go by canoe up the Somerset River, and finally
to fix the course of that stream as I had promised Speke to do.

_V.--Escape from Savage Enemies_

Both my wife and I were helpless with fever, and when we made our first
halt at a village I had to be carried ashore on a litter, and my wife
was so weak that she had to crawl on foot. At first the river was 500
ya