rds wide, but on the second day it narrowed to 250 yards. As we pulled
up the stream, it narrowed to 180 yards, and, rounding a corner, a
magnificent sight burst suddenly upon us. On each side were beautifully
wooded cliffs rising abruptly to a height of about 300 feet, and rushing
through a gap which cleft the rock exactly before us, the river,
contracted from a grand stream, was pent up in a narrow gorge of
scarcely fifty yards in width. Roaring furiously through the rock-bound
pass, it plunged in one leap of about 120 feet perpendicular into a dark
abyss below. This was the greatest waterfall of the Nile; and in honour
of the distinguished president of the Royal Geographical Society, I
named it the Murchison Falls.

Of course, we could proceed no farther by canoe, and landed at a
deserted village. Our riding oxen had died; and we had to get some
natives as porters. My wife was carried on a litter, and I was scarcely
able to crawl; but after tremendous difficulties and dangers we reached,
following the bank of the Somerset, on April 8, the island of
Patoo[=a]n, within eighteen miles of where we had first struck the river
at Karuma. My exploration was, therefore, complete; but our difficulties
were not at an end. We were detained for two months at Shooa Mor[=u],
practically deserted by everyone except our two personal attendants, and
all but starved.

[The real Kamrasi, for the man Baker and his party had seen on their
outward journey was only his brother M'Gambi, afterwards came on the
scene, took them to Kisoona, and there and at other places detained them
practically prisoners during the long and cruel wars with his rivals,
Fawooka and Rionga and the King of Uganda. On November 17, Baker escaped
with his wife and a small party and marched through the Shooa country
and the country of the Madi to the Asua River, only a quarter of a mile
from its junction with the Nile. Then they crossed the country of the
Bari, and arrived at Gondokoro, whence they sailed down the Nile to
Khartoum, which was reached on May 5, 1865, two years and five months
after their start from that city.]

GEORGE BORROW

Wild Wales

_I.--Its People, Language and Scenery_

Although the tour in Wales upon which this work was
founded took place in 1854, and although the book was
completed in 1857, it was not published until 1862. It
received curt treatment from most of the critics, but the
"Spectator" declared that Borrow (se