he final stage of our toilsome travelling was now reached, and we
started northward, but as it appeared all-important to communicate
quickly with Petherick, who had promised to await us with boats at
Gondokoro, and Grant's leg being so weak, I arranged for him to go
direct with my property, letters, etc., for dispatch to Petherick. I
should meanwhile go up the river to its source or exit from the lake and
come down again navigating as far as practicable. Crossing the Luajerri,
a huge rush drain three miles broad, which is said to rise in the lake
and fall into the Nile, I reached Urondogani.

Here, at last I stood on the brink of the Nile; most beautiful was the
scene, nothing could surpass it! It was the very perfection of the kind
of effect aimed at in a highly-kept park, with a magnificent stream from
600 to 700 yards wide, dotted with islets and rocks, the former occupied
by fishermen's huts, the latter by sterns and crocodiles basking in the
sun--flowing between fine high, grassy banks, with rich trees and
plaintains in the background, where herds of the nsunnu and hartebeest
could be seen grazing, while the hippopotami were snorting in the water
and florikan and guinea-fowl rising at our feet.

The expedition had now performed its functions. I saw that old Father
Nile, without any doubt, rises in the Victoria N'yanza! I told my men
they ought to shave their heads and bathe in the holy river, the cradle
of Moses, the waters of which, sweetened with sugar, men carried all the
way from Egypt to Mecca and sell to the pilgrims. But Bombay, who is a
philosopher of the Epicurean school, said:

"We don't look on those things in the same fanciful manner that you do,
we are contented with all the common-places of life and look for
nothing beyond the present. If things don't go well, it is God's will;
and if they do go well, that is His will also."

I mourned, however, when I thought how much I had lost by the delays in
the journey having deprived me of the pleasure of going to look at the
north-east corner of the N'yanza to see what connection there was with
it and the other lake where the Waganda went to get their salt, and from
which another river flowed to the north making "Usoga an island." But I
felt I ought to be content with what I had been spared to accomplish.

The most remote waters or _tophead of the Nile_ is the southern end of
the lake, situated close on the third degree of south latitude, which
gives to th