profusion round the cottages, and formed alleys and
hedgerows about the villages, as ornamental as any garden shrub in
England.

"But the pleasure of the mere view vanished in the presence of those
more intense and exciting emotions which were called up by the
consideration of the commercial and geographical importance of the
prospect before me. I no longer felt any doubt that the lake at my feet
gave birth to that interesting river the source of which has been the
subject of so much speculation and the object of so many explorers. The
Arab's tale was proved to the letter. This is a far more extensive lake
than the Tanganyika: so broad, you could not see across it, and so long
that nobody knew its length."

To this magnificent lake Speke gave the name of Victoria Nyanza.

Note. It has since been proved to be only one and the least
considerable of the sources of the White Nile, by the later discoveries
of Baker and Livingstone.

He now descended to Muanza, on the shores of the lake, having altogether
performed a journey of two hundred and twenty-six miles from Caze.

He was here kindly treated by Sultan Mahaya, with whom an Arab merchant,
named Mansur, was residing, who gave him much valuable information.

Taking a walk of three miles along the shores of the lake, accompanied
by Mansur and a native, the greatest traveller of the place, he ascended
a hill whence he could obtain a good view across the expanse of water
spread out before him. Several islands were seen, but some so far-off
as scarcely to be distinguishable. Facing to the west-north-west was an
unbroken sea horizon, and he calculated that the breadth of the lake was
over a hundred miles. The native, when asked the length of the lake,
faced to the north, and, nodding his head, indicated by signs that it
was something immeasurable, adding that he thought it probably extended
to the end of the world.

Poor Mansur had been robbed of his merchandise, by a sultan whose
territory was on the shore of the lake, and he had very little chance of
obtaining redress.

Sultan Mahaya was considered the best and most just ruler in those
quarters; and when Speke proposed crossing the lake to the island of the
Ukerewe, he urged him on no account to make the attempt. Mansur also
did his best to dissuade him, and, boats not being obtainable, he was
compelled to give up his design.

Speke, arguing from the fact that the source of the Nile at the highest
spot whi