the morning, they might wash in the lake
by noon. That night Baker hardly slept.

The following morning, the 14th of March, starting before sunrise, on
ox-back, he and his wife, with their attendants, following his guide, in
a few hours reached a hill from the summit of which "he beheld beneath
him a grand expanse of water, a boundless sea horizon on the south and
south-west, glittering in the noonday sun, while on the west, at fifty
or sixty miles distant, blue mountains rose from the bosom of the lake
to a height of about seven thousand feet above its level."

Hence they descended on foot, supported by stout bamboos, for two hours,
to the white pebbly beach on which the waves of the lake were rolling.

Baker, in the enthusiasm of the moment, rushed into the lake, and,
thirsty with heat and fatigue, with a heart full of gratitude, drank
deeply from what he supposed to be one of the sources of the Nile, not
dreaming of the wonderful discoveries Livingstone was making at that
very time many degrees to the southward. He now bestowed upon this lake
the name of the Albert Nyanza.

The dwellers on the borders of the lake are expert fishermen, and in one
of their villages, named Vakovia, the travellers now established
themselves.

His followers, two of whom had seen the sea at Alexandria, and who
believed that they should never reach the lake, were astonished at its
appearance, unhesitatingly declaring that though it was not salt, it
must be the sea.

Salt, however, is the chief product of the country, numerous salt-pits
existing in the neighbourhood, and in its manufacture the inhabitants
are chiefly employed.

Vakovia is a miserable place, and, in consequence of its damp and hot
position, the whole party suffered from fever.

Here they were detained eight days waiting for canoes, which Kamrasi had
ordered his people to supply. At length several were brought, but they
were merely hollowed-out trunks of trees, the largest being thirty-two
feet long. Baker selected another, twenty-six feet long, but wider and
deeper, for himself and his wife and their personal attendants, while
the luggage and the remainder of the people embarked in the former. He
raised the sides of the canoe, and fitted up a cabin for his wife, which
was both rain and sun-proof.

Having purchased some provisions, he started on a voyage to survey the
lake.

Vakovia is about a third of the way from the northern end of the lake.
His time woul