GEOGRAPHY AND ANTIQUITIES. 



DISCOVERY OF THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 



The great geographical event of the year, and we may add with 

 propriety, of the century, has been the solution of that long-discussed 

 problem, the source of the Nile. The details of this discovery, in brief, 

 are substantially as follows. As early as 1852, Sir Roderick Murchison 

 suggested that, instead of the interior of Africa being a barren desert, 

 as men had been wont to consider it, it was probably an elevated basin 

 and well-watered ; an hypothesis fully confirmed a few years later by 

 the researches of Livingstone and Burton. In 1858, Captains Burton 

 and Speke, while engaged in African exploration, discovered the head 

 of a great fresh-water lake, about 3 south of the equator and at an el- 

 evation of about 4000 feet above the sea-level. The name given by 

 the natives to this lake, was Nyanza, and its position and extent im- 

 pressed Captain Speke with the idea that it constituted the long-sought 

 for source of the river Nile. Prevented for the time, from verifying 

 his supposition, he returned to England, and under the patronage of 

 the London Geographical Society, organized, with a Captain Grant, 

 a new expedition, which had for its chief object the determination of 

 this specific question. This expedition reached Zanz-ibor in the fall of 

 1860, and left the east coast of Africa itself, on the 1st of October, at 

 a point about 7 south of the equator. 



For twelve months they did not advance far, owing to the fierce in- 

 tertribal wars of the natives. On the 1st of January, 1862, however, 

 they reached the capital of a kingdom called Karagwe, on the south- 

 west shore of the great Lake of Nyanza, discovered in 1858. The 

 king of this country assisted them much. Thence they proceeded through 

 the next kingdom of Uganda, which comprises the west and north 

 shores of the same lake. Here toil was forgotten in triumph ; for here 

 they achieved the main object of their journey and conclusively de- 

 termined that the principal source of the Nile was, as had been antici- 

 pated, the Lake Nyanza. 



It appears that the part of Africa in which the Nile rises is a table- 

 land, gradually rising from the sea to use Captain Speke's illustration 

 like an inverted dish (though of a very different shape), to a height 

 of near 4,000 feet above the sea-level. One hill reaches 5,148 feet, 

 and another 4,090, but the level, which is apparently of enormous ex- 

 tent, is between 3,000 and 4,000. The equator passes right through 

 this tract of country, and for five degrees of latitude on each side the 

 soil is extremely fertile, gradually decreasing in fertility as the distance 

 from the equator increases. The climate is healthy, and . the heat by 

 no means excessive. Captain Speke says " The general temperature 

 of the atmosphere is very pleasant, as I found from experience ; for I 



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