114 REPORTS BY CAPTAINS BURTON AND SPEKE [Jan. 24, 1859. 



assigned, they must subside from 22,500 feet to the low altitude of this, the 

 leading coast range. 



The lake which the travellers reached is stated to be 1800 feet only above 

 the Eastern Ocean. This is pro tanto a corroboration of the speculation into 

 which I entered in the year 1852, and which was first ascertained to be true by 

 the important observations of Dr. Livingstone — that the interior of Africa is a 

 great watery plateau occupied by different lakes, which send off rivers, which 

 find their issue to the sea through gorges formed in the subtending coast 

 ranges. The ridge traversed by Burton and Speke is, I presume, merely a 

 continuation of the range of which Dr. Livingstone gave us such an admirable 

 account, andAvhich, in the country he examined on the parallel of the Zambesi, 

 is simply a prolongation of the great coast ridge subtending that watery interior 

 plateau to which I called your attention. God grant that Captain Speke may re- 

 turn from the hazardous expedition he is making to try and reach the more north- 

 erly and greater lake called Ukerewe. Hitherto there has been much mystery 

 respecting the so-called interior sea, laid down under the name of Uniamesi, 

 marked as 600 miles long, and represented as infinitely larger than the smaller 

 lake of Ujiji. The northernmost lake of the two, lying as it does in a 

 country of higher altitude, where the mountains reach, it is said, to heights of 

 six or seven thousand feet, may after all prove to contain the chief sources of 

 the Nile. We, have, therefore, still before us for determination some of the 

 most important problems that can engage the attention of geographers. 



Mr. M'Queen. — There is not, much room for any observations regarding 

 this route, except, perhaps, with reference to the position of the lake. The 

 latter point is the only i30sition that has been determined by astronomical ob- 

 servations. Every other position in the .journey is fixed by bearings and esti- 

 mated distances, and even those estimated under confessed difficulties. The lake 

 I consider is too far to the west. You will remember that at the time Captains 

 Burton and Speke were there, it was at the close of the wet season : they 

 have given us no information of its depth, therefore we can form no idea how 

 much it may diminish in the dry season. It may be that the whole is dried 

 up. In a very curious account, the most curious I have ever seen, of the 

 journey from the sea coast to the interior, to the coast of that lake, the Arabs 

 stated that where they crossed the lake, it was twenty-four miles across — the 

 distance now given. With respect to the position of the other lake, it will be 

 found, should Captain Speke ever reach it, that it lies more to the east than 

 west, and runs w.n.w. and e.s.e. The old maps of De Lisle, prepared by 

 authority of the King of France 150 years ago, then the best, and even now 

 good maps, show a large lake in the position indicated, with islands in it. 



With regard ,to its connexion with the Nile, we need not, with the clear in- 

 formation we have, go there to ascertain that point. We have a clear and em- 

 phatic account of the Egyptian expedition sent by the late Mohammed Ali 

 twenty years ago to exptore the sources of the White Nile. The expedition 

 reached 3*^ 22" n. latitude, in the meridian of Cairo, or about 31i° e. 

 longitude. Where the last astronomical observation was made was in 

 3° 30^ N. lat., and 31° 20' e. long. The general bearing of the river from 

 thence to its source was given as s.e., distant owe month's journey,- ox -ohout 20 

 days, say 200 miles actual travelling. Its course upwards, from the point men- 

 tioned, was through high mountains, rising in height as these approached the 

 Equator, and where around the source they rose far above the limit of perpe- 

 tual snow. Dr. Krapf saw those mountains from the banks of the Dana to the 

 east of them. The cold, he was told, was exceedingly severe, and from them 

 ran a river northward to the country of the whites. The Egyptian expedition 

 collected many particulars, deciding that in those parts were the sources of 

 the White Nile, say in about 35° e. long., and 0° 30' n. lat. All accounts, 

 ancient and modern, place high snowy mountains .round .the sources of the 



