HISTORY OF THE PROTECTORATE TERRITORIES 219 



and Karagwe round the western coast-lauds of the Victoria Nyanza to 

 Uganda, and reached that country in 1862. 8una was dead, and his son, 

 the young king, Mutesa, had been five years on the throne. He received 

 Speke with great hospitality, interested himself in the object of the 

 mission, which was the discovery of the Nile sources, and sent Speke arid 

 Grant to Bugungu to see the Nile issuing out of the Victoria Nyanza 

 Lake in its birth at the Ripon Falls (as the cascades of Jinja were named 

 by Speke). Trusting implicitly to native assurances that the river thus 

 tearing away to the north-west from the Victoria Nyanza was the Nile of 

 which they were in search (and the assumption turned out to be right, 

 though at the time Speke could not say he had proved the fact with 

 certainty), Speke and Grant decided to strike for the Nile where it joined 

 with the Kafu I\iver (a mere swamp) in Unyoro. The exjjedition followed 

 the Victoria Nile north-west to the Karuma Falls. 



Curiously enough, Speke seems to have displayed no curiosity about 

 the Luta Nzige,* or Albert Nyanza, of the existence of which he learnt 

 something from the natives. He knew, at the time, nothing of Mr. 

 (afterwards Sir Samuel) Baker's plucky expedition to come to his relief, 

 therefore he could not be leaving this important section of the Nile 

 sources for another explorer to visit. Throughout his journey he seems to 

 have taken a great deal for granted, though it must be admitted that 

 subsequent discoveries have shown the truth of these assumptions. But 

 these assumptions, nevertheless, were based on so little actual ev^idence for 

 some years after Speke's return, that they gave his rival — and, I am 

 afraid it must be admitted, enemy — Burton an opportunity to subject 

 Speke's theories to a destructive criticism, a criticism which gradually 

 reduced the Victoria Nyanza to an unwholesome marsh containing a few 

 open pools, and lent strength to Livingstone's wild theory of the ultimate 

 source of the Nile being in Lake Bangweolo and tlie Luapula River. 

 Mr. Baker, with his plucky wife (who is still with us, and well and strong 

 enough to pay a visit some day by the Uganda Railway to her old 

 domain), met the explorers Speke and Grant at Gondokoro, and learnt 

 from them about the possible other lake of the Nile sources, Luta Nzige. 

 Baker went on with his wife and discovered this lake, which he named 

 the Albert Nyanza, a feat for which he was knighted by Her late Majesty. 

 (In somewhat unfortunate contrast to this well-deserved honour bestowed 

 on Sir Samuel Baker, Captain Si)eke received no reward from the 

 British Government, and only several years afterwards did his companion 



* The most common local Bantu name for I^ake Albert (and Albert Edward) is 

 Dueru or Lueru. Luta Nzige means "It" (the Luerii— 1>., a sheet of brightness) 

 '' kills locusts," because the locust swarms when attempting to cross these lakes fall 

 (from fatigue) into the water in myriads. 



