120 WESTWARD TO LAKE VICTORIA NYANZA 



from the stream, passing through rich jungle and plantain gardens, 

 and reached the Isamba Rapids on the 25th of July. The river is 

 here extremely beautiful. The water runs between deep banks which 

 are covered with fine grass, soft cloudy acacias, and festoons of lilac 

 convolvuli. On the 28th, they reached Ripon Falls, after a long march 

 over rough hills, and through extensive village plantations lately 

 devastated by elephants. But they were well rewarded, for the falls 

 were the most interesting sight that Speke had yet seen in Africa. 

 "Everybody," he says, "ran to see them at once, though the march 

 had been long and fatiguing, and even my sketch-book was called 

 into play. Though beautiful, the scene was not exactly what \ 

 expected; for the broad surface of the lake was shut out from view 

 by a spur of hill, and the falls, about 12 feet deep, and 400 to 500 feet 

 broad, were broken by rocks. Still it was a sight that attracted on<? 

 to it for hours — the roar of the waters, the thousands of passenger- 

 fish, leaping at the falls with all their might, the Wasoga and Waganda 

 fishermen coming out in boats and taking post on all the rocks, with 

 rod and hook, hippopotami and crocodiles lying sleepily on the water, 

 the ferry at work above the falls, and cattle driven down to drink at 

 the margin of the lake, made, in all, with the pretty nature of the 

 country — small hills, grasSy-topped, with trees in the folds, and gar- 

 dens on the lower slopes — as interesting a picture as one could wish 

 to see." 



"The expedition," he adds, "had now performed its functions. 

 I saw that Old Father Nile without any doubt rises in the Victoria 

 >Iyanza, and, as I had foretold, that lake is the great source of the 

 holy river which cradled the first expounder of our religious belief. 

 I mourned, however, when I thought how much time I had lost liy 

 the delays in the journey which had deprived me of the pleasure of 

 going to look at the northeast corner of the Nyanza to see what con- 

 nection there was, by a strait frequently spoken of, between it and 

 the other lake where the Waganda went to get their salt, and from 

 which another river flowed to the north, making 'Usoga an island/ 

 But I felt I ought to be content with what I had been spared to accom- 

 plish, for I had seen full half of the lake, and had information given 

 me of the other half, by means of which I knew all about the lake, as 



