Lake Victoria to Khartoum 



water— on the Nile. The Insurance Policy, if 

 we may descend to such a business-like term, 

 of the railway, was water — the Nile. If we 

 had had a Nile in Somaliland the Mad Mullah 

 would now be non est with few to grieve for 

 him ! 



The Nile runs out of Lake Victoria Nyanza. 

 Its precursors are therefore the streams which 

 flow into this lake : of these the largest and 

 longest is the Mara river, having its source in 

 British East Africa on the Mau escarpment, 

 flowing through German territory into Lake 

 Victoria. May we then not speak of the Mara 

 as the mother of the Nile ? This great affluent 

 of the lake we discovered and surveyed, when 

 on the Anglo-German Boundary Commission. 

 It is a pretty, rocky stream, broadening out past 

 patches of white gleaming sand, whilst its banks 

 swarm with every variety of game. 



The Ripon Falls at Jinja mark the beginning 

 of the Nile of commerce and geography. Between 

 these falls and Lake Albert it is known as the 

 Victoria Nile; after leaving the latter lake it is 

 called the White Nile — in contrast to the Blue 

 Nile rising in Abyssinia — or Bahr-el-Jebel of the 

 Sudan tribes. Jebel is the Arabic word for 

 mountain, so this name means the river that 

 flows past the (Congo) mountains. For a hundred 

 miles between Nimule and Gondokoro the river 

 dissolves itself into a series of falls and rapids, 



36 



