GEOGEAPH1CAL EXPLORATIONS. 



443 



trifling departure from the court etiquette, and 

 nearly every day some one of the hapless wives 

 of the despot was led away to death for the 

 very slightest offences. "When he heard that 

 the white men were coming, in a paroxysm of 

 fury he caused fifty big men and five hundred 

 small ones to be executed. The country of 

 Uganda surrounds the whole northwestern 

 shoulder of Lake Nyanza, which is pear-shaped, 

 the widest portion being at the southern ex- 

 tremity. The northern boundary of the king- 

 dom of Uganda lies along the equator, which 

 is also the northern line of the lake. Captain 

 Speke spent, five months in Uganda, having 

 brought his companion there as soon as he was 

 able to travel. In company with the king and 

 the queen-mother, who is the most important 

 personage in the realm after the king, he made 

 several excursions on the lake, which he found 

 to be over two hundred miles in length. Mtesa 

 was not willing that he should leave him, and 

 it was only through the influence of the queen- 

 mother, who was extremely desirous of ob- 

 taining European goods, that he was at last 

 permitted to depart. The king finally, gave 

 him letters of protection, and commended him 

 to the King of Ungoro, but parted with him 

 with great reluctance. The travellers left the 

 capital of Uganda in July, 1862, and after some 

 trouble and hostility on the part of the natives, 

 reached, about two weeks later, the actual 

 source of the Nile, which leaves the lake a 

 broad stream 450 feet wide, and descends at 

 once a rock-broken fall of about twelve feet, 

 called by the natives "the stones,',' but named 

 by Capt. Speke, Eipon Falls. Visiting the cap- 

 ital of Kamrasi, the savage King of Ungoro, the 

 travellers were detained there from August to 

 November, 1862, and a fortnight later reached 

 the country of the Madi, where they found a 

 Turkish caravan. Between these points the 

 Nile makes a great bend westward, and is re- 

 ported to unite, at its extreme corner, with 

 another lake, named by the natives the Little 

 Luta Nzige, or lake of the dead locusts, said to 

 be 200 miles long and 50 broad. The tribes on 

 the Nile at this part of its course were at this 

 time engaged in war, and the travellers were 

 compelled to cross on the chord of the bend, 

 and thus failed to explore about seventy miles 

 of the course of the river, in which it accom- 

 plishes a descent of about 1,000 feet. In Feb- 

 ruary, 1863, in company with the Turkish 

 caravan, they reached Gondokoro, where Capt. 

 Speke was welcomed by his old friend, Capt. 

 Samuel Baker, who had come thither in search 

 of him, and prepared to relieve his wants. 

 Here too he met Madame Tinne, her sister and 

 daughter, Dutch ladies, who had embarked on 

 the Nile at Khartiim, on a small steamer, ac- 

 companied by four other ships, with a suite of 

 about 200 persons, among whom were two 

 travellers, M. de HeugHn and M. Steudner. 

 These ladies hud undertaken the exploration of 

 the White Nile, and from intelligence since 

 received, have entered the Bahr el Ghazal, 



one of the recently discovered tributaries of 

 the Upper Nile, and are endeavoring to ad- 

 vance into the interior. They have met with 

 Consul Petherick's tribes of Niam-Niams, and 

 think his reports not entirely without founda- 

 tion. Mr. Baker went forward after a short 

 time to explore the great bend of the Nile, hut 

 has not yet been heard from. By this expe- 

 dition Capts. Speke and Grant have demon- 

 strated that the Nile, which must henceforth 

 he reckoned as starting from the headwaters 

 of Lake Nyanza, is over 2,300 miles in length, 

 and that it receives very few affluents. They 

 have also ascertained that the greater part of 

 its course, and also that of the Lakes Nyanza 

 and Tanganyika, are in a deep and narrow val- 

 ley; and it has been rendered nearly certain 

 that the sources of the Nile, discharging its 

 waters into the Mediterranean Sea, the Shire, 

 an affluent of the Zambesi, emptying into the 

 Indian Ocean, and the Congo or Zaire, which 

 flows into the Atlantic, are in the same vicinity 

 on the elevated plateau about three degrees 

 south of the equator, and that the lakes in 

 which they take their rise are fed by streams 

 from the group of mountains Arising from that 

 plateau, and, though nearly under the equator, 

 lifting their peaks to the region of eternal snow. 

 The narrative of Capt. Speke, entitled "Journal 

 of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile," by 

 John Banning Speke, with portrait,. maps and 

 numerous illustrations, was published in Lon- 

 don about the 1st of January, 1864, and in this 

 country by Messrs. Harper & Brothers, in April, 

 1864. At the November (1863) meeting of the 

 Eoyal Geographical Society of London, a paper 

 was communicated by Baron von Decken in re- 

 lation to the mountain peaks of Kilima-ndjaro, 

 which lie southeast of Lake Nyanza, which the 

 baron hadascended during the past year. He 

 describes two mountain ranges lying between 

 Lake Jipe and Lake Nyanza, the first, the 

 Aruscha range, being about. 4,000 feet high, 

 and the second, a considerable distance east 

 and north, much loftier, and as yet unnamed, 

 but forming, as he believed, the eastern water- 

 shed of Lake Nyanza. From the Aruscha 

 range the two snowy peaks of Kilima-ndjaro 

 were in full view. The main peak, which he 

 ascertained by triangulation to be 20,065 feet 

 high, had its snow line at about 17,000 feet in 

 height. He ascended the main peak to the 

 height of 13,900 feet, when, his companions 

 having given way on account of the rarefaction 

 of the atmosphere, he was forced to retrace his 

 steps. In his travels, the baron had met with 

 a terrible pest, a fly called by the natives Don- 

 derobo, whose bite was as deadly as that of the 

 Tsetse, but affected asses and dogs only. The 

 draught asses of his caravan were destroyed 

 by it. 



Retracing our steps, we recur to explorations 

 made, or attempted, in Nulia, Abyssinia, and 

 Egypt, during 1863. The delegation sent out 

 by the Carl Eitter Association of Gotha to as- 

 certain the fate of Dr. Vogel, proved unsuc- 



