202 THE VICTORIA N'YANZA. 



sea. The 30th meridian of east longitude strikes it in the centre. 

 Its length is 320 miles; but its breadth seldom exceeds 15 or 20, 

 and never 60 miles, so that it has been compared to a beach inclining 

 its head towards the north. To the north-east its shores are bold 

 and elevated; the water is fresh and deep. The country around it is 

 rich in pasture, where a thriving population breed numerous flocks 

 and herds. 



About two hundred miles to the north-east of this lake, and 3740 

 feet above the sea-level, lies the vast basin of the Victoria N'yanza, 

 discovered by Captain Speke in 1859, and more fully explored by 

 Speke and Grant in 1862. Its northern shore runs nearly parallel 

 to the Equator, at a distance of about twenty miles from it; its 

 southern is in lat. 2 46' S., and long. 33 E. It would seem at 

 some remote period to have occupied a much larger area than it does 

 at present, though even now it is supposed to measure 220 miles in 

 length and fully as much in breadth. Speke describes it as very 

 shallow. Fleets of canoes cover its surface ; but the natives on the 

 one shore never venture across to the other, and no intercommunica- 

 tion has ever existed between them. The surrounding landscapes 

 are of a pastoral character, genial and fertile, with quiet breadths of 

 rich meadow land, dotted by hundreds of white hornless cattle, and 

 scarcely distinguishable from our midland English scenery, were they 

 not interspersed with groves of the banana, the coffee-tree, and the 

 date-palm. At its north-eastern extremity, and probably connected 

 with it, lies a long narrow basin which the natives call Lake Baringo. 

 On the west it receives the tributary waters of the Kitangule', and 

 from the north throws off the various streams which unite in one 

 channel to form the famous Nile. 



North-west from the N'yanza lies the little Luta N'zige, or Albert 

 Lake, discovered by Sir Samuel Baker in 1864 ; a long, narrow, and 

 shallow basin, surrounded by mountains 7000 feet high, about 230 

 miles in length, and 2488 feet above the sea-level, which apparently 

 serves as the great reservoir of the Nile.* 



* Baker. " Basin of the Nile and Equatorial Africa," ii. 101-103. 



