DISCOVERY OF THE VICTORIA N'YANZA. 61 



Indeed, by all accounts of the country lying between 

 the X'yanza, as seen by the Arabs in Uganda and let 

 us say Gondokoro, a mission- station on the Nile, in 

 north latitude 4 44', which was occupied by two 

 Austrian missionaries, Knoblecher and Dooyak, we 

 find it is analogous in every respect to what we 

 observed between the low Mrirna or maritime plain 

 in front of Zanzibar, and the high interior plateau, 

 divided from one another by the east-coast range, 

 which is of granitic formation, the same in its nature 

 exactly as those which they describe, and intersected 

 by rivers so rapid and boisterous that no canoes can 

 live upon them ; as, for instance, we found the Kinyani 

 and Lufiji rivers were when passing over the east-coast 

 range. There the land dropped from 2000 or more 

 feet to less than 300 in the short distance of ninety 

 miles. 



I will now proceed to give, first, the missionary 

 account in 4 44' X., and then the Arab one in 2 

 N. a debatable bit of ground, extending over 2 44', 

 or 160 English miles. Talking of the missionaries, 

 " these two men," says Dr Petermann, " kept an 

 annual hygrornetrical and meteorological register with 

 great precision and scientific regularity. They had 

 various instruments with them ; they fixed their 

 station, Gondokoro, at 4 44' north latitude by astro- 

 nomical observations, and determined the altitude of 

 the Nile's bed to be only 1605 feet above the sea, by 

 numerous good barometrical observations. . . . Gon- 



