40 NOETH-EAST AFEICA. 



obtained from him a quantity of glass trinkets for the purpose of insuring the 

 stranger's safety by employing them in this way. But since those first visits 

 Lake Albert, already temporarily annexed to the Khedive's possessions, has been 

 navif'ated in every direction by two steamers, which to pass the Xile cataracts 

 had to be taken to pieces and put together again above the last jxjrtages. The 

 transjxjrt of the Khcjike required no less than 4,800 hands, of which 600 were 

 nec<^lod to haul the Ixjiler across the swamps, through the woods, and over the hills. 

 The escarpments along the east coast are far more elevated than those on the 

 opposite side. 



It is sfjmetimes asserted that the Xile traverses Lake Albert without mingling 

 with the surrounding waters. But recent inquiry has shown that such is not the 

 case. According to the varying temperatures, the warmer fluvial current spreads 

 in a thin layer over the surface of the lake, gradually blending with it under the 

 influence of the winds. But when the stream is colder it descends to the lower 

 depths of the lacu.strine cavity, where it replaces the lighter fluid. Hence, 

 although the inflow is distant scarcely 12 miles from the outflow, the Somerset 

 Nile becomes lost in the great lake, whose superfluous waters must be regarded as 

 the main feeder of the emissary. 



The White Xile. 



This emissary, variously known as the Kir, the Meri, the Bahr-el-Jebel, or 

 " Mountain liiver," and by other names according to the dialects of the riverain 

 populations, flows normally north and north-east in a tranquil stream winding at a 

 width of from 2,000 to 6,500 feet between its verdant banks. In the middle of the 

 channel the depth varies from 16 to 40 feet, so that throughout the year it is 

 accessible to large vessels for 120 miles below the lake. The shores are fringed 

 with wooded islands and islets, while large masses of tangled vegetation drift with 

 the current, especially at the beginning of the floods. These floating islands 

 consist of a substratum of decomposed foliage and reeds strong enough to support 

 an upper layer of living vegetation, by whose roots and tendrils the whole mass 

 becomes solidly matted together. During the course of five or six years the flora 

 becomes renewed, the surface growth decomposing in its turn, and causing the 

 aquatic garden to break up and float away in smaller sections with the stream. 

 But it often happens that the vegetable refuse accumulates in sufficiently large 

 quantities to enable these floating islands to strike root here and there in the bed of 

 the stream, and in the Nile basin whole rivers have sometimes been covered with 

 such buoyant masses, firm enough to bear even the weight of caravans. Owing to 

 the rapid development of this rank vegetation, the Nile has frequently been choked 

 in its upper reaches and compelled to cut new channels in the surrounding alluvia. 

 On the plains stretching west of the present Nile traces are seen in many places of 

 these old beds, or " false rivers," as they are called. The low chain of hills skirting 

 this plain on the west, and forming the water-jjarting between the Nile and Congo 

 basins, might not inaptly be named the " Explorers' Range." The crests following 



