46 The Sources of the Nile. 



THE SOURCES OF THE NILE. 



BY PROFESSOE D. T. ANSTED, H.A., F.E.S., ETC. 



In our number for June appeared a brief notice of a few words, 

 announcing the intelligence that Captain Speke had suc- 

 ceeded in identifying the African lake, Victoria Nyanza, before 

 visited by hini, south of the equator, with the great father of 

 waters, old Nilus ; thus solving a very important section of one 

 of the most important of all geographical problems, and 

 obtaining for England and the nineteenth century a reputation 

 for discovery that the wisest of the ancient Egyptians and their 

 conquerors from the earliest days of civilization have failed to 

 secure. 



Since those few lines were written Captain Speke and his 

 fellow-traveller, Captain Grant, have returned to England, and 

 have communicated some of the main results of their long, 

 arduous, and dangerous expedition. Before giving an outline 

 of these, let us briefly review the previous state of the problem 

 and the extent of the work really done. Besides being of the 

 highest interest as a question of descriptive geography, the 

 results of exploration in north-eastern Africa, as commenced by 

 Captain Burton and Captain Speke, and now continued and 

 nearly completed by the latter, are of the most extraordinary 

 interest, and help us to understand the physical geography 

 and resources of a large section of the African continent. The 

 key to the explanation of all that is peculiar to Africa has been 

 now obtained by the combined labours of Livingstone, Burton, 

 Speke, Grant, and Petherick. 



It was towards the end of June, 1857, that Captain Burton 

 and several companions left the African coast near Zanzibar, on 

 their way into the interior, determined to attempt the discovery 

 of the sources of the White Nile from the east and south, in- 

 stead of repeating the attempts that had been so frequently 

 and unsuccessfully made to trace the river by following it up 

 stream. 



From tho time of Herodotus downwards there had been 

 Tain attempts made by European explorers to discover where 

 the waters of tho great river originated, and what was tho 

 cause of that mysterious rise by which Egypt was flooded and 

 fertilized. No doubt the traders from Arabia havo crossed all 

 parts of northern Africa from the cast to the centre, and they 

 may even hare reached the west coast, but no information 

 could be obtained from them but the vaguest reports. Accept- 

 ing these implicitly, and interpreting them naturally and 

 without theory, there had been maps prepared during and 

 since the middle ages, which are really as correct as any maps 



