CONVERSATION WITH A NATIVE. 925 



wrong information from him, and lack of acquaintance with details gives a 

 vagueness and uncertainty to what is told. But if half-a-dozen of them can 

 be examined upon a subject the traveller can generally pick out much reliable 

 information. The Waganda, Warundi, and Wazige are very intelligent, espe- 

 cially the first named. A young Waganda, who had travelled in Karagwe, 

 and went with me to the Albert Nyanza, has oftentimes astonished me by 

 his remarks upon the Alexandra Nile, which he called the Kagera. I fancy 

 if the Geographical Society had heard him, they would have voted him a 

 silver medal for his intelligent observations. As my conversation with him 

 was very interesting, I will give you in his own words, as nearly as I can 

 remember, what he volunteered about the Kagera. He said one morning : 

 ' Master, Sambuzi, my chief, has sent me to you with his salaams, and he 

 says that the best way for you to go to Muta Nzige (Albert Nyanza) is by the 

 Kagera. ' Why,' I asked, ' is Kagera the best way ?' ' Because,' replied he, 

 ' Kagera comes from Muta Nzige.' ' Nonsense,' I rejoined ; ' Muta Nzige is 

 far below the Nyanza of Uganda ; and how can a river ascend a hill ?' ' Mas- 

 ter, you white people know a great deal ; but will you tell me where the Kagera 

 comes from ?' ' I cannot tell you because I have not seen it yet, and I don't 

 know anything of the river except what I have seen of it at the mouth, 

 Master, there is no river like the Kagera. We Waganda call it the Mother of 

 Waters. Where can the Kagera come from if it does not come from Muta 

 Nzige ? Look at its water. It is water of a Nyanza, and so much water as is 

 in it cannot come from any mountain. Everybody says it comes from the 

 Muta Nzige.' 



" When I turned my back upon the Albert Nyanza I felt possessed some- 

 what by this young man's remarks upon the Kagera. From a score of persons 

 on the way to Kagera, I heard enough to create in me a keen desire to view 

 and examine this river. I have already told you I obtained soundings of 

 seventy, eighty, up to one hundred and twenty feet of water in its bed ; that 

 it had a swift current, and a width of from one hundred and fifty to two hun- 

 dred yards. From Rumanika — that gentle and most pleasant pagan, whom, 

 however, I found more easy to convert to a geographer than to a Christian — 

 I obtained every assistance, and was thus enabled to explore thoroughly the 

 singular body of water called Ingezi, which is a shallow lake five to ten, and 

 even fourteen miles wide, through which the Alexandra Nile continues its 

 resistless course with a depth of from forty to sixty feet. 



" You can see on my map, by the position of the Mount of Observation, 

 that I was enabled, after continuing my journey from Rumanika's, to obtain 

 a pretty clear view of a good deal of the unexplored course of the Alexandra 

 Nile. What I could not see, because of the mountains of Ugufu, was Akan- 

 yaru, or Nyanza ChaNgoma ; but my guides assisted me to understand tole- 

 rably well the position of the lake. The Akanyaru was a large lake, and 



