"IS TEE LUALABA TEE NILE OR TEE CONGO f" 927 



race with -whom it would not be difficult to establish amicable relations ; but 

 unless he had balloons at his disposal I am unable to see how he could reach 

 Mkinyaga from the east or the south. Were the Warundi or the Wa-Ruanda 

 anything in disposition like the natives we have come in contact with be- 

 tween here and Zanzibar, the task were easy to push one's way direct to the 

 utmost regions of the Nile ! We have met tribes who sternly exacted tribute, 

 and we have paid it and passed on our way, and we have encountered others 

 who compelled us to fight our road through them ; but here are two nations 

 (not tribes) of one peculiar distinct breed, who are neither subject to the 

 power of sweet persuasion with gifts of sugar-candy, knick-knacks, and gaudy 

 cloths ; nor to be forced from the disagreeable position they assume with a 

 few dozen Sniders. Heaven knows the original progenitors of these fierce 

 men. 



" I had half a mind once to make an alliance with the bandit Mirambo, 

 and, with the addition of a thousand Brown Besses, drag the secrets of the 

 Nile by force to the light of day. But I could not seriously entertain such 

 an idea. Besides, the name of the amiable Princess of Wales could never be 

 taken to cover such a slur as this would have been on my search for the 

 sources of the Nile. No. I live in the hope that our Expedition will yet 

 visit this section without violence, from the fact, if true, that Mkinyaga can 

 be reached from North Manyema — that the people of Mkinyaga are traders, 

 and convey articles of trade from Manyema to Ruanda. All this, however, 

 can only be settled at Nyangwe, whither I propose going now. I have two 

 reasons for passing round about this way, since the direct road is closed. 

 First, it has become firmly impressed on my mind that the principal river 

 supplying the Alexandra Nyanza rises in North Manyema, north-westward of 

 Lake Tanganyika. Secondly, I do not forget that the purpose of this enter- 

 prise of ' The Daily Telegraph ' and ' New York Herald ' was to unite the 

 fragmentary discoveries of Speke into one complete whole, to finish Baker's 

 and Burton's exploration, and finally to take up the work left incomplete by 

 the lamented death of Dr. Livingstone. 



" Lieutenant Cameron, animated by his honest ambition to traverse 

 Africa rather than to complete the work of his predecessors, has crossed the 

 Lualaba, and proceeded to Lake Lincoln, thence he went, I am told, in a 

 south-westerly direction with a company of Portuguese traders, probably to 

 Ambriz or St. Paul de Loanda, by which he has left the question of the Lua- 

 laba much where Livingstone placed it. For the problem in dispute was, 

 ' Is the Lualaba the Nile or the Congo ?' Livingstone thought it to be the 

 Nile, the Geographical Council thought it to be the Congo. The only pos- 

 sible way to resolve the doubt is to travel down the Lualaba along the right 

 bank to a known point. 



" You will thus perceive I have two brilliant fields before me, and the 



