FAILURE. 



303 



sons of the Sultan Maruta, the subject of the 

 mysterious stream which all my informants, Arab 

 as well as African, had made to issue from the 

 lake, and which for months we had looked upon 

 as the western head-stream of the iS'ile, was at 

 once brought forward. All declared (probably 

 falsely) that they had visited it ; all asserted that 

 the Eusizi river enters into, instead of flowing 

 from, the Tanganyika, and presently Sidi Bom- 

 bay, by way of the coldest consolation (' little 

 goat, don't die, spring comes ! '), declared that Ha- 

 mid had meant the reverse of what he said. I felt 

 sick at heart. The African's account of stream- 

 direction is often diametrically opposed to fact ; 

 seldom the Arab's — in this point I differ totally 

 from Capt. Speke. But our Wajiji would not 

 suffer us to remain at Uvira, much less to pene- 

 trate northwards : we were compelled hurriedly 

 to return ; and thus, as has before been related, the 

 mystery remained unsolved. I distinctly deny 

 that any ' misleading by my instructions from the 

 Boyal Geographical Society as to the position 

 of the White Xile,' made me unconscious of the 

 vast importance of ascertaining the direction of 

 the Eusizi river. The fact is, we did our best to 

 reach it, and we failed. 



I returned home with the conviction that the 



