SHAPE OF CAPTAIN SPEKE'S 'LAKE: 317 



he might have visited it, but he did not. He 

 then turned nearly due north, and on January 

 28th, 1862, he first viewed, from Mashonde, a 

 water which he instinctively determined to be 

 the Nyanza. In vain the petty chief Makaka 

 (Journal, p. 130) assured him that 'there were 

 two lakes, and not one ' : as vainly others made the 

 Mwerango, or Kafu river, rise from a range in the 

 centre of the so-called lake, and ' did not know 

 what Xvanza he meant.' These, and other re- 

 marks naively recorded, could not disperse 

 foregone conclusions ; and the explorer never 

 attempted to ascertain by inspection if his pre- 

 conceived ideas were correct. 



We can therefore accept only the southern 

 part of the Xyanza discovered by Capt. Speke, 

 when I despatched him from Kazeh; and the 

 marshy reed-margined and probably shallow 

 N. Western water, which he sighted in January 

 and July, 1862. The result is a blank occupying 

 nearly 29,900 square miles, and of the recognized 

 and official form of the assumed Victoria Xvanza 

 I may observe, that it is a triangle, whose arms, 

 viewed by one standing at the southern apex, 

 trended N. East and X. West ; the extremities, 

 240 miles distant, being connected arbitrarily by 

 a horizontal base runnino^ nearlv due East-West 



