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This great lake was further believed to lie at tlie foot of lofty, snow- 

 covered mountains, named the Mountains of the Moon, Herodotus 

 indeed demurs to the snow. The Keservoir Lakes become imraea- 

 biirable marshes in some of the accounts. Indeed T should despair 

 of producing a catena of witnesses for any single point of the state- 

 ment ; but such as I have described w^as nearly the mind of ancient 

 Greece and Kome, speaking on the information obtained in Egypt. 



It is more remarkable to find a similar shadow of the truth from 

 a different quarter, and perhaps of an earlier date. The ancient 

 inhabitants of India seem to have felt the same interest, and to 

 have had an equal glimmering of the course of the Nile. In a well- 

 known paper by Mr Wilford, in the Asiatic Eesearches, w'e have a 

 sort of abstract of the ancient Indian belief concerning the Nile^ 

 drawn from the Puranas and other Hindu or Sanscrit books. 



The name of the river in those most ancient books is Kali^ 

 black. (Though Houier names the river Aegyjjfus, it was known to 

 ancient Grreeks as MeXa?.) According to the same authorities, that 

 famous and holy river takes its rise from the lake of the gods, 

 thence named Amara or Deva, Sarovera in the region of Sharma or 

 Sharmasthan, between the mountains of Ajagara and Sitanta, part 

 of Soma-giri, or the Mountains of the Moon, the country round 

 the lake being called Chandristhan or Moon-land. The Hindus 

 believed in a range of snow-covered hills in Africa. 



From thence the Kali flows into the marshes of the P Hcima-van, 

 and through the Nishada Mountains into the land of Barbara ; 

 whence it passes through the mountains of Hemacata; then enter- 

 ing the forests of Tapas (or Thebais) it runs into Kantaka-desa, or 

 Mitha-sthan, and through the woods emphatically named Aranya 

 and Atavi into Sanchabdhi (or our Mediterranean). 



From the country of Pushpaversha, it received the Nanda or 

 Nile of Abyssinia, the Asthimati or smaller Krishna, which is the 

 Takazzi or little Abay, and the Sanchanaga or Mareb. 



The Ajagara Mountains, which run parallel to the eastern shores 

 of Africa, have at present the name of Lupata, or the back-bone of 

 the world. Those of Sitanta are the range which lies west of the 

 lake Zambre or Zaire, words not improbably corrupted from Amara 

 or Sura. This Lake of the Grods is believed to be a vast reservoir 

 which, through visible or hidden channels, supplies all the rivers 

 of the country. 



The Hindus, for mythological purposes (says Mr Wilford), are 

 fond of supposing subterranean communications between lakes and 

 rivers, and the G-reeks, we know, had the same leaning. 



We really had made little progress Ijeyond these ancient guesses, 

 till in the year 1858 Captains Speke and Burton saw and sailed 

 upon the great lake Tanganyika, 600 miles from the coast at 

 Zanzibar. The lake is narrow, but 300 miles long, and 1800 feet 

 above the level of the sea. Very soon after, Captain Speke alone 

 had the glory to see and bear witness to the great inland sea which 

 he has named Victoria. Having only seen this mighty lake, and 

 being obliged to leave it unexplored, Captain Speke made haste to 



