PRETENDED DISCOVERY OF THE NILE. 



205 



and probably his sources of the Nile grew in his mind 

 as his Mountains of the Moon had grown under his hand. 



error either in longitude or latitude in the position he had ascribed to 

 them, namely, a little to the eastward of the meridian of 35°, and a little 

 northward of the equator. That was the principal source of the White Nile. 

 The mountains there were exceedingly high, from the equator north to Kaffa 

 Enarea. All the authorities, from east, west, north, or south, now perfectly 

 competent to form judgments upon such a matter, agreed with him ; and 

 among them were the officers commanding the Egyptian commission. It was 

 impossible they could all be mistaken. Dr. Krapf had been within a very 

 short distance of it; he was more than 180 miles fromMombas, and he saw snow 

 upon the mountains. He conversed with the people who came from them, 

 and who told him of the snow and exceeding coldness of the temperature. 

 The line of perpetual congelation, it was well known, was 17,000 feet above 

 the sea. He had an account of the navigation of the White Nile by the 

 Egyptian expedition. It was then given as 3° 30' N. lat. and 31° E. long. 

 At this point the expedition turned back for want of a sufficient depth of 

 water. Here the river was 1370 feet broad, and the velocity of the current 

 one-quarter of a mile per hour. The journals also gave a specific and daily 

 current, the depth and width of the river, and every thing, indeed, connected 

 with it. Surely, looking at the current of the river, the height of the Cartoom 

 above the level of the sea, and the distance thence up to the equator, the 

 sources of the Nile must be 6000 or 8000 feet above the level of the sea, and 

 still much below the line of the snow, which was 6000 or 8000 feet farther 

 above them. He deeply regretted he was unable to complete the diagram 

 for the rest of the papers he had given to the Society, for it was more im- 

 portant than any others he had previously given. It contained the journey 

 over Africa from sea to sea, second only to that of Dr. Livingstone. But 

 all the rivers coming down from the mountains in question, and running 

 south-eastward, had been clearly stated by Dr. Krapf, who gave every par- 

 ticular concerning them. He should like to know what the natives had said 

 was to the northward of the large lake ? Did they say the rivers ran out 

 from or into the lake ? How could the Egyptian officers be mistaken ? 



Captain Speke replied. They were not mistaken ; and if they had pur- 

 sued their journey 50 miles farther, they would undoubtedly have found 

 themselves at the northern borders of this lake. 



Mr. Macqueen said that other travellers, Don Angelo for instance, had 

 been within one and a half degree of the Equator, and saw the mountain of 

 Kimborat under the Line, and persisted in the statement, adding, that tra- 

 vellers had been up the river until they found it a mere brook. He felt 

 convinced that the large lake alluded to by Captain Speke was not the 

 source of the Nile : it was impossible it could be so, for it was not at a suf- 

 ficiently high altitude. 



The paper presented to the Society, when fully read in conjunction with 

 the map, will clearly show that the Bahr-el-Abied has no connection with 



